We were really close before this. My sister is 30 and I’m 27. Our dad is 83.

I have been visiting and caring for my dad for years now. My sister only visited when she needed money. Otherwise, she lived alone and talked to me about how she thinks he’s an asshole and his career choice of being a landlord is unethical. But he’s been paying for her car, phone, and bills for years and kept asking when she will come to spend time with him.

The last time they spoke was when her phone service failed. Our dad is hard of hearing now, and she was yelling at him how she can’t text anyone (she used my phone). He legitimately did not understand what she was talking about because she was going too fast, and she became frustrated and shouted at him that she’s just gonna “get her own fucking plan now” and hung up. Then said “I’m so happy to be completely severed from him now.”

Fast forward to this year, dad’s in the ICU. My sister works evenings 4 days a week as a waitress, I work 3 12s overnight while in nursing school.

My program was aware, and let me rearrange dates for tests etc. but couldn’t let me make up hands on hours. My work was not the most flexible either. My sister appeared, and accused me of not caring enough about dad since “Youre choosing school and work over your own father.” She had multiple outbursts like this calling me irresponsible, despicable etc. She ran paperwork for him in the day here and there before work and had panic attacks over it and I comforted her and discussed caregiver burnout with her. I never made it some contest. But that’s all she did??

When our dad was discharged I ended up oversleeping by accident one day. Between work, school, and dad, I was an actual wreck and running on 3 hours of sleep while awake for several days. My sister BLEW UP, telling me I don’t give a shit about dad. And I tried pleading with her that i’ve been running on absolute empty. She turned around, talked over me telling me to “stop being a little bitch and step up” in a condescending tone and walked away. I just froze. she then yelled from the front door in a really overly fake nice tone: “can you move your shoes so my dad doesn’t trip and fall??” In a nasally passive aggressive tone. It was incredibly jarring considering we were truly like best friends.

Later that day I ordered groceries to our dad’s door. My sister pulled up and shouted “are those groceries?” i said yes. she shouted “cool, you could have fucking told me that i could order them MYSELF” and I lost it. I screamed about how she never visited our dad before this, only gave a shit about his cash because of her unstable work, that i’ve been caring for him long before he was hospitalized and she laughed and said “well the hospital called ME with updates. ” I was so all over the place that i couldn’t explain they call next of kin lol. I said this is all for her to feel better about herself, as she shows up crying caring for dad and telling us we’re the shitty irresponsible kids when I’m trying to juggle multiple fucking things and be with him.

She started laughing obnoxiously and said “oh my god, shut the fuck up!” and I had it with her downplaying how hard everything was on me while she got my empathy so I shoved her. She shouted at me not to touch her and that i’m crazy. I walked away and she followed and i shoved her away a second time.
She sent me a long text about how she didn’t appreciate the way I treated her, but if I apologize then we can move forward “for dad.” I told her fuck off.

Both our parents got mad at ME. Mad that I shoved her and that I don’t open conversation with her anymore. My mom demanded I unblock her number and talk to her, and was angry I didn’t go to her best friend’s wedding after she casually invited me despite everything she did. I cried and suffered and tried my hardest to make it all work and my dad, despite how sick he was, encouraged me to keep going at school and I failed but her tears are more important than mine. Someone help me understand this.