Brothers and Sisters
August 25, 2007
The other day commenter Red Anne Vane asked:
A question for other Motherless posters here: what kind of relationship do you have with your siblings? Because I have next to none with my two sisters; we all live several hundred miles distant and aside from commonplaces I have no idea what to say to either of them. It would be like old Gulag survivors getting together to talk about their days in prison, and who wants to relive that?
It’s different for everyone, I’m sure. My brother and I are close, always have been. We huddled together when my mother and step-father fought, hoping not to be caught in the crossfire, but he was always one step away from trying to intervene. He was only 7 when they married, and I think he wished he was bigger and stronger so he could save our mother from the fighting.
He was only 7 though. At that age, he saw things as black and white. He didn’t see her as the instigator, as she walked by step-father’s chair and smacked him in the head, after egging him on verbally since they walked in the door after work. I’m not saying step-father was justified in hitting her, but she often hit him first, she had a barbed tongue and believe me, she was enough to drive Ghandi crazy I’m sure. I doubt this man hit women at all before she met him, but who knows? We barely knew him.
Since my brother and I were separated by my leaving home at 14, I’d always felt like I had abandoned him. He, on the other hand, felt it his duty to stand up for our mother and at 11, had no choice but to go with them when they moved far away from me. The dedication and love he must have held for her was only so strong though and when step-father beat the shit out of him on the Christmas Eve of his 15th year, he was kicked out of the house and our mother did not save him from that.
My brother phoned me, 2 months later. He had been living on the streets of a major Canadian city, and I was living with my grandparents. The phone rang in the middle of dinner and my grandfather’s side of the conversation was short, but reassuring. They would send him a plane ticket and save him from the raw and cold streets. I was overjoyed and spoke to him briefly.
The last time he saw our mother, she had lied to step-father and went to the airport to say goodbye to her only son. As he hugged her, he whispered in her ear; “You chose him over your own kids,” and walked away. I can’t imagine what that did to her, but what it did for him must have been powerful. I have no idea how he feels about those moments.
When he arrived, all his possessions were in one bag. He was skinny, gaunt and was so relieved and excited to have a chance at a normal life again. I dare say, he was broken but willing to do whatever it took to become a man.
My Granny recalled a moment she had with him, last time I visited her. It brings tears to my eyes to write this now.
She said she knocked on his bedroom door and found him sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapping duct tape around his sneaker. When she asked what he was doing, he said that the shoes had holes and he was fixing them.
My grandparents have worked hard all their lives and have saved to get to where they are now. They always taught us that if you take care of what you have, and keep things clean, things can last a lot longer that way. I’m sure when their kids were small, they made things stretch a lot further, but my brother taping his sneakers was too much for my Granny. She took him to get new shoes and clothes right away.
An aside: Granny made my brother a framed pair of sneakers in paper tole last Christmas and relayed the story to him. It’s a reminder to him of how proud she is on how he turned out, and how far he has come. We all are so proud of him.
As for my brother now, we don’t ever speak about our mother. We don’t even recall our childhood that often unless it’s something funny or heartwarming that we shared, like notes passed through the apartment radiators long after we were in bed, or friends we shared growing up. There’s no mention of our mother.
It’s not like the “elephant in the room” either. The thing is, we’ve both dealt in separate ways, and the here and now is what is important. We’re both happy, successful people with good, healthy relationships with our significant others. Daren and I are still very much in love and raising our two boys in a very different way than how my brother and I were raised, and my brother is getting married soon and hopes to follow my lead in raising children in a home filled with love, laughter and good communication.
All I hope is that when he does have kids, that those painful memories don’t consume him. Having kids made me so very conscious of every move, every decision, that as much as I enjoy being a mother, sometimes I wonder what I would have been like if no one had shown me the right way, like my grandparents.
So if you are a part of “The Parentless,” how is your relationship with your siblings? Feel free to write in the comments, or if you want to write a post here or at your own blog, please email me if you’d like to share it.
August 25th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I’m so glad your grandparents were there for you. I think of all the people who have been saved by one good adult in their lives, whether a grandparent, older sibling, aunt, uncle, neighbor, caring teacher, etc.
August 25th, 2007 at 10:07 am
I think it’s wonderful that you and your brother are close.
While I wouldn’t exactly characterize my brother and I as fellow Gulag survivors, despite a shared (difficult) history we barely know each other.
