Easter Sunday in METHphrata PA

On Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023, I was forced to call 911 for help. My forty-two-year-old sister, Aime, was grappling with homelessness, mental illness, and a six-year battle with meth addiction. Regrettably, I had allowed her to stay at my house for a few nights.

Amy, four years my junior, and I had shared a close bond for most of our lives. At the age of 14, she moved in with me, and over the years, we built a strong relationship. Amy got married, had three daughters, and together, we ventured into business, working side by side for more than a decade.

Unfortunately, our lives took a turn for the worse as Amy's priorities shifted away from her children, family, and work towards a dangerous path involving friends, sex, and drugs. In 2018, she abandoned her children, burglarized both my and our mother's homes, and left the state with an old boyfriend, claiming she was seeking sobriety. She remained absent for nearly two years.

Amy returned in the summer of 2020, homeless and living in a vehicle. Despite my attempts to provide support by allowing her to stay with me, she continued to use meth unabated. Her behavior became increasingly erratic, marked by extended periods of wakefulness, anger, violence, confusion, repetitiveness, and a profound sense of distortion. In less than a month, her destructive actions forced the police to involuntarily commit her while I was at work, as she had wreaked havoc in my kitchen, breaking glass and throwing food on the walls.

Following her hospitalization, Amy wasted no time reverting to her old ways. She once again robbed both my and our mother's homes. Shockingly, just two nights later, she returned to my residence while I was asleep, climbed in my bathroom window, and stole my purse containing significant cash, my identification, and the only key to my car. The incidents were promptly reported to local police, yet, disappointingly, their response remained ineffectual, highlighting the department’s pattern of inaction.

A few months later, I encountered Amy, and we had a conversation. During our talk, she agreed to enter rehab, and we made all of the arrangements that day. However, there was a waiting period for an available bed, and given Amy's homeless state amid winter, I offered her a temporary place to stay at my house while she waited.

The challenge emerged when Amy rationalized that she could persist in using meth until the very moment she left for rehab. Once at my house, she stayed awake for three consecutive days, compounding the sleep deprivation she had already experienced. Her behavior suddenly turned angry, threatening, and unhinged. Despite my requests for her to leave, she refused, and eventually, the police had to intervene to remove her from my home. In a shocking turn of events, she attempted to have me arrested by fabricating an assault and planting drugs in my house. It was then that I vowed she would never enter my home, my sanctuary, again.

Fast forward to March 2023. I abruptly ended a work trip to Florida upon learning that Amy’s middle daughter was pregnant with twins. Hoping that becoming a grandmother would finally serve as the motivation Amy needed to get clean, I dropped everything to find her. The last available information suggested she was homeless in Harrisburg, so I searched for her there and left messages with everyone I could think of. Interestingly, it was during this period that I underwent a personal transformation by getting baptized. Remarkably, the very next day, Amy showed up at my door.

She brought her new “wife” Ang, and the car they lived in. Still not welcomed in my home, Amy and Ang initially stayed in a hotel. Amy promised she would quit meth, and she actually spent the whole week sleeping. I tried to pay for them to have a second week at the hotel, but at $800, I wasn’t able to. Amy used the fact that she had to leave the hotel as a reason to get high, and she and Ang went off on a bender for a few days. I let them in my home a few days before Easter, with no food, no money, no gas, and nowhere to go.

Unfortunately, what they did have was meth. Amy brazenly pulled out a needle, said she was “shooting meth now," and told me to turn around knowing I would throw up at the site of her injecting herself. I should’ve made her leave right then, but all I could think about was her dying if she didn't get help soon!