One spring afternoon when I came home from my freshman year in high school, no one was home, and a neighbor informed me that my parents had gone to get my sister Lynda from college. No one would tell me what had happened. It was all a secret. Hush, hush. Don’t tell.
It took me months to piece together that Lynda had tried to commit suicide (had swallowed pills and had to have her stomach pumped) because she had not made it into a certain sorority. Later she admitted that she had taken the pills for attention, knowing that her stomach would be pumped. We also discovered that she had told people at her college that she was adopted and that her real father was a famous psychiatrist!
She returned to the same college the next fall, got pregnant, and got married, unbeknownst to us. Worry, tension, and arguments filled our house, but by now they were nothing new. When Lynda didn't come home as expected at the end of the spring term, my father had to call the campus police. They were the ones who told my father that Lynda had gotten married and left school. She had sent my parents a letter to tell them that she had gotten married, but the letter did not reach us until several days past the time for her to be home. Lynda would not admit to us that she was pregnant, but in November of that year, my niece Shelley was born. It was 1965, and I was 16 years old.
In this time, with my father's job, we had moved from Kentucky to Tennessee to North Carolina and on to Delaware. I attended four different high schools. By now, my parents argued constantly--mostly at night as I lay in bed trying to sleep. Sometimes even in public, in restaurants, their fighting would break out, and I would want to crawl under the table. My father came across as the more rageful of the two; he was certainly the louder, the one who lost his temper more quickly, the one who scared me the most. Lots of their fights were about my sister. They fought all through my high school years. I was glad to go far away to college--back to Tennessee.
The first time that I returned home to Delaware from college was Christmas of my freshman year. I shouldn’t have come home even then. My sister Lynda was back home with her two-year-old daughter, separated, depressed, and living with my parents. Christmas afternoon, as she and I were in the kitchen helping my mom prepare dinner, Lynda told her two-year-old to tell me that she hated me. I can still hear the little girl’s voice now, parroting her mother, “I hate you, Aunt Laura. I hate you, Aunt Laura. I hate you, Aunt Laura.” I knew that these were Lynda’s words, not the child’s, but this time I couldn’t take it anymore: I physically lit into my sister and began to strike her, saying, “Tell her to stop. Tell her to stop.” I think that I wanted to say to her, “Tell the abuse to stop--stop rejecting me. Stop hurting me!” I honestly don’t remember the rest of the holiday, but I do have a strong memory of its aftermath.
Returning to school, I suffered from severe insomnia. Worrying about my family, my grades dropped, but keeping the family rule about “always looking good in front of other people and not telling anyone what had happened,” I didn’t confide in any of my friends. Luckily for me, I had a kind psychology professor whom I trusted enough to confide in, and he told me the most freeing thing: that I didn’t have to go home for the summer.
And so began my journey away from my family--to independence, to solitude, to preferring to be alone. When I told my parents that I wasn’t coming home that summer, I don’t remember their being particularly upset or saying that “we are sorry," or "we shall miss you.” They must have been worn down dealing with Lynda and her toddler daughter and her drama. But my parents must have cared about me (or were doing their duty to me) because they came down and helped me settle into the YWCA in Nashville for the summer. A summer that I can recall in vivid detail--three months completely on my own at age 19.
At that point, I had become the hero child, and the loner, in the family. My new rule for myself was always to be good, not to make any waves. At the end of my sophomore year in college, I married the current man in my life and never went home to live again. I was just barely 20 years old. Daddy said that now I would never finish college. So I finished, getting my degree to teach high school English, even though later mom told me that through all my college years she had thought that I was going to be an elementary school teacher. That pretty much sums up how much my parents knew about me by then and how little we communicated about things that were important to me.
To conclude this saga about my sister, which began two blogs ago, suffice it to say that through our 20s and 30s, Lynda and I pretended to be normal sisters who cared about each other. As I look back, I realize now that sadly I was still trying to win her love, her approval--by writing letters, having phone conversations, giving her special gifts, and keeping her daughter Shelley in the summers.
