So, it’s been a trying time. Mum had been having TIA’s and kept them quiet. She finally went to the doctor and within days was told she was at very high risk of a major stroke. In under 2 weeks, she was rushed in for an operation. That was 6 weeks ago and Mum stayed with me for a month. Lying about the last TIA before the op ended up causing my son and I a great deal of stress and was the last thing he needed with exams upon him. He cracked spectacularly 2 weeks ago; I had seen it coming but it was more terrible than I had imagined. It had had a tremendously bad effect on his mocks. All looked bleak and lost in that moment. He became just like his Dad and there was simply no getting through to him. That man is not an example to follow, no model of how a man should be by any stretch of the mark and I said as much the next day. An apology is words and those words are always welcome, but an apology backed with change is what really means something. His Dad was and is barely about the words and has never changed. My son utterly despises him. “Watch you don’t become him – or like your Aunty.” is what I said…
To say Mum’s illness came out of the blue is an understatement. To say it revealed my sister’s full and ugly nature is also an understatement. She chose that time, when it was highly likely Mum could either die or be paralysed and unrecognisable, to offload a year’s worth of poison. I opened the door to her nonsense because I got defensive about a particularly nasty comment and could not let it ride. Still, it taught me something:
When you’ve tried over and over to reach someone and they just don’t want to hear you, turn your back, shake the dust off your feet and walk away.
So this is what I’ve done. I no longer have a sister. Moreover, she no longer has me. The loss is entirely hers. I never had anything in particular to gain from trying “to be all peaceable like” with her. For most of her life she has brought me and others, nothing but grief. She could not even be civil while our Mum was going through one of the scariest periods of her life.
So many of my friends wonder at her anger and why she is so bloody pissed off at me, the wronged one?! After all, she got a house and garden, the daughter I longed for, my ex-husband… What’s the problem? Who bloody knows… According to one of my friends, she and her ex no longer have a hold over me and that lack of control has made them both nuts and they despise me with a passion, bordering on the psychotic in my “sister’s” case. I am not joking. She really did and still does think she can call the shots and doesn’t like to be told no or reminded of her failings – well nobody does, do they? She however is sitting inside a glass house and has no right to literally dictate to anybody! She tried to dictate to my son a few months ago after ruining his Christmas and then again to me a few weeks ago. Bollocks to that, love. Those days are long done.She is still pissed off about a dinner for our Mum that I did not plan but is convinced I did in order to spite her. For that, I am “dead to her” and should “stay the fuck out of (her) life”. Really? If anything, it ought to be the other way around and I wasn’t actually in her life nor wanting to be. I was just trying to get things on a better footing and not just for the sake of civility but because we are supposed to be sisters.
She holds onto grudges like The Tower of London holds on to the Queen’s jewels according to a cousin of mine. How true that is and how shite that must be for her. She has barely contained rage coursing through her veins whenever I am near. Me? Calm as fuck because I am calm as fuck. I dealt with my demons with respect to our sorry story; she needs to deal with hers and stop trying to blame me for how she feels/how she claims others feel because I finally put my son and I first (and which I do without malice).
My son turns 18 soon. He can’t wait and I suspect he may run a little wild and loose over time and take this whole “I’m adult” thing to it’s fullest however, “My house, my rules” still apply! He’s off to Uni before too long and I am happy for him to spread his wings and really embrace change. I will not be a grieving Mum, crying over baby photos and old toys, wondering why my boy has gone.
I can’t wait to watch him move through this next phase.
Drops of Sanity 