My older sister had mental illness.

When I was seven years old I didn't know that mental illness existed, let alone that my older sister had it.  My sister was much older than I was, in fact, she was practically a teenager.  She was eleven years old and to a boy of seven, eleven seems like a lifetime away.

My sister was always nice to me and we often played games, some we invented and others were just your usual fare, such as tag and hide and go seek. We had a secret funny song about our father, as he worked at night and slept all day and we found this kind of funny.

One day my father decided to teach us the value of money.  He told us we were going to go to the candy store without him. He handed my sister one dollar and then he began telling us how we could spend it.  He sounded like a man running an auction, speaking fast and not stopping to catch his breath.

"Now you can get five cents worth of candy and ten cents worth of comic books, or you can get ten cent worth of candy and five cents worth of comic books and don't you DARE eat the candy!"

This "lecture" went on for a while and it all sounded like the same to me, but hey, I was going with my big sister, so I knew everything would be OK. We left the house and took the ten- minute walk to the main avenue and walked into the candy store.

"Madelyn, can I get these?" I smiled picking up a hand full of candy.

"Yes Bobby, you can," came the reply

I kept picking up more candy and even a comic and asking the same question, which was greeted with the same answer. We made our purchase and walked out, carrying a big paper bag filled with our goodies.  I felt so proud, like a big boy who could go shopping by himself.  We even had some change.

So when we got home and stood before our father, I was beaming with pride.  How good I was feeling at that moment and I simply could not contain myself and I smiled, a grin a mile wide.  The grin a child can give a parent when he knows he had done well and made that parent proud too.

My father lifted me off the ground and shook me and began yelling at me and spanking me.  "You think this is funny Robert?" I was shocked and my spirit was broken.  What did I do wrong?  I had asked my older sister and she said yes. Why was I being hit and screamed at?  Why wasn't Madelyn being given the same treatment?  Why? How does a child ever truly get over something like that, when he does not understand the reasons?

My older sister had mental illness.