The �f� word
Today I read this. That is my sister�s diary, she really breaks me heart. My mother�s relatives (I will not use the �f� word to describe them) have always a love/hate relationship with my sister and I. They love me, and hate her. It has always been this way for as long as I can remember, and I remember back to when we took her home from the hospital.
It kills them that I will not be attending the party mentioned in my sister�s diary, and that I have not been a part of their �family� for more than two years. They call on my birthday and send cards; I do not answer their calls or open their letters. They actually call on my sister�s birthday and send cards that arrive on that date as well, but that is immaterial. I am only impressed with their ability to time what they mail so it arrives on the day they wish it. They have never contacted her on a holiday or birthday.
My sister is many things to me. We did not always get along growing up, and she spent most of her time as my nemesis rather than my mentor or friend. However poorly we get along, she is always someone that I will fiercely protect.
There was a falling out between my sister and my mother�s relatives in which people behaved in an inexcusable way. My faith compels forgiveness of this, but forgiveness does not cause amnesia, amnesia is dangerous. My sister was not (completely) right in this falling out, she knows this, but they were completely wrong in what they said and did. While I can forgive their human weaknesses I can never also never allow them to be a part of my life again, or hers.
Before you feel bad for some sweet, white haired old lady, realize that she is none of those things. I feel bad for anyone whose heart is that beset with grief, hatred, and malice. Her life was hard, she endured many things growing up, but that taught me one thing: the mark of character is overcoming adversity not succumbing to it. No matter how hard you feel your life is, you are never licensed to make life hard on other people.
My attitude causes problems. A misunderstanding of Christian Dogma leads people to believe that if I had forgiven them I would also forget what happened, and what happened would no longer pain me. Martin Luther wrote that forgiveness is sometimes a daily process; that the pain sometime does not go away. Dr. Paul Vasconcellos taught that while we are to turn the other cheek, we could also duck. As Christians, we will be oppressed but we do not have to put ourselves in situations where we, or other people in our charge, will be mistreated. It is also one thing to be mistreated for your faith and another to be mistreated for other reasons.
It has also caused problems between my Mother and I, as she has tried to keep a small relationship with her parents, which I do not begrudge her. This is a difficult situation to be in: stuck between your children and your parents. She sides with her daughter; she however realizes that her parents are old, stupid, and mean. They are still her parents and she still has some responsibility to them. It causes problems between my father and I as he seeks to support his children and his wife, thinking that I am not okay with him forgiving people. I am fine with things, I just do not want these people in my life and it get hairy when they try to reconcile everything between my mother�s relatives and I. There is no reconciliation.
What they did exposes a great flaw in character, and their complete lack of remorse for what they did. Recidivism is high among abusers; they will always act like this. Even if they were to change, and I believe God can change people, they can do that without me being the vessel for that change. For years I did try to foster a positive relationship between my sister and my mother�s relatives. Someone else can try now; they are not worth it to me.
The hardest part of the ugliness, at least for me, is that it has nothing to do with my sister. They were being ugly to my sister, and admit this, because they never liked my father. My father�s sin is being smarter and more successful than they were at the time or ever will be. He was also not at the time of my parents rich or Jewish enough.
Later in life, my sister�s problem was being resented. My Grandmother resents my sister�s opportunities and her worldview. My sister went to University, speaks several languages, plays many instruments, has traveled and worst of all, went to High School in a convent run by (gasp) Nuns. My sister has the (apparently offensive) social conscience of a good Roman Catholic.
I was always used to abuse my sister. I am the one they liked and I was the person you were compared to if you were my sibling or cousin. You were never as good as I was; I was always better. This had no basis in reality however because no one on my mother�s relatives ever got to know me, they only built up their own version of me to use as a tool of oppression. I grew up in Europe and went to school in the Midwest (to be far away from them). Subsequently, all these little people grew up resenting me and now are appalled that I would give up all that attention and material gain for my sister, who is held up as the example of how not to be a person.
However, the ugliness is one part hating my father, one part resenting my sister and the saddest part is yet to come. They did what they did to her to show off to their friends who had done a less harsh thing to their own granddaughter. They had to �one up� this family friend or lose face. Apparently, they had been having an �our granddaughter is worse than your granddaughter contest� and were dangerously close to losing � until they did what they did (and it is none of my business to repeat what).
This all comes back to what Cousin Daniel said: �Family is made up of the people who care about you and have a relationship with you, and you them. Relatives are just the people you are related to, being related to someone does not make them family or imply a reason for a relationship.� I cannot use the �f� word on those people, my mother�s relatives, because �family� implies a great many things that are lacking from our relationship with them, that I will am no longer willing to give.
