I don’t know how I’m supposed to react

Irene, left, and Lori celebrate Christmas c. 1973 or 1974.

On Saturday, while I was making myself a chicken chimichanga, my nephew texted to let me know my sister had passed away.

If you asked me about her before 3:07 p.m., on Saturday, January 21, my response would have been something along the lines of “she’s a piece of shit, who caused me, my mom, and my nephew immense pain and I haven’t spoken to her in nearly 40 years.”

Now, I don’t know how to react. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I’m not going to sugarcoat it and pretend she was a decent human being because that was not my experience, but, she was also my sister.

My sister was named after my grandmother Lorraine. Gram was the only grandparent I ever knew and I write stories about her a lot because Gram played such an influential role in my life. My cousin, Kaylie, has Gram’s name as her middle name.

One day, when Kaylie was around 10 years old, she was doing something stupid, Gram looked at me and said, “I don’t know what my kids were thinking, but they named the wrong ones after me. None of them are like me at all.” I choked on my drink and we had a good chuckle.

Irene, left, Lori, center, and Aunt Julie on Christmas day in the 1970s.

We called my sister Lori for short. Lori was always Mom’s favorite. Growing up, I was often told, “oh stop. I treat you equally,” by Mom. All the adults in my life told me parents didn’t have favorites. Sometime during Covid, Mom brought this up out of the blue and told me she wished she had defended me more often and she picked the wrong child to pay attention to. I accepted the remorse for what it was. There is no point in “I told you so” or the many other things I could have said. I just wish Mom had realized it and said it before I was in my 50s. It also doesn’t change the trauma and violence I endured as a child at the hands of my sister.

Lori, age 2 1/2, in February 1971.

The following is what comes to mind when you mention my sister or say her name. I do not have any good memories of her. I only know a violent thief and liar who blamed me whenever she could.

Lori was two years older than me. When my father abandoned us, I was three years old. He would sometimes call or drop by for a visit. He never wanted to talk to me on the phone or see me when he came to see Lori. No one ever told me why. Mom would just tell me that she, Gram, and her brothers and sisters loved me. My father eventually stopped contacting us when I was around six years old. I met him once when I was 24. He told me, “You really are nothing like your sister. You’re a good one.” Yeah, thanks. And fuck you.

One day at Gram’s house, Lori and I got into a fight. I don’t remember what it was about. I was about 10 years old. Lori grabbed a steak knife and chased me upstairs. We slept overnight at Gram’s because Mom worked 3:30 p.m., to midnight. We shared an old double bed. I was standing near the foot of the bed when Lori stabbed me in my right arm, just below the bend. I shoved her onto the bed. It broke.

While I was downstairs trying to clean the wound, Gram came home from work. She helped to make sure it didn’t get infected. When Gram told Mom the next day, I was grounded for two weeks for breaking the bed. I had to do extra chores to help pay for a new bed frame. Nothing happened to Lori. On bright, sunny days, I can still see the scar.

Lori, left, Irene, front, and Mom in the early 1970s.

I was around 11 or 12 when Lori bit me on the shoulder. She drew blood. I went inside to tell Mom. I was told it wasn’t that bad and to go bite her back. I didn’t want to, so my mother considered the matter closed. A few days later, I took one of her dolls, pulled its arm off, and put a lit firecracker in the arm hole. I had to pay for a new doll. It was absolutely worth it.

There were many fist fights and shouting matches over the years. Mom didn’t know about most of them because I gave up trying to report them. It was always going to be my fault.

During these fights she used her weight to get me on the ground sit on me. I found it difficult to breathe. I always thought I was going to die. I always gave in to whatever it was she demanded so I could get up and breathe again.

Lori in elementary school during the late 1970s.

In 1985, Lori got the 45 of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello.” It was an okay song until the 17th playback in a row. I marched into her room, grabbed the record and snapped it in half. I went back to my room and put my headphones on, calming down to the soothing sounds of 101.5, WPDH, “The Home of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Mom came home from work a few hours later. Lori got to her first. Apparently, I “broke the record for no reason at all.” I was not allowed to present a defense. I was grounded for a month. I had to replace the record.

