A memoir--forgiving the unforgivable, my sister

My older sister, and only sibling, Lynda, who had as much influence on me as each one of my parents, was like a hawthorn tree with pretty flowers, but more significant for me, were her thorns. Though she was, I never got the chance to see my sister as pretty.

The hawthorn’s thorns are really small razor-tipped branches, one to three inches long, that arise from other branches, or from its trunk.  My sister’s thorns definitely arose from her core. And what I remember most about her were her many barbs to my personhood, which cut to my very soul.

Folklore has it that the hawthorn tree was the source of Jesus’s crown of thorns. Through her many acts of crucifying me, Lynda helped to shape me into who I believed I was required to be--a martyr. It was from her that I picked up the habit of playing the victim later in my life and the habit of not feeling that people liked me.

She was three and a half years old when I was born into the family; she said that she wasn’t allowed to hold me when I was a baby. I imagine my mother sensing, even then, that she could do me harm.

Through all our years together, I do not remember my sister ever playing with me or talking to me or any feeling of love, acceptance, or validation from her.

The only childhood game that I remember playing with Lynda was “who could push whom off the bed” that I shared with her once I reached the age of two. The larger and older by nearly four years, she would always win that “game,” pushing, pushing, pushing me with her long strong legs until I fell hard onto the wooden floor.

All of her life, my sister Lynda pushed me away . . . fast forward about a dozen years, when Lynda went off to college at the University of Kentucky, Mom, Dad, and I drove her to her dorm on campus. I was 14 years old at the time, just starting high school that same month. We were all so proud of Lynda's going off to college! When I went up to hug her good-bye, she literally pushed me away. Stunned and deeply hurt, I walked to the car in a shock of confusion. Though there was usually little to no affection between us, there had been nothing between us that led to such complete rejection. But now I realize, that’s just it, there had been “nothing between us.”

My sister Lynda and me at ages 8 and 4. Isn't that a great Santa Clause?

Now go back to my being about three years old. I recall only one other childhood “game” that my sister Lynda and I played--but this one only once. It was after dinner, and to save on water and electricity, the two of us were in the bathtub together. As I said, I must have been about three years old, and Lynda was almost seven. We were playing in the lukewarm water as children are apt to do.

Suddenly in a playful tone, Lynda got my attention, “Laura, go under water and stay there until I tell you to come up!” “Okay.” As usual, I did what my big sister told me to do. As I scrunched down until my little head and face sunk below the surface of the soap-cloudy water, I could hear Lynda calling loudly to our parents, “Laura’s drowned!  Laura‘s drowned!”  I thought, “What a funny trick!”

Frantically our parents ran into the small yellow and white tiled bathroom, observing me still under the water. Then I ran out of breath and popped up, giggling, but I knew immediately from the looks on their faces that this game was not funny to them.  My father’s voice boomed, “What the hell are you girls up to in here!” and as usual, my mother began to cry.

Lynda and I were both instantly jerked out of the tub. I stared in confusion as my father took off his belt. We were spanked on our wet, naked butts that night. The tension felt suffocating to me; it made my heart hurt because I had disappointed my parents. We didn’t speak as we pulled our pajamas over our still stinging butts and climbed into bed, sleeping on our stomachs.

As was typical in my family, we never spoke of the incident. I now feel that my sister wanted to kill me that night. Since she couldn’t do it literally, she would do it another way--by spending the rest of our years together trying to drown the essence of who I was.