Family memories

 When I was born, my sister was 13 years old. So I have little memory of her before she was already grown and gone, having dropped out of high school and eloped to escape her unhappy life at home. I know very little of what her life with our parents was like before then, so I can’t say much about it here. I do remember lots of yelling. My dad had a temper, and I do recall him taking a lot of it out on her. She has told me since of the physical and emotional abuse he inflicted on her. This is hard for me to come to rational terms with, the father I knew being so very different. But my mother acknowledged it at times also. Family dynamics aren’t something you get to just dispassionately and objectively observe when it’s your own family. They touch you very personally in one way or another, your place within them affecting your perceptions and reactions to them and your opinions about what happens to whom. It can affect how you feel about different persons within the family. But to be fair, we were all pretty scared of angering my dad. He never hit me, except for a very few spankings I got from him as discipline. But the yelling... that was traumatic. 

In his elderly years, Dad apologized to my sister for all the things he’d done. It meant a great deal to her, and it did change things between them from that point on. Even when our mother would speak disapprovingly about my sister, Dad would keep quiet. 

I haven’t talked too much to my brother about life with Dad, what it was like for him, I’m not sure why. Probably because Phil isn’t the type to talk about his feelings, he tends to be very private about them. I’m not sure if I asked, he’d be willing to say much. But I think soon I’m going to try, before it’s too late. 

As for my relationship with my sister, Debbie, I don’t know if you could say we were very close until I got to be closer to adulthood. Partly because of our age difference and the fact that she left home when I was about four. But I think it was also due to the fact that my mother was very protective of me, and feared Deb would be a bad influence on me. Our mom worked hard at controlling us all and maintaining her position as matriarch. As such, she didn’t want anyone else usurping that position or exerting a possibly competing influence over me. But as I got older, I got to spend more time with her. I admired and looked up to my sister a great deal. She seemed very sophisticated and modern to me. She was witty and fun to be with. She could be protective as well. And she was always elegant and up-to-date in her appearance; fashionably elegant in dress, hair, and makeup. She was quite attractive. I wished I could be more like her. Sometimes, when I’d spend the day at her home with my niece and nephew, she’d put my hair up in rollers and then rat it into a perfect bouffant, and occasionally she’d also do my makeup just like hers, applying the winged eyeliner and pretty eyeshadow, giving me cat’s eyes. I felt so grownup! 

Later, when I wanted to marry my first husband at 18 and my mother refused to be a witness for the marriage license, my sister said that she would. And as time went on, we became closer because of our shared experiences as women. We had periods of estrangement at times, though. Times when she’d stop speaking to me. Usually it had to do with some issue that our mother was in disagreement with her about. I would often side with Mom, hoping to forge a reconciliation somehow. Sometimes I just thought my sister was wrong, and that I should be able to tell her so without it causing a rift between us. But that’s not how it is with my sister. With my sister, her hurt feelings won’t allow objective conversation about things like the possibility of her being wrong about something. I do understand why, and most of the time I just accept it and leave it alone. And after all, I’m the same way sometimes. We come by it honestly. 

In truth, I think it’s hard for most people to hear that they’re wrong. It’s one thing when it comes to things that can be factually proven, like when an event occurred or something like that. But to be told that you’re wrong in your way of handling a situation, or an issue that mostly involves opinion, that’s very personal. You can’t change anyone’s mind about most things, and I am annoyingly determined to try. I think it’s because I’ve been successful once or twice, and it was quite gratifying. So I’ve sought to duplicate that, tried to figure out the formula that will allow the other person to see their error without causing them to feel threatened or lose face. 

At any rate, age and social media have only caused it to become more difficult. The written word loses a lot of the intent behind it. Subtle underlying cues like inflection, tone of voice, and facial expression are not there. But even in-person disagreements can be impossible with my sister; she’ll shut them down and refuse to allow any explanation or further discussion. Once she feels threatened, even when it’s just her perception, there’s no going any further; and if you do, it’s likely to result in estrangement. Such is the case now. And that estrangement has caused a rift between us that will be nearly impossible to repair. That makes me sad, because no one knows when one of us will no longer be here. None of us are getting any younger. 

For that reason, I have always been willing to forgive and put things behind. I feel like it’s important to do that with important relationships. Very little is so important to warrant estrangement, that’s always been my credo. But THIS time is different. 

There are times in a person’s life that are milestones, so momentous they can never be repeated; a milestone birthday, a retirement, an anniversary...or the birth of a child. 

I really thought I would never be a grandmother. Many factors seemed to indicate that would be the case. But a miracle happened, and my daughter got pregnant! I was overjoyed, but with some trepidation because of her relationship with the father and her lack of permanent employment at the time. Still, I was thrilled. My sister had chosen to stop speaking to me some months prior, first over a disagreement about a silly Facebook post, but ultimately because of the decisions that got made regarding our mother when she began deteriorating in the nursing home and then her final arrangements. Decisions HAD to be made, and there were three of us. For my part, I went along with some of the suggestions put forth by Phil and the nursing home staff, because in my opinion they seemed appropriate. I also strongly disagreed with trying to urge Mom to “hang on” until her 98th birthday. It seemed almost cruel to me; she had already hung on for over a week, with no food or liquids other than to wet her mouth, and no ability to communicate. 

