My sister called

I was so so happy this afternoon. My sister finally called me out of the blue. I had gone out to the library to collect a volume of poetry by Maya Angelou I ordered in and the call came through just as I got back the car. Often I don’t take the phone with me but leave it at home.

She told me she was feeling quiet tired. I told her how the coastal air always makes your energy relax but contemplating it I realise the tiredness could also be grief. After all this is the place we so often went in later years with Mum before she died and my sister has memories of happy times there with my Dad in the final years before he died, being pregnant with one of her two sons. I remember it was said that if you held a wedding ring on a piece of string and dangled it over the Mum’s tummy above the baby the direction it swung would tell the sex (this was in the days before sex could be known prior to birth) and I recall it was my father who did this.

I realise lately how self centred my own perspective and longings can be at times. I often say to my therapist Kat, aren’t I rather narcissistic myself? (Positive healthy narcissism though is needed for a degree of emotional and spiritual health!) Kat always says to me that all of us are somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism. But the truth is if I am asking this question I am probably not at the high end of the spectrum. Not that it matters I guess. No one gets out of here alive. No one is perfect and its natural to see things from our own perspective. The major point is how open are we really to trying to look at things from another person’s.

When my sister makes the effort to reach out I feel the upset and wound inside me settling. I will try to tell her one day how much I long to be close and even though we have clashed in the past, for what is left of our lives I would like us to try our best to be there for each other. Regardless of what happens it was just so lovely to get that call from my sister this afternoon. It really really made my day. 🙂