The Sister Who Told Me She Was Lonely
The Brothers and Sisters I Never Knew — Chapter 3
By Jeffrey Badders
Sometimes the people who share your blood are the very people you know the least.
And sometimes, when you finally get the opportunity to know them, life doesn't give you enough time.
I was the youngest of four children. I grew up moving through foster homes, trying to understand why my biological mother had kept some of her children close while I was raised somewhere else.
For years, I carried questions that nobody seemed willing or able to answer.
One of those questions followed me all the way to Kansas City, where I traveled to attend my biological mother's funeral.
That was where I first met my middle sister, Diane.
A Stranger at the Family Table
After arriving at the airport, I made my way to the hotel where everyone was staying.
That evening, we sat down together for supper.
I remember looking around the table at people who were supposed to be my family. They had shared experiences, relationships, and memories that I knew almost nothing about.
I felt completely out of place.
Diane was sitting beside me when she began talking.
She told me she hadn't expected me to attend the funeral. She also said she had known from our mother that I had grown up in foster care, moving from one home to another.
Then she explained that she and our older brother, Jim, had spent their childhood with our mother.
I had a question I couldn't keep inside any longer.
"Why is it that Mom accepted you and Jim, but never accepted me?"
Diane paused.
She told me she couldn't answer that question, but that our mother should have answered it for me.
Then she apologized for everything I had experienced.
She told me our mother had been her rock, the person who had helped her get through life.
And now that her rock was gone, she didn't know how much longer she could go on.
I listened.
But inside, I felt jealousy.
The woman Diane called her rock had been there for her and Jim. That same woman had not been there for me.
We came from the same mother, yet we had traveled very different roads.
I didn't have much to say.
I simply told Diane that we all travel different paths in life, and I hoped she would find what she was looking for.
I finished my supper and talked with some of the others, but the feeling of not belonging never left.
It almost felt as though I were crashing somebody else's funeral gathering.
Later, some relatives invited me to join them. They appeared to have been drinking, and I declined.
I wanted to be alone.
The Words in My Journal
Back in my hotel room, I took a hot shower and tried to relax.
Then I opened my journal.
I stayed awake much of that night writing, trying to understand what had happened.
I wondered what my siblings thought when they saw their youngest brother. They had known about my childhood in foster care, but they had never really known me.
I understood what was going through my own mind.
I couldn't understand what was going through theirs.
I reflected on something I had learned through my own experiences.
Sometimes you have to do difficult things to move farther down the road of life.
I thought about forgiveness.
In that hotel room, I found my own way to forgive my brothers and sisters for the distance between us.
But forgiveness didn't erase the sadness.
I felt lonely.
I felt displaced.
It was a cold feeling, realizing that these people were my blood family, yet I barely knew them.
The Life Diane Had Lived
The following morning, before the funeral that afternoon, I was sitting at breakfast when Diane approached my table.
She wanted to tell me something.
She said that she, Jim, and our oldest sister had known I was growing up in foster homes.
I asked her a question that had been weighing on me.
If they knew what I had experienced, why hadn't any of them tried to connect with me after I turned eighteen?
Diane pulled up a chair.
She told me she had traveled a different path, and that she wanted me to understand where her life had taken her.
What followed was a conversation I have never forgotten.
Diane told me she had become involved with drugs and alcohol at a young age. She described working as a prostitute and becoming involved with people connected to organized crime.
According to what she told me, she had traveled around the world delivering suitcases of money. She spoke about expensive cars, jewelry, and a lifestyle that once seemed to give her everything.
But she also described what that life had taken away.
She told me she had children she had neglected while caught up in that world.
She spoke about losing her identity, her hope, and her sense of control.
She remembered standing under a cold shower one day, trying to sober up, and realizing that this wasn't the person she believed God had intended her to become.
She wanted to escape that life, she said, but felt trapped.
Diane also told me there had been times when she thought about ending her life. Thinking about her children had sometimes given her a reason to keep going.
As she finished explaining her past, she apologized again for what I had endured during my childhood.
She wanted me to understand why she hadn't been there.
I listened without judging her.
I couldn't change her past any more than she could change mine.
And I told her something I have said to people throughout my life:
"If I never see you again, good luck on your journey in life."
I meant those words.
I had no idea how much they would eventually mean to me.
The Last Words She Ever Said to Me
That afternoon, we attended our mother's funeral.
Afterward, there was a luncheon.
I remember sitting alone in a corner, overwhelmed by everything that had happened, trying to keep my emotions under control.
Diane came over to me.
She told me it took a strong man and a strong spirit to do what I was doing.
Then she said something that stayed with me.
"I feel alone too."
For a moment, I understood that although we had lived completely different lives, loneliness was something we both recognized.
I had spent my childhood without the mother Diane had depended upon.
Diane had spent years struggling with circumstances I had only just learned about.
Neither of us could go backward and change what had happened.
After speaking to me, Diane returned to the table where the rest of our family was sitting.
Those were the last words she ever said to me.
I left the luncheon, collected my bags from the hotel, and my stepsister took me to the airport.
I flew from Kansas City back to Phoenix.
I never saw Diane again.
The Phone Call
Approximately six months later, around seven o'clock in the evening, I received a telephone call from my Aunt Chris.
She told me that Diane had died by suicide.
Aunt Chris also told me that my sister had been found facedown in the snow in an alley.
I remember being in my white Chrysler van.
I started crying.
It felt like a dagger was going straight through my heart.
I barely knew this woman, yet she was my sister.
And suddenly, there would never be another opportunity to know her.
I wondered whether I should have done something.
Should I have reached out?
Could I have helped her?
Those questions hurt.
But I also knew how difficult it had been just to take care of myself throughout my own life.
I couldn't go back and change what had happened. And I couldn't know everything Diane had been carrying inside.
I thought about our conversation at breakfast.
I thought about the life she had described.
And I remembered her standing beside me at the luncheon, telling me she felt alone too.
Those words meant something different to me now.
The Gift of Being Yourself
Diane and I came from the same mother, but our lives took us down different roads.
She had experiences I never had.
I had experiences she never had.
I wish she had found the hope, strength, and support to keep moving forward. I wish her journey could have continued.
But I will never judge my sister for the life she lived or the struggles she faced.
I know what it means to feel unwanted.
I know what it means to feel displaced, unloved, and disrespected.
And I know how difficult it can be to keep moving forward when you're trying to understand where you belong.
Throughout my life, I've learned that sometimes you cannot change another person's journey. You can offer compassion, you can listen, and you can care. But you must also learn how to take care of yourself.
When you feel lonely or displaced, stay close to your heart. Don't lose yourself trying to become someone you were never meant to be.
I've always believed something that I want every reader to remember:
"The best gift that you can ever give yourself is just be yourself. Because everyone else is unique and different. And everyone else is taken."
You can't be someone else.
There's only one of you.
I never had the opportunity to build the relationship with Diane that I might have wanted.
But I had the opportunity to listen to her.
And even after all these years, I still remember the sister who came over to me at our mother's funeral and quietly admitted:
"I feel alone too."
May her story remind us to listen to people while we still have the opportunity, because we never know what someone else may be carrying inside.
And may we always remember that every life has value, every person has a story, and every one of us deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.