I am the middle of three sisters. I have one older and one
younger. In total there was to be 8 of us, but 4 of us died in a car accident
in 1964 and another lost in utero as a result of that same accident an so there
are three of us living, of which, I am the middle.
Lately though it feels more like I am the elder because I am
the one that has to make heads or tails of certain situations for my mother. I
am the one that has to ensure her that my older sister’s lack of emotion is
nothing that was done to her and has everything to do with her self absorbed
narcissistic persona and to put things bluntly, it pisses me off.
When I was growing up I was the free wheeler. I was the one that
no one could ever quite figure out. I was the free spirit, the adventurous and
yes even the one that the family pegged as the irresponsible and the trouble
maker. I was (and still am) head strong and opinionated and if life was going
to be a disaster at the very least it was going to be a disaster of my own
doing. I might have been the one to make the messes, but those messes were on
my terms and done in my way.
Still, life has a way of making one grow up. Or perhaps I
should re-phrase that and say that life found a way of making “me” grow up.
I got pregnant and gave birth to a son who was 6 weeks early and this occurred
when I was just three months shy of my 19th birthday. That same son
fell ill with meningococcal meningitis and almost died when he was just 7 weeks
old.
In 1991, my third son fell ill and presented in the tonic state of a grand mal
seizure, was admitted into the Hospital for Sick Children in a coma, and was subsequently
diagnosed with a genetic/metabolic fatty acid oxidation disorder as was his 4
month old at the time brother.
I have been a druggie (in my youth), I have been homeless, I
have been and experienced a great many things in my life and if I was to weigh it upon scales the bad would probably outweigh the good, but I have never been
one much to wallow and so I don’t look at it that way.
Each thing, each experience, each up and each down has given me the gift of
learning. I have managed to take something away from each and every experience
in my life and make something out of it. I know more sorrows perhaps than many,
but never think myself as grandiose as to think my pain is any more important
or deeper than anyone else’s.
But I digress… back to my sisters…more specifically my elder
and how she has abandoned all semblance of sanity.
I don’t speak to my elder sister, I haven’t since April just
past because I can not condone or accept some of the choices she has made in
her life. I don’t begrudge her, her choices, it is just better for me this way.
I have always been of the mindset that if one cannot find something good to say
than it is truly better that they say nothing at all and that is exactly what I
have chosen to do. I do love my sister, I always will, but I don’t like the
person she has allowed herself to become and therefore things are better this
way.
But to shun the mother that raised us and fed us, loved us
and kept us? That is something that is unacceptable especially since that
mother, as well as my younger sister opened their home to her when she needed
it; Counseled her when her life was falling apart at the seams, fed her, gave
her a warm bed and a place to feel safe and loved. To have her forget that these
people, her family, even exist is like slapping my mother in the face. You can
do a great many things to me and you might get away with them, insult or hurt
my mother and you and I are going to have a problem.
Trying to make my mother understand that it is nothing that
she’s done or not done that makes my sister act the way she acts is a hard act.
To try and tell my mother that her eldest living daughter has abandoned any and
all of the morals she was brought up with, to try to make my mother understand
that my older sister isn’t operating with all her pistons firing, is not an
easy thing to do. To try and explain narcissism to my 71 year old mother isn’t
an easy sell, but I’m trying. To try and tell my mother that my elder sister is
a co-dependant, lolly-gagging waif isn’t an easy thing to do, to tell her that
she doesn’t know the person she birthed because my sister has given up every
ounce of who she used to be to suit a family that couldn’t care less about
whether she lived or died is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do,
but I have brought the cards to the table and my mother is holding them close
to her chest.
Is it selfishness or mental illness that makes my elder
sister do the things she does? I don’t know, perhaps it’s both, all I know is
that I went from being the one whose future was up in the air, to the one whose
shoulders seem to be never ending and if I do find myself in the same space as
my elder sister in the near future she might just end up with a slap in the
face.
You only get one mother, and if that mother has done nothing
to deserve being shut out, why treat her like she’s the enemy?
There is going to be quite the show when my mother’s time to pass comes along.
Elder sister in all her narcissistic glory will come sweeping in from God knows
where and act like she has all of the answers about what it is that mother
wants. She will ride in like a windstorm and try to snatch the control and make
it the all about her show, but what she doesn’t know is that younger sister and
I have talked about it, we both are enraged at the poor treatment shown our
mother and those who have done mom wrong simply will not be welcomed to see her
off into the next life.
Yes, I love both of my sisters, but there is only one that I
like….