The same goes for my sister. We've never been close and we've never kept in touch on a regular basis, so there are lots of things I still don't know about her. Such as:
- Would she say she had a happy childhood?
- Did she like one parent more than the other?
- Were her schooldays happy?
- What does she feel about having a terminal and severely disabling illness?
- What did she feel about having to give up her work?
- What are her likes and dislikes?
After marrying, she had a daughter in 1982 and then in 2005 was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. The reason she has survived so long is that her lungs and heart are still healthy despite her general physical decline.
Oh, and another thing - she has a photographic memory. So if aged five I broke her favourite doll, she'll remember it vividly.
So what I know about my sister could be written quite comfortably on a postcard. Considering I've known her for 73 years, that's remarkable. But I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with the bare outlines!
Erm... you sound like you have some interesting questions to start a conversation. Do you not want to find out more about your sister?
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Ms Scarlet: It's complicated. I live in Belfast, she lives in Essex, so I can't just drop in. She doesn't do Facebook or social media or email so communication is difficult. Plus she's a very private person so she likes to keep herself to herself.
DeleteMs Scarlet: And she can't use the phone as she can't speak.
DeleteIs there a reason you can’t ask her those questions?
ReplyDeleteBijoux: See my reply to Ms Scarlet.
DeleteI'm wondering why you can't ask her more about herself, although it is certainly hard to break the habit of a lifetime. And in fact she may well not wish to talk about having a disabling illness, since there is not much she can do about it. If you were to turn up on her doorstep one day it would be a once in a lifetime event and her reaction might surprise you, I suppose. But what do I know? You know her better than anyone else does, except I suppose her husband and children if she has any. Some people just are private.
ReplyDeleteJenny: As I said above, trying to communicate with her is difficult. Email would be ideal but she stopped using email. I get some information through her husband and daughter but direct contact seems to be impossible.
DeleteI have 4 brother's and a sister. But I'm only close with my younger brother.
ReplyDeleteMary: That's commonly the case, I think. Family members are often estranged from each other, for no obvious reason.
DeleteLife either pushes you together or you really drift apart without effort. I know many who say the real tragedy of losing both of your parents is you usually lose contact with your siblings.
ReplyDeleteI was closest to an older brother.
Ann: I hadn't thought about that particular consequence of losing your parents. I only have the one sibling.
DeleteI'm running out of siblings. Down to one, and I sort of know her.
ReplyDeleteJoanne: It's good that you sort of know her.
DeleteHave you asked her those questions? Might be worth doing while you still have her. I understand she doesn't live super close, but that's what - 500 miles away? It would be a long drive, but not impossible. But if it's something you aren't all that interested in pursuing, that's a different story. I'm not terribly close to one of my sisters so I don't invest in finding out a lot about her. One of my sisters I text pretty much every day.
ReplyDeleteAgent: It's more than a drive because there's the Irish Sea in between. It would also take a plane or a ferry. I used to see her when I saw my mum in Cambridgeshire, but my mum died several years ago. Perhaps I could re-establish contact somehow through my brother in law.
DeleteI know of other siblings with similar relationships and I frankly do not understand them. My relationship with my siblings is strong open and we communicate with each other regularly as we do with our nephews, nieces and grand children.
ReplyDeleteRamana: It's very hard to contact my sister because she's not on email and she can't use a phone as she can't speak. It's a shame we don't have a closer relationship.
DeleteIt would be interesting to know why all these questions are important for you.
ReplyDeleteI like to discuss , I am really open minded but I am quite private too. You can never know what is really going on in a person's mind. 99% answer to the question " how are " Oh I'm fine even if it's not true. Try to answer oh I'm not well , I have problems and feel down and you will see how most of the people react .We should bot overestimate the role of a family.
Hannah
Hannah: Just idle curiosity really. I don't need to know any of these things but I'd just like to know my sister a bit better. And yes, when people say they're feeling fine, they usually aren't but they don't want to spend ten minutes moaning.
DeleteIt is unfortunate that even if you wanted to Nick, it would be difficult to communicate with your sister because of distance and her inability to communicate. From what you wrote in this post, she had interesting careers and it is sad that this disease has robbed both of you from knowing one another, if that was something you were interested in doing. I too only have one sibling, a brother, and we seemed to communicate more now that our parents and most relatives are deceased.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: Yes, communication is very difficult. If she could just pick up the phone and natter away, it would be a different story. Her illness has created an unfortunate distance between us.
DeleteMy decade older brother and never really talked about some of the matters you mentioned but I pretty much knew what he thought and how he felt. After he had a brain aneurysm and some cognitive issues it was perplexing when he started talking about how our mother loved me more than him and how she probably had wanted a girl when he was born. I could never figure out how his thinking got screwed up with that 'cause I'm sure up to that point he hadn't felt that way at all. I know from patients with their brains affected that I've worked with that individuals do sometimes have completely distorted thinking that can be very hard for family members to ignore.
ReplyDeleteJoared: I guess the aneurysm somehow scrambled his brain and he came up with this idea which completely ignored the reality.
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