Her name was Lisa May! She was my youngest sister. I’m the oldest of three. And this is the story I’ve been trying to write for a while now. Every time I try to put it down, my heart tightens up and I walk away. But I keep returning because love and loss are asking me to not look away.
Lisa died on October 9th, 2021, around midnight. It was a hit-and-run. She was jaywalking, pushing a shopping cart full of her things. She’d been homeless for several years by then and was addicted to meth. By that time, she was largely out of our reach. The spiral of her pain had taken her so far. There’s a darkness in all of this that’s so difficult to describe. But I want to try anyway.
Lisa was electric. When she was shining, she was magnetic—playful, tender, wild, endlessly creative. She could light up a room with her laughter and then turn around and see through you so sharply it left you stunned. Of all of us, she burned the brightest. And like so many bright lights, she was also burning up on the inside.
She came into the world already fighting. Born over two months early by emergency C-section, she spent the first stretch of her life in an incubator. It’s something I think about often. That even at birth, her tiny body had to work so hard just to survive. Maybe that was the seed. Maybe that first trauma etched itself into her nervous system and set a course we couldn’t see yet. But of course, it’s never just one thing. It’s always a constellation.
Things started to shift for her in adolescence, just like they did for me. There’s one image I can never forget: I was being forcibly removed from our home and placed in a psychiatric hospital. She was just eleven, standing on the stairs, crying and looking down on the scene. I still clearly see her there with my other sister. A very traumatic moment for all of us! We didn’t know it then, but her time was coming, too. Our home was already falling apart by then. Our parents were locked in a bitter divorce. Our dad was long gone and already planning another life. And our mom struggled with her own darkness. Her depression ran deep at times, and she saw the highs as "getting back to normal." I inherited that thinking, too. When I was up, I was "okay." But I know now that was never quite true.
Despite my mom's challenges she managed to show up for us. With Lisa she taught me how unconditional love is just that as she gave money and let Lisa live with her at times when it rationally seemed like a bad idea . She tried to be there until it was no longer safe. For me it took becoming a parent to truly understand this.
When Lisa’s pain started surfacing, it often looked like rage. Sharp, unpredictable, overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do with it. None of us did. We fought a lot. And she had this way of getting under my skin, saying things during our fights that cut so deep. She could see my dysfunction, my shame, maybe even better than I could. I didn’t understand it then, but now I think that’s just one of the painful gifts that can come with being empathic in a family like ours. She felt everything. Deeply. Sometimes more than any of us could bear.
One of my sweetest memories is visiting her in college when she was cast as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I can still see her, flying across the stage, commanding it with joy and mischief. Theater gave her structure, purpose, community, and a way to channel all that energy. It was one of the only places where she seemed to be okay.
After graduating, she decided she was going to Hollywood to make it big. That dream gave her a sense of direction, but it also began her long drift away from us. The dream never quite materialized. She tried but over time she started isolating. Her rage continued to push everyone away.
My other sister showed up a lot for Lisa during those years, as well. She sent money, opened her home, and kept reaching for Lisa through some of her darkest moments. I watched her and my mom try to bridge the impossible gap, again and again. And me? I was barely holding myself together. I was deep in my own struggle, doing everything I could to avoid looking into the family shadow, into my shadow. Lisa’s pain mirrored so much of what I was trying not to see in myself at the time. To look at her too closely was to risk crumbling under the weight of my own unhealed wounds. And for that, I still carry shame. I wish I could’ve shown up with what I know now—wish I’d been stronger, clearer, more grounded. But I wasn’t. I didn’t know how at the time.
It’s a grief I’ll carry. A regret that’s part of me now. But it also fuels something in me. A deep desire to show up now, in the present, for others like Lisa. To be a voice, to hold space, to make visible the ones we so often lose sight of. Our stories sit on opposite ends of the same spectrum. We were shaped by the same forces, but our paths diverged. I survived, transformed, and have found a way to accentuate the gifts within these difficult experiences. She didn’t. It could of been me. That reality humbles me every day.
She did some community theater now and then during her LA years, but the same patterns kept repeating. Her pain would surface. Her rage would scare people. Every community she tried to build eventually fell apart. Even the L.A. Burning Man crowd who are about as accepting and wild as people come eventually pulled away. She was known as Danger Girl then. A fitting name indeed! She found a temporary home in that scene, and we had hope. But it never held. I don’t blame those friends. I know how hard it was to love her when the darkness took over.
And yet... when she was in her light, you couldn’t resist her. She was funny and brilliant and absolutely unforgettable. She had a tenderness that took your breath away at times. A creative spark and warmth that lured you in. But then, without warning, the storm would come. And we’d all be left confused, exhausted, heartbroken.
It was around this time she started self medicating. The beginning of the end. The eventual addiction to pain killers then meth brought a slow and brutal spiral to her last moments. A devastating sense of helplessness for her family. It's crushing and the pain for us all within these moments is beyond explanation.
We didn’t have the resources to give her what she truly needed. What Lisa needed, first and foremost, was stable housing. Somewhere safe, somewhere she could rest and begin to feel secure. Without that foundation, everything else felt impossible. She was scared, desperate, and trapped in survival mode, trying to meet her most basic needs while also wrestling with addiction and layers of unprocessed pain.
We tried, but help was out of reach. She was arrested a few times and then released back onto the streets. The system was overwhelmed. Treatment programs were full, and the ones that might have helped were too expensive. Private options were far beyond our means. And Lisa herself wasn’t ready—her addiction and mental turmoil held her in place, making it nearly impossible for her to accept support, even when it was offered.
The helplessness of those years is hard to put into words. Every day carried the same haunting questions: Is she still alive? Will tonight be the night we get the call? The weight of living in that limbo is something I can still feel. At the time, I went numb just to get through it. Only now, writing this, am I realizing how much of myself I had shut down.
But as I let myself remember through the tears, the restless nights, the dreams that bring her back—I’ve also reconnected with my deep love and admiration for her. Even in the darkest moments, Lisa was still my little sister. She was still the mischievous, brilliant, fiery soul who once lit up a stage. And I’m grateful that this writing has brought me closer to her again.
When I close my eyes, I can still hear her as Puck, claiming the last word as she always did…
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon.
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic.
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V
This is how I'll remember my sister in the end, shining on stage as the mischievous and wise faerie that she was.
I miss her every day. I miss who she was and who she could have been. I’m sorry the world didn’t get to experience the full force of Lisa May—the beauty, the tenderness, the chaos, the magic, the genius.
Writing this hurts. Sharing it hurts. But silence hurts more.
So here I am, telling you about my little sister. Because maybe you’ve known someone like her. Or maybe you are someone like her. And maybe if we start saying these things out loud, without shame, without turning away, we can make a little more room for the bright, hurting ones among us. The ones who burn too hot. The ones who never quite land. The ones who deserved better.
Thank you for sitting with me in this story. It’s not an easy one to tell, and I know it’s not an easy one to read. But the act of remembering together, of naming what hurts, is its own kind of healing. By reading this, you’ve helped me carry a little of the weight, and for that, I’m deeply grateful.
Much Love!
The Mad Preschool Teacher