The down: Family drama. My half-sister posted yesterday on FB that our dad was in the hospital with serious heart problems that would likely need a bypass to try and fix. I woke up this morning to a text from her with a message from him about how he always loved us and wished things could've been different. I'm not moved by this in the slightest, though I texted her back and said that I hope for her sake that things turn out okay. It might make me sound cold, but I've finally managed to put all the anger and sadness he caused behind me, and while I don't hate the man anymore, I'm not going back to that by letting him into my life in any way. My half-sister doesn't understand, but I don't expect her to. The life she had with him was VERY different, and I'm not going to taint that by telling her anything about what he did and said to us.
After she tried again with how sad it makes her that I don't know the man she does, I put it on the line and asked her to respect my decision not to talk about him. I am more than happy to be there for *her* since I know what it means to be afraid about a parental figure dying, so whatever she needs from me to help her with that, I will do. She seems okay with all that. I figure time will tell. He's stable enough to have the surgery on Monday, so we'll see how she responds to it all.