Today is my sister Rebecca’s 65th birthday. She died at home in 2021. That she is not alive to celebrate and experience her birthday is a merciless, unjust, soul-splitting reality. It’s an agony.
The condition and conditions my sister was found in when she died were heartbreaking. She is not the first I’ve seen murdered by addiction; it tried to kill me with alcohol. It took me time to learn (fully digest) that the sentence, “You’re not responsible for your addiction, you’re responsible for your recovery,” is a sentence built out of fact.
I still can’t write about Rebecca at length. I start to sob. Mine is a heartbreak that’s accompanied by anger. Not at Rebecca. Not even a little. The anger (fury) results from those adult family members who were living with my sister, saw the condition she was in, and did nothing.
I will write more about my sister, Rebecca Jill Kahrmann. I love her still, my whole wide world.
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Peter S. Kahrmann - Est. 1953 
I enjoy reading your stories about my Nana but I’d appreciate if you didn’t assume we all weren’t trying so hard to get her to slow down on all of the medications the doctors were giving her because we were worried about how addicting they were but she had horrible pain and her hands barely worked from her rheumatoid arthritis so her doctor without even seeing her, just a phone call most months would just send in a prescription of if I remember correctly 90 or 120 percocet 10mgs so she could take 3 or 4 a day and every month she would hide when she got them, hide where she kept them and beg me for my suboxone when she ran out from taking them too fast and I always did give it to her hoping it would eventually stop her cravings the way it did for me. We all tried so hard to hold on to her I lived with her most of my life and the last few years of her life she also got to live with my children and was a huge influence on who my sweet 5 year old daughter is today. It was really hard though because unfortunately we all seemed to have addiction in common and all stayed together to help each other fight it. It kills me and my mom that that is what took her.
– Kayla your great niece ( Danielle’s daughter )
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You wanted to fight her at one point, and the conditions she was in were deplorable and everyone knew, and did NOTHING. In a room with feral cats, soaked with cat urine, and you and your mother and your other half did squat. Addiction set the stage, and killed her, and all of you did nothing, contributed to her death. Neither you (that I know of) or anyone in that house takes any responsibility. My sister gets blamed. Rubbish.
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