August 25th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
just..wow. What an story. I amso hapy you and your brother were not seperated permanatly!
August 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I am glad that you and your brother survived and still have a close relationship. I grew up in a loving home and thank God every day for my parents. My sister and I are very close and share our secrets andreams together to this day. I would not change a thing in our relationship and love her greatly.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
What a powerful story. I’m glad that you and your brother are close. My brother is my best friend. Not that we don’t have parents, we do. But through all the crap that did happen, we always had each other.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I am really glad that you and brother have a great relationship and stuck it out together.
I was really touched by the Parentless posts here. I have a mother, but not really due to abuse and certain choices in her life. So I mourn the mother that I never had but wished I did.
I don’t really have a relationship with my sister. My mother fueled the fued between us for so many years that we have trouble relating to each other. My mother would constantly turn us against each other and never stopping the conflict. As a result my mother, sister and I are completely polarlized from eachother. Three points on a trianble that never meet, but are related.
My sister and I are so different in beliefs that is hard to find common ground. Especially when each of us insists on our own version of the past. She left the house when she was 14 and I was 8 because she did not want to deal with the abuse in the home. I didn’t have a choice to run away, I was only 8. In 1984 it didn’t even occur to me to tell someone. Since other family members knew and didn’t act, I thought it was accepted.
My sister since then has tried to step in and be big sisterly since she turned twenty which has caused a lot of conflict. I needed her when I was eight, not now as a fully functioning adult. She does not respect me as an adult and insists on treating me like a child. And as I am a married woman with a three year old, career, and my own life, you can see where we smash heads against each other.
Since it is my sisters way or the highway, it makes it difficult to be around her or maintain a relationship with my sister. And I refuse to be talked down to and disrespected so as a result, we have agreed not to be around each other.
When we have a second child, I hope that I can help foster a strong relationship between my son and second child. It is something that I didn’t have that I hope very much for my son. But I want to foster a healthy relationship between them, built on respect.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
My brother and I are six years apart. After our mother died, we had to begin a relationship. I was married and living out of state while he was in high school and then in college. Our mom was the center of the entire family. Once she was gone it was as if we all scattered. As the five year mark approaches, I can say that we have formed an alliance. It’s our dad that we are still trying to figure out.
September 1st, 2007 at 12:25 am
Great story about your family… your brother’s early devotion and later understanding… your grandparents strength.
How, as a true parentless now, (and as an abuse survivor by my parents)is my relationship with my sibs?
It barely exists. I email them every couple months to let them know what’s up with me. One brother and one sister-in-law email back. The SIL I hate. I last saw them at a funeral and will likely next see them at a funeral. Unless it’s mine (they wouldn’t fly out here for it).
September 1st, 2007 at 12:47 am
(This is Colleen, aka Peri)
First of all - thank you to everyone who made supporitive comments on my ‘Cold’ post. I was unsure if my non-violent story exactly qualified as a valid entry. I still don’t understand how love of our god can go so wrong but I’m very happy to know that I’m not alone in how I feel about one who thinks she has found all the answers.
I don’t think that what happened to me comes anywhere near the little girl who watched her brother kill a drunk on the railroad tracks. That still makes me sick, as do the other stories here of real abuse.
I do want to mention my brother, though. He acknowledges to me that it was unpleasant in our house. He says “I just kept my head down while they were yelling at you.” He sees her regularily and doesn’t encourage my comments. He’s a good family man. I respect that. I don’t need him to say that she was/is an insane nut, I know she was/is. I hope his relationship with her is better than mine; it must be or he wouldn’t go there.
September 1st, 2007 at 1:25 am
Oh jeez - I forgot to say that I like my brother very much. It’s just that it’s a pretty superficial relationship. Just like all of mine are. Even the one I have with my daughter, god help me.
…..
There it is. My greatest shame. I can’t spontaneously touch my daughter…I have to actively remind myself to hug her because I don’t actually touch anybody, ever. I hate physical contact with anyone outside of my baby girl; I like touching her but I can’t do it without thought very often.
My poor girl. I’m afraid she’s going to have the same opinion of her mother that I have of mine. A person incapable of showing love. I tell her and hug her every day as often as she’ll let me and I mean it. It just sounds so forced because my natural state is hands to myself and an impassive emotionless face.