We have a lovely family friend my sister and I who was close to my Mum for many years and worked for my Dad years ago. (Dad passed in 1985) She also knows my brother and today we took Betty out for lunch for her birthday. I saw this as a great sign as my sister suggested it even though she said deep in her heart she didn’t want to go, she seemed to brighten when Betty accepted..
Driving home Betty gave me a great insight into my Dad and Mum, she said to me “you know, Deb your Mum and Dad lived very different lives, your Dad spent all of his time in the office where he only dealt with a few people, he was serious, reserved and shy. (He also saw my older brother every day, they were together in design construction for about 10 years) but your Mum was far more outgoing, she saw so many people in the shops and was so loved” This gave an insight into how open my Mum was despite the shyness of being an only child and that she could express her feelings even if she stormed a lot.. Thinking about it my sister who struggles now a lot with anxiety and depression and inner criticism is a lot like my Dad, though in her perfectionism, more like Mum. Dad wasn’t a perfectionist but a naturalist, he loved his garden too but he internalised so much, so much I felt that lay hidden and unspoken within him and he did not demonstrate emotions at all. Rarely, if ever, cuddled or hugged us.. until he got his death sentence…
This helped in some way today and was a gift.. Now that I feel myself coming alive I feel sometimes around my sister I am being too light and happy and on the surface.. I told my therapist this this afternoon.. I said I get a lot of anxiety around my sister as so often I would get a scowl or sneer for expressing feelings. When I cried so much at my Godfather’s funeral she actually told me to stop making an exhibition of myself, as I cuddled and hugged his grandson.. but at this stage and 11 years sober I was still releasing trapped feelings around my Dad’s death in 1985 and my Godfather Piet gave me more love than Dad having been in my life until 2004. I still miss him as he always affirmed me.. he really saw me. Why wouldn’t I cry a lot?
I woke in a bit of a rage with my sister this morning at 3 am. I thought of how Katina gave the expression ‘pussy bum mouth’ to the kind of look Mum and Sue would give someone who did not keep themselves ‘in check.’ And yet all of this anxiety around mess, the need to be understated, to not draw attention to oneself lay back in the neglect of my Mum’s childhood too and Mum loved to dance and often if you caught her by surprise at her unit she had the Bee Gees or Frank Sinatra on blaring away and she may even be dancing.
Today I still feel anxiety for being happy and alive.. I learned too long to live in sorrow but I only know that when I let the sorrow free it also tells me most of what is important to me.. And even as I write that about my sister I feel a bit mean.. I saw her coming to life for the first part of the year but then she killed herself off again.. It hurt so much to see it happen and God knows if I could save her I would but the truth is I cannot I can only love her..
My feelings of rage show my desire to be loved by her.. For her not to have shamed me for dancing and being open, for her not to have admonished me for crying as her bridesmaid at her wedding because I knew she would be leaving home and leaving me all alone with Mum and Dad. That said I need to let myself be that lose and free even if it fills me at times with so much unbearable anxiety..
Can I forgive my sister?. Yes but I cannot forget the hurt of it all and of her saying behind my back to my nephews I loved I was jealous of her.. a foot injury followed on that for me in 2014. .. I love her I always needed her love.. I would have bent myself into any shape to not be so alone and be loved.. Does she love me, I think so but maybe as the younger sister I was also a pain to her.. I don’t know but as guilty as I feel for feeling that anger I also know deep inside my soul it is liberating too.
Last night I had the best ever Mars moving forward dream. In the dream close to where I was standing a car pulled up and out of it walked my older sister Judith who was so badly disabled in her final years and from the age of 34 following the cerebral bleed, she was walking in the dream with bandages on and so happy. . “Look at me,” she said I have a therapist now and she is helping me to walk and taking me swimming.” Wow.. yes I am upright more now than paralysed too… slowly slowly I am regaining my will, desire and passion to be alive it can only come if I allow those inner fires to rage for a while for I no longer want to be fearing coming fully alive.
Emerging From The Dark Night 