calling the kettle black

 
For most of her married life, my sister-in-law, Kerry, has lambasted my family for burying our heads in the sand when it came to addressing difficult issues, rather than facing them head on, as she would.  HA!  In looking over the cache of letters, there it is, time after time - Kerry noting moments that she took issue with me BUT hadn't brought it up.  Time after time, she wrorte to Mom about things that I did that disturbed her, things she never brought up to me.  She saved that for the one time that it was absolute balderdash, a time where I simply hadn't done what she kept insisting that I had, something that MOM had done, but couldn't admit because she couldn't remember doing it (which was how she responded if she did something that turned out badly).   All those years of churning unhappiness with me came spilling out.  

Kerry's feelings about me are in line with what I felt from the rest of my sibs, even from some of their children.  So, it's helpful to review just what she did experience from me, what came across as given to fits of fury & psychotic behavior.  She shared numerous times when my behavior alarmed her, although she spoke not a word.

 

Must confess to a sense of disbelief reading over the examples Kerry gave in one letter of situations where I acted from a fury of temper, where she said nothing:

• Mum, remember when Elsa flew into a rage & started banging her head over & over against the living room wall over some long-forgotten thing.  Yes, I did this.  And, yes, no one said a word.  Not a peep.  I was emotionally unraveling  & no one, except John, said anything. 

• Do you remember the time when she screamed at Peter over carving the Christmas turkey and flew outside into the freezing cold to cool down and we all pretended nothing happened?  A quick online search came up with 70,000,000 separate sites dealing with "surviving the family holiday" - flare ups over stupid stuff, like proper carving, are as predictable as cranberry sauce.  And running outside to cool down - isn't that the reverse of caving into fury?

 

• Were you with Elsa & Scott in the car in California when she lost her temper with him & wanted to abandon him on the expressway?  That's right, leave him right there & drive off without him.  This is the most amazing of Kerry's examples.  First of all, what mother has a child tell her his aunt wanted to dump him off at the side of an expressway & doesn't call up said aunt to ream her out?  I would!  Kerry didn't.  But she sure remembered.  Had she talked to me about it, would have pointed out it wasn't just "in California" - I was driving, for the first time, in San Francisco.  SAN FRANCISO!  Driving a cousin's car.  With Scott making snarky comments when I accidentally got onto the expressway.  By the way, I threatened - you bet I did! - but didn't DO it.

 

• What about the time that you were staying with us in Australia and she gave you an earful over the phone when she wanted to live apart from you and when I invited you to live the rest of your life with us.  Hullo - I was in my mid-30s, still living with Mom because Peter's investing had lost all the money Dad left her  & she couldn't afford to live on her own & no one in the family was helping out financially except for me. Kerry found it irrational of me to want to have my own place. That speaks for itself.  I begged Mom to take up Kerry & Mike on their invitation.  She'd have none of it. 

Kerry closed that section with, "Goodness, Mum, this has been a long-standing issue, even if YOU choose to dismiss what I am saying.  If Elsa is prepared to seek some professional help, she will be much happier & so will everyone else sharing their lives with her."


Had she asked - which she never did - I would have told Kerry about seeking counseling from both ministers & mental health professionals. 

I talked to both Willard Pendleton & Willard Heinrichs about my challenges & both men - several years apart - offered the same advise:  leave home, get a place of your own, a life of your own.

Not only did I seek professional counseling, at times Mom & I sought it together, seeing Mark Carlson & then Kevyn Malloy.   

I don't doubt that Kerry experienced me as rude.  I take after Dad, a straight shooter who called things as he saw them.  She didn't get along with him, either.  Being a straight shooter is probably what's made me persona non exista within my family.  For who knows what reason, looking things in the eye, facing them, identifying & working to resolve them was unacceptable.  Was scary.  

When Kerry talked, over & over, about the importance of speaking up, I believed her.  Yet, from her own letters, can see it was something she shrank away from herself, at least with me.  It's clear that I drove her up a tree, but I hadn't any idea.  Not until June 1997.

The late 1990s were an amazing time, filled with fresh insight & new personal discovery for me & even more so for Mom.  We came closer together, although I always was sort of scary to her, even in her last days.  With Mim & Peter, she never had to worry about anyone bringing up anything unintentionally alarming.  We never reached the sort of mother-daughter relationship that's blessed many of my friends, but over those last years we became friends who respected the other.  A beautiful coda to a troubled relationship.  

Talk about rude.  Kerry & Mike rebuffed every effort to get together with them when they were here for his 40th high school reunion, which was also when we had Mom's memorial tribute & celebration.  Same thing when they visited a couple years later.  Praise be, the last time Mike came, for his 50th reunion, he was solo, so we got in some good visits.  When Mim died in July, when we posted her memorial tribute online - not a direct word from either one of them.  Now, in my book, THAT is rude.