I took the positions I took for the same reasons my sister took hers: they felt RIGHT to me. But at some point there has to be a tie breaker. Phil had POA. When there was a course of action that seemed reasonable to take, I agreed with it. If Deb differed from it, what were we supposed to do? She took it all so personally, as if she were being left out of it. In fact, SHE took HERSELF out of it. At some point a choice had to be made. A reasonable alternative to the other options that were unworkable was reached, but she disagreed with it yet she had no better one to suggest. I went along with Phil; it seemed a good idea, and so I agreed. What else could be done? Just leave her ashes in a box, along with Dad’s and Grandma Ethel’s, whose cremains are still sitting on my closet shelf to this day? No, Phil made a good decision. And even my sister has come around to it, TO HIM, now that she’s seen where they are. All that fuss, for NOTHING. 

But NONE of that is incapable of forgiveness as far as I’m concerned. It’s all inconsequential; I’d have probably already just given in to being the one to extend the olive branch yet again, but for the one thing: My sister NEVER acknowledged the birth of my granddaughter. I sent text message updates throughout the day to both her and Phil, as well as others who are important to me, when Andrea went into labor. My sister didn’t respond to any of them. No congratulations. No visit to the hospital to see Shaelynn and congratulate Andrea. NOTHING. This was not something that Andrea had anything to do with. This is not something you do to someone you care about on the birth of their grandchild, and what will likely be their ONLY grandchild. A grandchild that was never expected to be. It’s not something that can get a do-over or reenactment for those who missed it the first time. 

In life, there are those moments that you get to share with those you are close to, if you’re lucky. I never missed an opportunity to be there for those of everyone else, when I was able. And when I couldn’t be there at the moment, I got there when I could or at least acknowledged them with a letter, a phone call, or a gift. This is a wound that will never completely heal. It can’t be undone. I can forgive it, but certainly not without an apology and an effort made to show she cares. No. This time, I can’t just let it go. 

Same as it ever was...

 I’ve been much aggrieved by the untimely passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the baddest Justice (or human being) that ever was. And reflecting upon the venerated highest court of the land caused me to think about the supposed principles of this nation. Freedom, liberty, equality, and human rights. And in thinking about that, I asked the question, “But are we, really? Have we EVER been about those things, really? For EVERYONE?” I’m afraid that when you look at the history of this country, the answer is a resounding NO. 

Think about it. This country as it is today is the natural progression of imperialist roots. The earliest settlers fled England because of oppression. But those who followed soon set up the pattern of imperial dominance. England, Spain, France; each sought to claim territory  here for their country’s king. So those early invaders fought and killed thousands of Native Americans, and each other, in that pursuit. The Natives were killed, lied to, forced into assimilation, and still had treaties broken and then were finally death-marched onto reservations. Even today, our government is denying them their rights and breaking treaties with them. It’s abominable and deplorable. 

We all know the ultimate result was the new American settlers defeating England and earning the right to establish the new country. But what did that look like? Wealthy white males, owning property. Then importing and buying slaves to work that property. Many brilliant Black people came up with ingenious inventions, but never reaped a penny of profit from them; it all belonged to their white masters. From Buffalo Soldiers to the Tuskegee Airmen, Blacks fought in our wars heroically but received no hero’s recognition for it. They still couldn’t even vote. 

Even our vaunted Constitution, from which we get our foundation of principles, has never really ensured liberty, tranquility, and equality for everyone. Not by a long shot. Only for wealthy, white, male property owners. That’s who the Constitution was written FOR. 

Over generations, we tried. We almost succeeded. The 60s and 70s saw some of the most progressive changes to our society, with Supreme Court decisions that affirmed freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and equal rights for women and people of color. But each time, the wealthy white patriarchy fought back hard. And it’s no different today. 

The Equal Rights Act has yet to be ratified, over 50 years later. So women still do not have equal rights. Blacks are still enslaved by the for-profit prison system and denied equal opportunity by systemic racism throughout our institutions, from banking to health care. 

No matter how far we think we’ve come, our nation’s distribution of power, liberty, and freedom isn’t very different from what it was at the very beginning. But we shouldn’t feel alone. When you get right down to it, if you look closely at the governments and social structure of the majority of nations worldwide, it looks pretty much the same. 

Why haven’t we done better? As human beings, why haven’t we figured out that we’re better off uniting? It’s actually possible to do that now, in ways never before possible. Think about it. Why should there be immigration limits ANYWHERE? Why should we not be able to travel anywhere we like, without passports except to show our country of origin and the places we’ve been? Why should we not be able to live wherever we like? Work wherever we like? Think bigger! If we have the ability to have global banking and trade, we have the ability to allow work, currency flow, and trading of goods. Instead of separate governments of countries each to themselves, there should be administrations of each country in terms of allocation of resources, monitoring income and outgo, and the like. One common pot from which to fund vital services and infrastructure, so no matter where you are, you have health care, safe and clean food and water, services like telephone and television. Imagine if EVERY NATION worked TOGETHER to create a cooperative world, each country unique but united in the goals of peace and quality of life. We COULD actually do this. Perhaps one country has more of a certain resource; that’s OK, another country has more of another. That’s the basis for cooperative equal trade. 

We may have come a long way. But in very many ways we’ve not come far at all, and we’ve still got a very long way to go. We CAN do this, but the time to begin is NOW.