In February my sister and I lost our father. About 2 years before that our mother passed away due to diabetic complications. The loss of our father was very sudden. Our mother was more expected, she was sick for a long time. When I was young my mother was a very trong person. She worked with the foster parents association in our home state of NJ. Was president at the county and state levels of it for a great deal of time. She worked tirelessly for the rights of children and the families that took them in, and cared for them. As time went on, she was betrayed by a close friend of her's in the organization and false aligations were brought up. They were found to be false but we still had a child we had cared for, for 2 years, taken from our home. He was like a little brother to me and we all loved him dearly. It was a terrible loss to all of us, but it hit no one else in my family like it hit my mother. She seperated herself from most contact outside the family and very much kept to her own shell, so to speak. She changed in ways that devastated me to watch. I remember her strong and selfless actions and that is the memory of my mother that I hold very dear to my heart and mind.
Since her passing my sister as become more and more like my mother, but not it the ways that one would hope. She doesn't seem to remember the strong woman my mother was. More the seltered, weary, person she became in her final years. I understand my mother's decent and do not begrudge her for it. What concerns me most is that my sister has taken what I feel to be the wrong path, and worse I don't see a way to help her out of it. She lived with my father after mom died and came to rely on him for support financially. Our relationship with our father was never an easy one. He was an alcoholic and a tad on the emotionally abusive side. While I do not accept the way he acted as normal behavior, I do understand his difficulties as his father was the same way. Now with his passing my sister seems more lost than ever. I just don't know what to do.
