In Memoriam

It’s been 5 days.

On Monday we went to the funeral home. As expected, I deployed my defenses – inappropriate comments and dark humor. The funeral home person was trying to help with starting an obituary. She said sometimes it’s easier for families if they answer some standard questions and build a draft obit. This has been one of my struggles for the past three days – the obituary.

While I understand the obituary is meant to capture the positive things accomplished over the decedent’s life, I struggle with accepting the standard niceties afforded in these circumstances. If I am forced to accept the loss of my sister, I want her life and her death to mean something to someone. I want people that may joke about “a problem” with alcohol to understand that there are very real, visceral and far-reaching consequences to trying to ignore or pretend your problem doesn’t exist. To that end, I present to you the story of Heidi Dawn.

Heidi was born on April 4, 1976 in Billings, Montana. Her parents would divorce soon after, and her mom would remarry. The family would move to Oregon in 1984 or so. Heidi would go on to take her step-father’s surname. She attended various grade schools in Montana and Oregon, attended middle and high school in Oregon, but did graduate high school. She did obtain her GED.

At around age 11, Heidi started working seasonally picking berries during the summer as many kids did at that time. She also did the obligatory babysitting service that all middle and high school girls end up doing. She started restaurant work when she could get a work permit at around age 15. When she was 17, she was a manager at a local restaurant. She balanced books, set schedules, opened, closed, and did all those mature responsible things that go with the job. Though she only had a GED, she looked to be on a positive path forward.

It’s unclear what triggered it, but it was at around this time things started to change. Heidi made a number of poor choices that damaged or destroyed friendships, ended relationships, and eventually it cost her job. Something occurred where she lost her best friend – she broke that relationship beyond repair. Her substance abuse got pretty serious after that. By this time I had my own child and my own drama going on and I sort of lost track of Heidi for a little while.

We would later learn that Heidi was dealing with undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder, which may have tipped the scales further from her favor. It is presumed she unknowingly started self-medicating, kicking off this whole painful journey.

While Heidi struggled with her demons, she did have periods of positive experiences and blissful sobriety. For a little while, she lived in Nevada with her friend Angie. Things were looking up for her. She had a job, good friends, sober people in her life, and people interested in her well-being. She would only stay in Nevada for a little while and eventually returned to Oregon.

Once back in Oregon, she made contact with some of her old friends and she started down that familiar road of drama and chaos. We suspected a problem, but were at a loss. She was drinking and using when she became pregnant.

In 1997, Heidi had her first child. I was with her when she brought my beautiful niece into this world. I sort of decided that her birthing coach was useless and took over, which both Heidi and the original coach were good with. (I don’t think she knew what she was getting into when she agreed to it) I held my sister’s hand through hours of labor, I coached her in breathing, I cheered and encouraged her to push, and I shared in a beautiful experience. There may have been jokes being told during active labor and there may have been one whole push that got messed up during a contraction and was utterly useless because of said hypothetical joking.

At one point, Heidi became a CNA and started working in elder care. She would go on to perform this sort of work periodically throughout her life. While she could make some fairly terrible life choices, she had a big heart and she enjoyed caregiving work. She would end up losing her certification, though I’m not sure if it was revoked or if she just let it lapse. I believe it was around this time that custody of my niece went to her father. Heidi’s life was kind of a roller coaster for a while there. Around 2004 our mom and step-dad divorced.

Heidi would eventually meet a man for whom she cared deeply, and she became pregnant with Brooke in 2005. I don’t recall at what point it happened – before birth or shortly after – but Brooke’s father passed away.

One night around the summer of 2005 Heidi called me freaking out. She said she’d been cleaning a closet and there was broken glass that she didn’t see and she reached into the dark corner, not knowing it was there, and it cut her hand badly. She needed to go to the hospital. It cut a tendon in her hand, so it was a fairly significant injury. In hindsight, I’m not sure the closet story was entirely accurate.

Heidi would end up going to Montana while pregnant with Brooke, so I missed out on Brooke’s birth. Our mom was there, so that’s where Heidi went to try to escape her demons. While in Montana one night, while celebrating her planned return to Oregon, Heidi drank too much and dropped infant Brooke. As I understand it, there was bruising but everything was alright.

As it was explained to me, our Auntie was a certified daycare provider and mandatory reporter. I’m told when she saw the bruising on Brooke, she was obligated to report the incident. This resulted in Heidi losing custody of Brooke, and my mother not being allowed to take her because in the opinion of Montana Child Welfare, she was enabling Heidi and therefore couldn’t be appointed guardian of Brooke. Brooke would end up going to out Auntie for several months. Heidi would be mandated to partake in specific programs and activities to regain custody. Sobriety was one of the conditions.

Eventually, Heidi was considered sober and completed all of her child welfare mandated programs and processes. Brooke was returned to Heidi’s custody, and they soon returned to Oregon. Mel would stay with her dad, but Heidi and Brooke moved into a rented house with our mom, our other sister, her husband & their daughter, and our brother, his girlfriend & their child. This started out as a nice, solid place for Heidi and she thrived for a while. Sadly, it wouldn’t last and she would start drinking again.

When she drank, she wasn’t able to stop at a single. She always needed more. Eventually it would be discovered that she had empty alcohol containers hidden in her room and she’d been drinking alone in secret for who knows how long. This caused some tensions between Heidi, her siblings, her parents, her extended family, and her daughters. They all ended up going their separate family ways. I think this is ultimately when we truly lost her. She didn’t fare well without supervision.

In 2018 and 2019, Heidi ended up in the hospital several times. Each time she was told she needed to stop drinking. In 2019, she was told she’d hit the point of no return and she would die of liver failure. She called me and cried, lamenting everything she will miss. She wanted to see her daughters as adults, she wanted grandchildren, she wanted to live. All I could do is listen because we both knew there was nothing to be done.

Even after that tearful confession, she continued to drink.

I’d always taken for granted that the change was always a brief period of sobriety that we cherished. This time it wasn’t sobriety. This time it was finding out that she was hospitalized again and returned home with end stage liver disease due to years of alcohol abuse. They told us we had maybe 6 weeks left. They were wrong, but it was still so quick.

We celebrated her final birthday n April. My amazing sister-in-law set up a celebration of life, where we were able to celebrate Heidi’s life with her. She spent her final weeks trying to make forever memories with her daughters and family. We had only weeks to make up for years of lost opportunity. It was a valiant effort.

In her last few days, her decline was rapid and heartbreaking. On Monday she was having back-and-forth conversation and by Friday she was completely noncommunicative and she left us that night.

She was once filled with potential for wonderful things, were it not for that incessant nagging for alcohol. She tried. Many times, she tried.

She was beautifully imperfect and tragically enslaved to her addiction.

It’s been 5 days and I am fucking wrecked.