I am so done with my sister

When I published my book in 2012, my older sister unfriended me on Facebook and cut ties with me, which I knew would happen. I hadn’t heard from her until my 50th birthday in 2020 when I noticed she had messaged me on my old Facebook account. I missed her happy birthday in 2019, but saw the one in 2020. I don’t know what made her message me. I would message her from that for the holidays and her birthday and she wished me a happy birthday this year on my birthday.

Every time I talk with her on Facebook messenger, I try to build a bridge. I tell her I love her and our younger sister and that I’m sorry about how things happened and I’m sorry about my book etc. And every time, she lights a match to burn that bridge before I have a chance to build the frame.

My sister makes me think she is right about everything and I don’t have all the right details. She made me doubt myself and took away my confidence our whole lives. But this time she said something to me that is so unforgivable and also she has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. She doesn’t know every detail about everything she wasn’t there to witness. And she told me I pulled things out of the air to write about in my book. This makes me wonder if she’s referring to things she doesn’t know about.

The unforgivable thing she told me was that my mom died because of me. My mom willed herself to die of a heart attack in her sleep because she didn’t want me to die from AIDS before she died because she didn’t want to bury her child. Here is what happened.

In 1991, I was diagnosed with HIV. I had asymptomatic HIV. For those who don’t know what that means, it means I had HIV, but no symptoms that would make me sick. I had no symptoms of AIDS. I made the mistake of telling my sister and I specifically told her “don’t tell mom”. Or anyone for that matter because that is something I need to tell people. It’s not for you to tell anyone. She didn’t waste any time telling our mother, and she told our mother I had AIDS.

My sister doesn’t know, and had absolutely no reason to know, but I talked to my mom every day before she died. She knew my HIV status, she knew everything that I knew because every time I went to the doctor, I told my mother what the doctor said about my health. My mom knew I didn’t have AIDS and she knew I would be healthy for a very long time. My sister didn’t know anything because I stopped trusting her when she told my mom something I asked her not to tell. I said that I didn’t actually have an AIDS diagnosis until a year after our mother died, and she said “that’s not how I remember it, but I won’t rehash that.” You won’t rehash what? Facts that you didn’t even know because you weren’t there?

My mother didn’t “will” herself to die at age 42. She died from a heart attack in her sleep. My mother was overweight like I am. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea at age 34 and they told me it’s genetic and that I could literally die from a heart attack in my sleep if I don’t have sleep therapy. So that tells me right there that my mother died from a heart attack in her sleep because she most likely had sleep apnea and didn’t know.

After this conversation with my sister, I can’t explain it, but I feel somewhat vindicated. My sister can pretend to know more than me, but I was there and she wasn’t. Things that happened to me happened TO ME and I remember them. She told me that I don’t remember things because I had seizures as a child. That doesn’t make me lose my memories lol.

Anyway, I downloaded all my messages from Facebook so I have a record of the things she has said to me, and I set that Facebook account for deletion. Deleting that old account where she messages me is a symbol of deleting her from my life effective immediately. I am so done with her. I feel free. I am free.

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Family is not about blood

They say blood is thicker than water. Well, if that is true, why are so many parents kicking their LGBT children out of the house? Why are so many siblings burning their bridges over something trivial? Blood may be thicker than water, but you don’t have to be blood related to be family.

I was homeless when I was 15 and again when I was 17, and neither time was by choice. No one chooses to be homeless. There are children on the streets because their family gave up on them when they came out of the closet. Children are selling their bodies for sex so they can eat and have a roof over their heads. They are getting hooked on drugs, being raped and in most cases getting murdered because they are LGBT. Why is that, because they were gay? No, because their BLOOD tossed them into the streets to fend for themselves. Some are killing themselves because of the rejection.

Trust me when I say that blood is not thicker than water. Not just anyone can be your family, but that all depends on who YOU consider to be family. I have friends who I consider family more than my sisters and one cousin. I have a friend from when we lived in Van Nuys who I haven’t seen since 1981, but we are Facebook friends and I consider him more of a brother than I ever considered either of my sisters and my cousin. I have friends here in the Bakersfield gay community who I consider family. There is a family who just recently moved to Arizona who I barely got to know, and I consider them family more than my sisters and my cousin.

So just know that if you treat your own blood like crap, you may think that you are not replaceable, but trust me honey, you are. You need them more than they need you, so don’t treat your gay children, siblings or cousins like crap. If you never hear from them again, maybe think next time before you tell them they are going to hell, or in my cousins case, think before you tell them that you are voting for Prop 8 because he doesn’t think your relationship is worth a piece of paper.