My parents would always call me to come and take care of Shelley when there was more drama with Lynda. She and Shelley had followed my parents to Kansas on their next move. Then on to Illinois. My daughter Ellen was born when I was 33 and Shelley was 17, and that served to complicate the family dynamic even more--more jealousy, more animosity, more fighting. A big brouhaha within my family split us up for a number of years.
In our 40s and 50s, after our parents had died, Lynda and I were on-and-off again sisters. Sometimes we didn’t see or talk to each other for months or years at a time. Luckily, we always lived in different states. I married twice, and Lynda married three times.
Once when my sister came to visit me in my early 40s, I took her with me to see my therapist. During the session, she said that she knew that she “could destroy" me if she chose to. I remember thinking to myself, “The hell you say! You can't destroy me!”
That night at home I stood up to her, perhaps for the first time, when she criticized my then 7-year-old daughter in front of her. I realize now that I had been afraid of Lynda for most of my life, but no more. That was the time that we separated for six years. I did not miss her.
We did reconnect after that--off-and-on--for another 20 years or so, but it was a rocky relationship. Then there was one last visit from her and another critical letter from her to follow. Now we no longer see nor speak to one another. I don’t expect to ever see my sister again in this lifetime. I don’t miss her, but what I do miss is having a sister who I never had. Just that sweet illusion of a sister--someone who would love and support me, who would have my back and be there for me. I hate it when I see the quotations about sisters in catalogs--about how sisters are best friends. It was never that way for me and Lynda.
Later I diagnosed her as a narcissist. All of the pieces seemed to fit. I think that she would be impressed with herself that so much of my memoir thus far has been about her.
Lynda came to my parents' funerals, complaining about how much it cost her to travel there, complaining about the relatives, complaining about having to take the time to dismantle my parents’ house. In my parents' last years, my parents had become so alienated from Lynda that before their deaths my parents each told me separately that they did not want her at their funerals. I’m sorry that I was not able at the time to honor their wishes; I never had the guts to tell her what they had said.
Instead, I'm having the guts now, to say what I needed to say then, right now, where it's not too late to summon the strength and honesty that I always wanted to have.
It took me months to piece together that Lynda had tried to commit suicide (had swallowed pills and had to have her stomach pumped) because she had not made it into a certain sorority. Later she admitted that she had taken the pills for attention, knowing that her stomach would be pumped. We also discovered that she had told people at her college that she was adopted and that her real father was a famous psychiatrist!
She returned to the same college the next fall, got pregnant, and got married, unbeknownst to us. Worry, tension, and arguments filled our house, but by now they were nothing new. When Lynda didn't come home as expected at the end of the spring term, my father had to call the campus police. They were the ones who told my father that Lynda had gotten married and left school. She had sent my parents a letter to tell them that she had gotten married, but the letter did not reach us until several days past the time for her to be home. Lynda would not admit to us that she was pregnant, but in November of that year, my niece Shelley was born. It was 1965, and I was 16 years old.
In this time, with my father's job, we had moved from Kentucky to Tennessee to North Carolina and on to Delaware. I attended four different high schools. By now, my parents argued constantly--mostly at night as I lay in bed trying to sleep. Sometimes even in public, in restaurants, their fighting would break out, and I would want to crawl under the table. My father came across as the more rageful of the two; he was certainly the louder, the one who lost his temper more quickly, the one who scared me the most. Lots of their fights were about my sister. They fought all through my high school years. I was glad to go far away to college--back to Tennessee.
The first time that I returned home to Delaware from college was Christmas of my freshman year. I shouldn’t have come home even then. My sister Lynda was back home with her two-year-old daughter, separated, depressed, and living with my parents. Christmas afternoon, as she and I were in the kitchen helping my mom prepare dinner, Lynda told her two-year-old to tell me that she hated me. I can still hear the little girl’s voice now, parroting her mother, “I hate you, Aunt Laura. I hate you, Aunt Laura. I hate you, Aunt Laura.” I knew that these were Lynda’s words, not the child’s, but this time I couldn’t take it anymore: I physically lit into my sister and began to strike her, saying, “Tell her to stop. Tell her to stop.” I think that I wanted to say to her, “Tell the abuse to stop--stop rejecting me. Stop hurting me!” I honestly don’t remember the rest of the holiday, but I do have a strong memory of its aftermath.
