“I don’t think the beast has gone down to Florida yet.” My older sister, Janie, says to me in her soft, gentle voice.

The beast. It’s all she ever talks about these days. As her episodes have grown worse and worse, she speaks more and more about this figment of her imagination, a ghastly, cruel, horrible beast. It watches her eat, sleep and bathe. It is the crackly voice inside her head. It is the thing that makes her… well… the way she is.

She is lying on her hospital bed. Her skin is pale and her eyes are dull. She looks awful. I can’t blame her. Janie has been in the hospital for about two months now, the doctors and psychiatrists and physicians and therapists running an endless number of mental evaluations on her.

I don’t know what to say, so I just reach out and stroke her thin, strawberry blonde hair. I repeat to her over and over that the beast is not real. I can see that she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.

I stay with her for a while and then her eyes flutter close. I guess she’s asleep or something. I kiss her lightly on her forehead and get up to leave. I am almost in the waiting room when I hear a commotion. I hear one thing clearly; Patient 19, code red.

That’s Janie.

In a matter of moments, a medical team rushes into Janie’s room and whisk me out. The team assure me (and themselves) that everything will be okay. Before I know it, I am in the waiting room.

I’m panicking. This has never happened before. What the hell is going on? My stomach churns like a stormy sea.

I try to calm myself down… the doctors wouldn’t lie. Janie is going to be fine. But I can’t shake the visions in my head. Janie’s insides being cut out, tubes sticking into her frail body. Janie in agony. I can almost feel the searing pain I imagine she’s going through.

Everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. I repeat the doctor’s assurance in my head like a mantra.

I feel a million itches all over my body and a pounding in my head. I can’t take it anymore. I am overwhelmed with all of these emotions and senses and I feel like I’m about to burst. I cover my ears with my hands and groan. The eyes in the waiting room are watching me with fear and anxiety. I don’t care. Let them stare. Let them stare at me for the rest of my life. Just please let Janie be okay.

Let the beast have me instead.

Just as I’m about to implode, I see the doctor walk confidently out of Janie’s room. A warm wave of relief gushes over my stormy sea. I see the expression on his face, calm, peaceful; the face of a man who has just saved a life.

As he comes closer, I feel like I’m about to faint. He looks resigned. He has the face I’ve seen all too often in hospitals.

He smiles at me tightly and takes my cold, sweaty hands in his own sturdy ones.

“I am so sorry to tell you this; our team did everything we possibly could…” He starts. My heart turns to stone.
“Your sister is gone. We tried…”

Time stands still. Everything has happened so fast today and now time stops. I feel numb. I can’t see or hear anything. I taste the sour bile creeping up my throat as the words play in my head. Your sister is gone. Your sister is gone. Your sister is gone.

I can’t think or see straight, but one thought is clear; I have to get out of here.

The doctor rambles on, but I spin on my heel and walk out of the ward, out of the wing, then clear out of the hospital. My feet are carrying me without me thinking. I am in complete and utter shock and the mantra of the doctors buzzes in my head like a thousand angry wasps; Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.

Finally, I reach my unknown destination. It’s a stretch of meadow that lies before a scratchy pine forest.
Turns out my feet knew where I was going all along.

I used to take Janie back here in June, when she was on her medication and it was working. I’d wheel her out in her chair, our picnic basket laying in her lap. I’ll never forget the way she tilted her face up to the sun, letting its rays grace her tiny freckled face. On those gorgeous days her face was childlike. Her eyes were youthful. Her dainty mouth was raised in a slightly mischievous grin. She was the most beautiful thing in the world.

We would reach the meadow, with its lush green grass perfectly lined with vibrant wildflowers. We’d indulge in a feast; icy lemonade, fried chicken, potato salad, strawberry cheesecake. As we joked together, a smile would dance upon Janie’s lips. On those days, the beast that was the source of her constant paranoia seemed as far away as the puffy white clouds suspended in the perfect blue sky.
I’d talk to her on those days as she tilted her head up to the sky thoughtfully. I shared my hopes and dreams with her and confessed my fears. Sometimes, it seemed like she really understood.
On those days, life seemed manageable.

I look at the meadow now and it holds not even a glimpse of its summer glory. The wildflowers have withered and the green grass has faded to brown. The air is damp. It’s that type of weather that seems to swallow you up. The November sky is dark and ominous overhead.

At that moment, it hits me… Janie is gone. I collapse on the dead grass and cry. I cry so much that it hurts. Every tear stings my eyes and stabs at my skin.

She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

I am full of so many emotions, but I am mostly angry. Angry at my sister for leaving me. No, angry at my sister for being the way she was. I should have listened to the doctors. I should have left her in an institution and gotten on with my own life.

Deep down, I know I don’t mean it. I loved Janie too much to desert her.

Yes, there were bad times. The times when the beast seemed so real that Janie became lost in her fear, refusing to talk or eat or take her pills for days on end. There were even worse times when Janie said that I wasn’t her sister, that I was the beast, that I was the one doing all of this to her. Those days left me with a pain so deep, I thought that I was the one who was dying.

But the good days; the days of our glorious picnics, the days Janie joked and laughed with me, the days she took my hands in hers, looked me in the eye and told me she loved me and I knew she meant it.
That was the Janie I knew and loved with all my heart.

The bad days were not Janie. The bad days were the beast. The beast who terrorized my sister, who stalked her every move, who sometimes possessed her. The beast kept my Janie trapped inside for most of her life.

Now, I realize that Janie didn’t die today. The beast did. My sister is finally free. Free of her delusions, free of her paranoia, free of the beast.

Janie is finally free.