I have a story to share.
This story begins with introducing you to my older sister. My older sister was born 3 months premature in 1950. The doctors and nurses at that time gave her up for dead. No one held her. No one rocked her. No one cuddled her. Because no one wanted to grow emotionally attached to a baby that was just going to die.
After many months in the hospital, my sister surprised them. And lived. At that time the State took her (and her siblings) away from their parents and placed all of them up for adoption.
“This baby has a lot of problems, mentally, emotionally and physically”, the social worker told my parents. “That just tells us this child needs a lot of our loving”, they responded.
That let’s you know what kind of people our parents were.
My sister has worked hard all her life, doing the best she can with what she was endowed with. She’s the type of employee that won’t miss a day of work in 20 years and will always show up on time.
When I moved away, my sister told me I had given her the greatest gift she had ever received: the opportunity to have her own life. I left her well taken care of in terms of property and assets.
Today, she called me. She got fired from her job and for good reason. “Mustn’t cuss at customers.”
And this all happened 2 months ago…and I’m just now finding out about it. The company put a block on her applying for any unemployment. Keep in mind this is a mentally handicapped person. That has worked for said company for over 20 years.
She also informed me that she had been gambling at the racetrack. On her credit card. And had wracked up a debt of $13,000.00. Why the State of Oklahoma allows gambling on credit, I don’t know. Other states, don’t and, for this reason.
Now I already know I could sue the company; literally pounding them into the ground but I’m not going to do it. I hold my hand from taking such action.
For I see the Universe moving to bring me my desires in this act. I have been missing my sister. She’s the only ‘family’ I’ve got left from my childhood. And I have been sensing unease as it concerns her. Now I know why.
I told her I was giving her 10 days to find a job before we were coming to get her. A creature of habit, of course she doesn’t want to move.
I really wish I hadn’t given her 10 days.
Because what I’m picking up right now is that my sister has been under ENOUGH mental and emotional anxiety and I desire to see her released. She’s done the very best she could and has done an exemplary job considering what she’s had to work with. Which is a lot less then most of us and still, she tried.
Washington State is not like Oklahoma. Washington State will embrace my sister with Compassion and help her with aid that Oklahoma denies. But she’s scared. She’s got it in her head if she lets anyone know she’s mentally handicapped, she’s going to be locked up in a mental institution. Because that’s the kind of attitude they have in Oklahoma.
And of course, something like that would NEVER happen to her, even over my dead body.
What I’m asking is for my sister.
I ask she be surrounded with Love. Her name is Sherry.
I ask in her name because she can’t. She doesn’t know how. Please surround her with Compassion and Assurance, as steps are taken to get her out of an unloving environment and back into the bosom of her family.
She’s scared. And she has no reason to be.
CordieB
michael j contos
Liara Covert
Mark
Sue Ann Edwards
January 4th, 2008 - 7:41 am
I add a healing prayer here, to surround your sister Sherry in healing love, to allow love to travel as light and embrace her.
January 4th, 2008 - 9:02 am
will do, love.
BTW-I have a sister named Sherry too.
January 5th, 2008 - 4:14 pm
Thank You both very much. My yesterday certainly wasn’t on top of my pleasant list but with everyone’s help, necessary changes were made.
My sister’s attitude shifted. I know her. She ABHORS change. Very much a creature of habit.
There’s a big difference between ‘looking for a job’ and ‘finding one’. It has to do with motivation.
One change is ‘bad’ enough without changing where she lives, too. Her fear of change was turned into motivation for finding a solution to the change that already happened, instead of crying about it.
I knew how to needle her. I just told her she sounded a lot like our brother.
From the bottom of my heart, I Love my sister. So much, that I respected her choice to try to stand on her own two feet and have a life of her own.
And I did it from the perspective of I didn’t care what lousy and foolish choices she made, because I knew that me and mine would always be here, to catch her no matter what. To see to it that she was always provided for. My sister will NEVER be left to pushing a grocery cart in the street.
No matter how much it cost, the experience of being on her own, is Priceless to my sister. I don’t really give a hoot how many dollars it cost. Dollars and everything bought with dollars can be replaced. The living breathing moments of my sister’s life, can’t. For all her mistakes, she’s doing better then a lot of us, endowed with greater skills and abilities.
And now is she motivated!
She asked, “why don’t you ever call me?” “Because you’ve got a call blocker on your phone and I only use phone cards, that why. I keep calling but you never let me through. And as for your email, it keeps being returned.” “Oh. I did change my email. And my phone and answering machine have been messed up.”, she said. All her fears of being cut off, completely groundless.
January 5th, 2008 - 5:22 pm
Lovely and loving.
Have you guys tried Skype? you can even talk with real time video of each other!
January 6th, 2008 - 11:28 pm
Sueand,
I sincerely hope your sister and you make it thru this transition as smoothly as possible. Your sister sounds like a very special person, and it’s obvious how much you care for her. She is lucky to have you in her life… You always bring such a sense of calm, peace, and strength – which has to mean so much to her. I am sure this will all work out… but, please keep us posted.
Take care and I’m sending all the good vibes I can your way… ((hugs))
~smj
January 7th, 2008 - 4:35 pm
I’m sending good vibes too! I hope things work out well for you and Sherry.
January 8th, 2008 - 1:00 pm
{{{samanthaj}}}
Sigh. My sister came before me. Our Mom did not know how to cope with her. The Mayo Clinic told my Mom that she was the one with the emotional problems, not my sister. Mom didn’t like that. So Mom took Sherry to upteens doctors until she found one that agreed with her and Sherry was placed on 4 thorazines a day from the age of 9.
The drugs turned her into a non-person.
Thanks to Sherry, I learned up front to keep my mouth shut, unless I wanted to be drugged into a stupor, too.
2 sisters sharing the same room. One with mental disabilities, the other, with mental faculties of genuis. What both of us have always shared in common, is that both of us grew up without acceptance in the ‘normal’ groups. Loners, together.
In the past, people who picked on her found themselves facing me, where I would proceed to use my ‘gift’ of awareness, gutting them from the inside, out, without ever laying a finger on them.
As for my sister, I cite growing up with her that gave me such a head start on creating the substance of my character. I learned Tolerance, Acceptance, Patience, Understanding and Compassion from her, my big sister.
You can well imagine the way it was. Sherry had ‘cooties’ and of course since I was her sister, I had them, too. I remember us being stoned by other children. I don’t know if she does or not.
She’s given up on people extending Understanding, Compassion and Kindness to her. And I keep telling her she just needs to get out of the State of Oklahoma. Other people in other states aren’t quite so ‘retarded’ in character development.
‘Course, that’s just me. I don’t have one favorable thing to say about the State of Oklahoma. There is a reason it is called ‘a dust bowl’.
January 8th, 2008 - 1:19 pm
Thank You {{Simon}}…
Things will work out and it will be surprising to find out how. As I said, she’s motivated now and has reported that all her bills are paid up.
Even a month or two would make a difference. It’d give me time to be out of the hospital and to have recovered a bit.
Yes, blogfamily, I have to go back into the hospital for more surgery. The circulation to my left side is shutting down again. Whatever they did last year, didn’t work for very long. I see my Vascular Surgeon on the 17th and most likely will be operated upon on the 18th. So this really isn’t an opportune time for me to be moving my sister cross country but, there are family members standing by to help if need be.
And I’m moving at the end of this month anyway. Or rather since I won’t be of any help when it comes to moving, I’ll be moved by the end of this month.
Smiling.
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:44 pm
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