Family Matters

On Friday February 14, 2003 at 2:30 AM my dying brother's daughter called my brother Mike to tell him that our brother Jim was in the hospital and that he wasn't expected to live much longer. I don't know if my nieces asked Mike to call me but I don't hold them responsible nor do I blame Jan. I do know that Mike was with Jim for several hours because Mike told me this and he went on to say that Jim was able to communicate quite lucidly at times. So we have fourteen hours before Jim died where Mike could have phoned me and he didn't. Actually, Mike wasn't with Jim when he died at 5:00 PM because Mike had to lah_dee_dah his way home to take a shower without a thought about calling me while on his way home. Mike clearly made the decision that I didn't need to know that my brother was in the process of dying, and he must have felt that I didn't need to be with Jim. I can only assume that Mike's decision came from his cold heart and because of his negative feelings about me he probably believed that Jim had no need or desire to be with his sister as he was exiting earth.

Following the news that Jim had died I was left with the feeling that my feelings were again deleted, if they ever did exist in Mike's mind & heart. I believe that this wasn't an oversight and that this isn't about a brother who was too distraught to think about picking up his cell phone to make a call to his sister. No, this has been going on for a very long time. My best friend told me that Jim knew how I felt but I don't know what Jim knew and I will never know what Jim was thinking when he was dying, what thoughts were going through his mind as to why I wasn't there because I WAS NOT GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE WITH OUR DYING BROTHER!

Meanwhile I received phone calls from 'family' telling me what I should and shouldn't feel about Mike not calling me. I had spent months working on growing, making healthy choices and changes and again many of my sick family members came back into my life bringing with them their poisonous dysfunction. I didn't attend Jim's funeral...why would I want to be with people who have no respect for me, those who see me as having the problem? Ah but they're all healthy, they have no issues because in their minds I have them all.

Sunday morning I was in despair and when I attempted to write about this in my journal I looked at the empty space and it all seemed futile to me, I had no words to express what I felt at that moment. I went upstairs fell on my bed and I sobbed for hours. I felt a deep primal despair, an intense pain and aloneness. And I felt to my core the reality that there would never be a family for me and there never was a family for me. Any illusions I had of ever having a family are gone and I know that I needed to look at the truth -- although I knew the truth but never to such an extent. So my endless longing in my heart for the family I never had and never will, is gone forever. Good for me!

Family History

Excerpt from Photo Synthesis
(written 2000)

Another funeral. My family will reunite and this is how we have family reunions in our family. Most of us would only be caught dead in the same room together and this is when one of us has died. We are estranged; looking at us you'll see the negatives of photographs. Brothers, Ken, Jim, Mike. Mike is the youngest. Mike doesn't like me because I'm too sensitive & he thinks I'm crazy. I won't talk with my oldest brother Ken an addict who steals money from his mother. Jim the second oldest doesn't want me in his life, from Jim you won’t get much empathy. Mike won’t talk to Ken and Ken won’t talk with Jim. We will gather to pay tribute to Danny. My mother will be there, her heart broken when she sees how estranged her children are. She seldom sees her role in this and when she does see her role she cries out her shame "I was a bad mother, a bad mother I blame myself for this."

ADDENDUM: While attending Danny's funeral an amazing thing occurred. Jim and I had a heart to heart talk and as a result we both agreed to let go of our resentments & misunderstandings and I believe that we forgave each other.

A few years later Jim called me from the hospital and told me that he was dying and had less than three months to live. When Jim was discharged from the hospital I went to see him in his home. We had a good visit, teased each other about little things we did when we were children. I asked Jim what kind of music he liked... he told me what Cd he really wanted and I bought the Cd by his favorite musician & brought it to him. A few days later Jim called me but wasn't home so he left a message on my voice mail thanking me for the Cd. He said that he loved listening to it, snd he left me these beautiful words. Sister I love you a bunch...I love you with all my heart and thank you again for the Cd. I'll talk with you later, goodbye. I could hear Jim crying when he was hanging up the phone... This was the first time Jim had ever told me that he loved me.

It's true that I had many problems and so did Mike but he didn't act out in the way I did and he cannot see that much of what I did came from the same reasons his problems came from. We were both abandoned; I was sent away and Mike was left with whoever mom could leave him with. I always had this deep sadness for what was done to Mike but then he always saw my being sent away as being my fault. He didn't see that mom and Russ had no room in their lives for children, he didn't see that my chronic truancy was the result of deep emotional trauma. His memories: I was a bad girl & he was a good boy. And in our adult lives everytime we have had an argument he's thrown the *crazy card* at me. Ironic... Mike once told me that one of his favorite movies was "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." But there's yet another problem... Mike is irony challenged.