Returning to school, I suffered from severe insomnia. Worrying about my family, my grades dropped, but keeping the family rule about “always looking good in front of other people and not telling anyone what had happened,” I didn’t confide in any of my friends. Luckily for me, I had a kind psychology professor whom I trusted enough to confide in, and he told me the most freeing thing: that I didn’t have to go home for the summer.
And so began my journey away from my family--to independence, to solitude, to preferring to be alone. When I told my parents that I wasn’t coming home that summer, I don’t remember their being particularly upset or saying that “we are sorry," or "we shall miss you.” They must have been worn down dealing with Lynda and her toddler daughter and her drama. But my parents must have cared about me (or were doing their duty to me) because they came down and helped me settle into the YWCA in Nashville for the summer. A summer that I can recall in vivid detail--three months completely on my own at age 19.
 |
| Here I am after marrying Tommy Cooper, whom I had met in Nashville when I was a sophomore in high school. Though we had a rocky "courtship," we married after my sophomore in college. I married him to escape my home life, because everyone else was getting married, and because he was handsome. I knew nothing about love. |
 |
| Though I wanted my best friend Linda Gilliland (on my right) to be my maid-of-honor, my mother strongly suggested that I make my sister Lynda (on the left) my maid-of-honor. She and her daughter Shelley were still living with my parents at the time. |
My parents would always call me to come and take care of Shelley when there was more drama with Lynda. She and Shelley had followed my parents to Kansas on their next move. Then on to Illinois. My daughter Ellen was born when I was 33 and Shelley was 17, and that served to complicate the family dynamic even more--more jealousy, more animosity, more fighting. A big brouhaha within my family split us up for a number of years.
In our 40s and 50s, after our parents had died, Lynda and I were on-and-off again sisters. Sometimes we didn’t see or talk to each other for months or years at a time. Luckily, we always lived in different states. I married twice, and Lynda married three times.
Once when my sister came to visit me in my early 40s, I took her with me to see my therapist. During the session, she said that she knew that she “could destroy" me if she chose to. I remember thinking to myself, “The hell you say! You can't destroy me!”
That night at home I stood up to her, perhaps for the first time, when she criticized my then 7-year-old daughter in front of her. I realize now that I had been afraid of Lynda for most of my life, but no more. That was the time that we separated for six years. I did not miss her.
We did reconnect after that--off-and-on--for another 20 years or so, but it was a rocky relationship. Then there was one last visit from her and another critical letter from her to follow. Now we no longer see nor speak to one another. I don’t expect to ever see my sister again in this lifetime. I don’t miss her, but what I do miss is having a sister who I never had. Just that sweet illusion of a sister--someone who would love and support me, who would have my back and be there for me. I hate it when I see the quotations about sisters in catalogs--about how sisters are best friends. It was never that way for me and Lynda.
Later I diagnosed her as a narcissist. All of the pieces seemed to fit. I think that she would be impressed with herself that so much of my memoir thus far has been about her.
Lynda came to my parents' funerals, complaining about how much it cost her to travel there, complaining about the relatives, complaining about having to take the time to dismantle my parents’ house. In my parents' last years, my parents had become so alienated from Lynda that before their deaths my parents each told me separately that they did not want her at their funerals. I’m sorry that I was not able at the time to honor their wishes; I never had the guts to tell her what they had said.
Instead, I'm having the guts now, to say what I needed to say then, right now, where it's not too late to summon the strength and honesty that I always wanted to have.
Your courage truly inspires me. I know it has turned you inside out and has been a heart wrenching battle every day of your life. But look at the beautiful butterfly you are!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you again, Sonny. As I wrote to someone this morning, "I wish I had not spent so much time thinking that I was unattractive and unloved and unlovable. What a waste of time!" It's never too late to learn and to feel better about yourself.
ReplyDelete