ANSWERS ARE WHAT WE HAVE TO OTHER PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS
I wrote a Christmas card to my sister. Well, all right, I SENT a Christmas card with a very long letter inside to my sister. My sister and I are not talking. We haven’t talked since May. We have a history of this…not talking.
A long time ago, I was the family mediator. It was my sister and the rest of the family. Parents, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, distant cousins thrice removed. It didn’t matter; K had to have someone to be mad at. And mad enough not to talk to them for month to years at a time. The last drought was my mother and it was five years long.
K has a tendency to lean towards the dramatic. Even as a child, she was always performing. When nobody paid attention any longer(which she blames totally on the birth of my brother), she concocted someone to be mad at.
She decided to go into her act at my father’s funeral. First it started out drinking a little too early and a little heavily. By the evening, she had evolved into a great storyteller. Stories of my mother abusing her and, according to my sister, enjoying the torment. Stories of my frail '99-lbs-when-wet' mother sitting atop of my 5’10” sister and pummeling her with her bony fists and stories of other abusive episodes were captivating yet repulsive to visiting relatives. [Some we have not heard from since].The events were not vague but exact. Each detail seemed as if it had happen five minutes ago. Unfortunately, for K, they happened in front of eye witnesses…my brother and myself.
My brother learned a long time ago to turn a blind eye and ear to K’s rantings. But me…well I’m too much of my mother’s daughter. I don’t know when to shut up. And this time was no exception. It was like the great debate. For every strike against my mother; I countered. For every word spoken, I would send a rebuttal. She finally collapsed on her bed and into another Vodka induced sleep. I not saying that my mother was not without her own nasty background. My mother's attribute to the family dysfunctionality was more verbal than physical. In fact, both sister and I outweighed and tower over my mother and we have since jr. high school. My mother like all mothers made a great deal of mistakes but none that warrant what she and others receive at the hands of K.
That was 12 years ago this January 1 and K has already geared herself for another battle. She has since ‘forgave’ my mother. My mother just sighs and doesn’t say anything. In my mother’s last few years(she has multiple cancers) I think she is just happy that K talks to her again. Their war has waged since K was a child. I think K has always blamed my brother and I due to our births for taking away her happiness.
Now the newest battle is warring upon me. I made the mistake about six years ago getting involved in a book with K. She put it on a shelf after the first year and, no matter how hard I tried, she kept it on that shelf. Then my mother told her that I was a published author. I think K saw dollar signs.
She asked if we couldn’t rejoin forces once again. And I was more than willing. The manuscript was really good and my sister is a very creative and artistic person. An excellent painter but she has the habit of not following through on anything that she begins. I knew I could get her there. I knew this would be ‘the thing’ that would turn her around. I was wrong.
The manuscript had traveled back and forth from NYC to Texas. The last trip was after I returned from visiting her in February. I emailed the manuscript with the normal edits that we had done in the past. She read it; she emailed me. Everything was going along well. Or I thought it was.
A short weeks last, she exploded in what has become her normal bout of fury. I was cursed and I was damned. I made the error of stating that I had no hard feelings and she could take the manuscript and run with it. Then she decided that the manuscript was more important than I was. That was last May.
I figure she has had enough time to hate me forever and if you cannot make amends during this time of year, when can you? By the way, K is Bipolar. It is undiagnosed officially but I have had ‘friends’ meet her who are “in the biz”. She was diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADD when she was in high school but K always refused to be medicated. As the years go by(she’s over 50) the symptoms get worse as well. I miss my sister. I fear one day she won’t talk to me at all or she won’t remember me at all. My girls miss her too and I don’t have the heart to tell them the truth. I hope one day her husband will convince her to talk to me. I’m thankful she still talks to our mother although my brother still keeps a wide berth from K. And my mother has no idea that my sister and I are not speaking. She(my mother) has enough on her plate.
So my seasonal present to you all is memory. Remember those you have fought with and why. Then remember only the good things that made you love them in the first place and forgive. Henny Youngman once said, “Answers are what we have for other people’s problems.” Time never stands still and sometimes it just gets worse because you have ALL those memories to deal with no time for redemption. I would like to drag ol’ Henny out by his toes and ask him if answers are for other people’s problems then where in hell are the answers to mine?
aviv | 
to ya sweetie.