by Marilyn Dunn

Created on: July 14, 2008

It was so long ago. Forty years. In many ways it seems like a story that I read years ago. Perhaps a movie that I saw that stayed with me and haunted me but the memory is still so real. It's different for everyone, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a sibling. The loss is hard no matter what the circumstances. Was this sibling a small child or an adult? Was death caused by a freak accident or a fatal disease?

My sister Lorraine died when she was 18 years old. I was 17. She was one year and one day older than me. We would celebrate our birthdays together, just like we were twins. My mom would dress us alike, in the same black velvet dresses at Christmastime and pink flowered dresses at Easter time.

When Lorraine was about 15 or 16 years old, the trouble began. She became distant, confused, disoriented. She dropped out of school because she couldn't concentrate. She lost most of her friends because she acted "strange". Being one year her junior and a teenager at the time, I, of course, also thought she was strange so I would go my own way, do my own thing, and not have much to do with my slightly older sister. It's so unfortunate that when we are so young we can have so little compassion.

After a year of boarding school where my parents thought the "Sisters Of Mercy" could help, she came home to the first of half dozen or so stays at some of New York's finest mental hospitals. Her diagnosis: Schizophrenia.

On a weekend pass I vividly remember her sitting in our living room telling my parents she had something very important to say. She announced that she was pregnant. Shock came over all of us. As we sat with our mouths open, she continued to tell us that she was actually the Virgin Mary and that this baby would be the baby Jesus. Well, our mouths stayed open.

Her next hospital stay was much longer. I can remember on a few occasions she would call me and tell me that she felt like committing suicide. We would talk for hours and usually she would feel much better when we were done. Obviously, I also felt better for having helped. One weekend I was supposed to go visit. We lived about a half hour north of New York City but for some reason that weekend whatever it was my friends wanted me to do seemed much more important and pressing than going to visit my sister in the "mental" hospital. The next day it happened. I came home from school to meet the local church pastor at the elevator to our apartment. The first thing I thought was that something was wrong with Lorraine, otherwise, why would Father Boyle be standing at the elevator to my apartment. It was a long, silent ride to the eighth floor. When I walked in the house, my mother hugged me and continued the crying that she had obviously been doing for awhile. My sister had died. Lorraine ran away from the hospital that she was in. She hopped a bus down to Greenwich Village, went to the top of a building and jumped off the roof.

It was a long time ago. Forty years. In those forty years I have read many books on schizophrenia. I have learned to the best of my capability what it must have been like for her and I have also let go of the guilt I felt for not visiting her that day in the hospital.

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