Lori ran away from home that year. She called a few months later crying. She was with a second cousin from Ohio, who was now living in Virginia, I think. I honestly didn’t care. Mom asked me what I thought about letting Lori come home. I said no. It was more peaceful and I was happy without her in our lives. Mom went to the bus station and arranged for the ticket. As a 55 year old woman, I get why Mom let her come home, but that 14 year old kid is still fucking angry.

Mom begged for the high school to take Lori back. A year later, she dropped out. It was three weeks before graduation. Mom didn’t put up a fight to help her get her back in school.

Lori’s graduation photo. It was taken in the Fall of 1985 when she was 17.

In May, 1989, when my nephew was 16 months old, my sister went to the bank and forged my name on a withdrawal slip. My savings account had six years of newspaper route money and tips in it. It was supposed to pay for college. She left $100 in the account. My nephew was in the car with her. She drove to Gram’s house and left him in his car seat on the kitchen table. Gram came home about three hours later. There was a note. It read, “Here’s all of David’s paperwork. I don’t want him anymore.” I was in Lincoln, Nebraska, taking a final at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was the end of my freshman year.

The police refused to press charges. That was the end of that. I had to work 35 hours a week to pay my basic bills and Mom took a second job to help pay for my tuition. She went to court to become David’s guardian. Around three or four years later, she stopped using Lori’s name. It became, “your sister.”

When Mom passed away last year, I listed Lori as one of the survivors in Mom’s obituary out of a sense of preserving proper history. David and Mom’s sister, Elaine, asked me, “why the fuck is her name there.” Aunt Elaine filled me in on some details about how Mom really felt about Lori. So we took her off. Mom’s obituary now reads that David and I are her survivors. It sounds like I’m David’s mother. We laughed about it, but then he looked at me and said, “I’m fine with that.” David was always like a little brother to me even if I am 18 years older than him. I’m fine with any misunderstanding as well.

Lori, left, and me, c. 1974.

Over the years, I heard things from the family grapevine. Lori lived with my father for a few years and then stole his pickup truck. He was a crook himself, so he couldn’t report it because the truck was licensed in an alias no one knew about.

At some point in time, she went on disability. I don’t exactly know why. She had three strokes between ages 40 and 50, I think. I remember when I was told I didn’t care and didn’t even want to know. So I didn’t really pay attention.

She had a daughter. Oh yeah, that’s why she didn’t want David. He wasn’t a girl, so fuck her for abandoning her child. For fuck’s sake, you get what pops out and you care for it. Fucking piece of shit.

Me, left, and Lori, June 1971. What the hell were we doing?

Since 2017, no one knew if Lori was alive or dead. She lived with my nephew for a couple of months that year. It was all he could take before he threw her out. Mom and I knew it would happen, but he wanted a chance to have a relationship with his mother and neither of us were going to let our experiences cloud whatever chance there was.

Her daughter told David of Lori’s passing and he told me less than five minutes later. I guess Lori was in a lot of pain over the past few years due to medical issues. Lori was a smoker. She had diabetes. She was really overweight. She was three or four inches taller than me.

Everyone knew Lori wasn’t going to live as long as she could have. On January 29, she experienced a catastrophic brain hemorrhage stemming from an infection in her heart. She was declared brain dead with no quality of life possible. Her daughter made the decision to remove Lori from the ventilator the next day. With hospice care, the rest of her body passed peacefully at 6:50 p.m., on January 30, 2026. She was 57 years old.

Five and seven are my favorite numbers. My birthday is July 5 – five and seven or seven and five, depending on how you write dates. I don’t know if they can be my favorite numbers anymore.

Lori, left, and Irene in June 1971.

I am grateful her daughter reached out to David, so we at least know what happened. Gram taught me how powerful the word hate is and to use it sparingly.

I fucking hated Lori.

But she was still my sister, ya know?