I know this isn't fully March Momma related, but I need to vent/talk/get it out somewhere. This might be all over the place, and I don't think I'm looking for advice or anything. I'm just trying to make sense of it all I guess.

5 days before Christmas, my sister packed up her & her 4 kids (8, almost 7, 5, and 2) and her emotional support dog, and fled the city to live with her aunt two hours away. To get away from the emotionally, mentally, physically, financially abusive man that kept manipulating his way back into their lives. I was so proud of her.

Her aunt's house, after adding in the 5 people, had 13 people total in it. It wasn't the best solution but it's what she had at the time. Her aunt brought her back into the city, to stay with friends until she can hopefully get a place with her roommate on the 16th. Well, her and her kids & dog, stayed at my place from Wednesday till today (Sunday). I love her. I love her kids. But we both feel a couple of them have some mental health issues that desperately need to be addressed, which she is working on too, and being witness to their fatherly figure (bio dad to the two youngest) and his awful ways, hasn't helped. So they're all a handful (lying, stealing, breaking things. Her one child, second oldest, fractured his brothers arm a few months back, just as an example of some of the issues we've had) Add in my two kids (4 & 9mo), my dog, and my so and I, there was 10 people, and two dogs. And my house was mayhem. But we made it work.

Well we woke up this morning, and her dog, Chopper, was no longer with us. We are assuming it was old age, as he was tired last night, and we could tell something was off. But we figured he just needed to relax. After all, he was 11-12 years old (was a rescue, exact age wasn't known), and his breed doesn't normally live past 9-10 years. But he went to sleep last night, cuddled up next to her on son on the floor, and he never woke up.

I can't believe this is happening to my sister. As if uprooting yours and your children's lives wasn't enough, trying to figure out how to be a single mom of 4, trying to find a place to live, all the stress of trying to find someone to help her children's mental health as well as worrying about her own mental health in the process, etc. And then she loses one of her best friends. Her comfort animal, who was actually trained to help people who needed the emotional support.

I'm exhausted after this week alone. I can't imagine how she feels right now. But she's with a friend, and her kids. They're safe. And they're settled there until she gets her own place. And she's starting over. Everything she has, fit in the back of my so's truck.

Also, we got news that her ex got an eviction notice from the townhouse they were in on Friday. Thankfully, she took her name off the lease before she left the city.