She is my sister. Always.

I have often written of my brother and nearly every entry includes a reference to my son. The women in my life have never been mentioned. Not because they're less interesting but because some of them have challenges that I often can't bear to face, let alone bring in to the light. My sister is one such person. She is a tragedy that breaks my heart on a regular basis.

When I was eleven and she was three, my sister finally came home to us after a long fight to adopt her. My sister had been abandoned multiple times by her birth mother, and even from an unknown distance she was able to stand between us and Jordan, only two and then three and then finally home with us. Before she became my sister, she had been abandoned with babysitters, in stairwells and in cars. Left to fend for herself or with others barely able to care for her or even see her needs. In between she had been in receiving homes meant to care for children for days, not months - rarely held, nurtured or shown that she was special and loved and the center of anyone's world. Those early years have proven to be insurmountable when coupled with heredity and chemical imbalances long left unchecked.

From the moment she came home to us, she was loved. Cherished. I remember looking at her and feeling physical pain, so much did I love her and see her perfection. Little rosebud lips, sandy blond curly hair so different from my own. Golden skin, cheeks so round and pink. A little lisp and a love of songs that challenged her pronunciation - I made countless tapes of her singing "Hey dere, wittle wed widing hood" at the top of her little lungs. I loved to dress her in little sun suits and white saltwater sandals. White hand-knit sweaters and smocked dresses with Peter Pan collars. Fancy pants - those ruffled panties she'd wear under dresses or sometimes on their own with only a crown and some white socks and baton she twirled around the house. And in return for my adoration she shared her own, waiting for me on the front steps each day after school and eager to jump into my arms and demand my full attention.

As she grew older, behavior that might have been chalked up to age began to stand out as more than a blossoming Id. Deeply inappropriate relationships with other students, a need to completely please or to completely dominate, depending on the other party. Sneakiness, theft, lies. I was oblivious to much of this — by then I had moved out and returned every Friday night to babysit her. I saw only my baby sister, from whom I was growing apart; I blamed that rift on my physical distance rather than what was happening in her own little body and mind. My parents were not as unaware, but dealt with it in the only way they knew how — grounding her, taking away privileges. Later changing schools when the latest incident was just too embarrassing, when they were sure that a fresh start would "do the trick". Third party intervention was never seriously considered, since my mother was convinced that my sister would just lie to any psychiatrist and my mom, with her own research, was more than qualified to diagnosis my sister. She determined that no therapy — talk or drug — would help. But another town, another school might.

Years passed in this manner. Altercations increased at home and out in the world. She had a child by a man unknown, or at least not known which of the four possibilities it might be. She drank and smoked through her pregnancy, dated men that had literally half her IQ and none of the opportunities she had had in her "country club life", as she referred to her upbringing.

Fast forward 15 years, and she now sits in a trailer in the poorest section of La Place, Louisiana. Two children living with her and one long-abandoned to the care of my parents. A husband on permanent mental disability and supported by the state; a man she chose to marry two weeks after meeting him, leaving her child behind and then claiming she had lost her child to virtual kidnapping by her own parents. She smokes two packs a day, has lost her teeth to poor health and the beautiful, perfect little body I so loved to hug and rock now unrecognizable under pounds and years of terrible nutrition. She survives on food stamps and misplaced dreams, spending what little money she has on Wii games instead of clothing for her children. Buying hand guns. A Harry Potter chess set for a family that doesn't play chess or have any intention of learning. She has little but the satisfaction that so much of this is not her fault; she finally has the diagnosis long-denied her. She is bipolar. She is sometimes unmedicated. She falls into deep depressions. She is manic for weeks at a time. She is all of these things. But she is my sister.

Many years ago, an English professor spoke out of his ass and declared that no one could love an adopted child as much as their "own" biological child. I was outraged and not silent - I railed against him in front of the entire class, outlining the struggles we had in adopting my sister. She was chosen. She was fought for. She was hard won and cherished. Today I look back at that and then at her and where she has ended up. Abandoning her child as she was abandoned. Living a life that on a good day could be the punchline to a Jeff Foxworthy joke. But even with all of this, I see her. I know that she is there because of all that happened to her before she was three, even before she was born - bipolar heredity clicked into play long before she took her first breath. Long before her biological mother told her to "wait right here" and left her alone on a stairwell and never returned. And the cruel follow up to that joke — repeated abandonment, an absence of affection and stimulation and basic love — made all that happened after just a means to take the edge off what could have been an even more disastrous life.

As I look at my own daughter, I try to tamp down what I hope is the very unreasonable fear of what may be in her own little perfect body and mind. A biological mother who had her own issues that could have been temperament or may have been more. One that led to pregnancy at 14 and again at 15, only three months after Madelena's birth. I try not to panic when Madelena shows signs of normal Super Ego vs Id battles, restraining myself from assigning my own past experience with Jordan to Madelena's future. But it's so very hard.

I have seen the first little girl that I loved with all my heart become a woman who breaks my heart every time I hear her voice. Now Madelena is that little girl who owns me, who demands my full attention, has my complete adoration and returns it — however fleetingly — when her busy schedule allows for it. I am terrified to feel this love again, and now with even greater depth. But as I deal with that fear, I have hope. Because I know that regardless of how my sister's life has turned out...she is my sister, whom I will love until the day that I die. And the same will be true for Madelena, no matter what the future brings.