Siblings

After reading jo(e)'s post about her brother, I've been thinking a lot about my own siblings. It has always been something in the back of my mind, but lately, it has been pushing its way to the front, and occupying a lot more time that usual.

I don't talk about my siblings much, not even to M, mainly because I don't know much about them - and what I do know about them mostly isn't pleasant. From the time I was very young, I have told everyone I'm an only child (and so did my parents and other family members - it's not something I completely made up). I was raised as an only child and treated as one, and now, I deal with the repercussions of having been an only child (as M likes to point out). I'm selfish, I don't always like to share, and I'm used to getting my own way. I have the quintessential only child syndrome.

However, I'm technically not an only child. My father had been married to another woman before he met my mother, and had three children with her. I have two half-sisters and a half-brother. I really don't know too much about the situation with my father's ex, but from what I've heard here and there, I've managed to piece together a short story. Apparently, my father married very young (just out of high school) & he was away a lot due to his commitment to the Navy (he was in Cuba for a few years). When he returned, they had children, but not a happy marriage. My dad's ex was an alcoholic at the time, and they had a rocky relationship. When he decided to leave, the oldest child was in high school, the second in middle school, and the youngest in elementary school.

He moved across town and into the same apartment building as my mother, who was fresh out of high school and had just moved to the city. I'm not sure how much time passed before they started dating or how long they knew each other, but from piecing a few dates together, I have somewhat of an idea - I think my mother moved to Bay City in '74 & I know they were married that next year, so everything happened very quickly.

This is where things are fuzzy. My father never talked about this time period and his relationship with his ex & children, but my mother told me a little about it after he died. The children attended my mom & dad's wedding & had somewhat of a relationship with my parents at that point. However, after the wedding, the ex stopped letting my father see the children & started telling them he had stopped sending child support & stopped loving them (which wasn't true on either account). Apparently, she was deep into her alcoholism at that point, and was using the money my father was giving her for her own concerns. At the time, the whole father's rights movement wasn't exactly booming in Bay City. Plus, he had been ex-communicated from the church (he was Catholic) when he & his ex divorced. He didn't know what to do, so in order to avoid confrontations with the ex, I don't think he did much. Naturally, the children started to resent my father & they basically stopped wanting to have a relationship with him because they thought he didn't care.

Years passed, I was born, the ex stopped drinking, she remarried and had two more children, & my father began to have a civil relationship with her. It got to the point in which we would go to her house a few times a month for dinner. Her kids became like brothers to me & my father became a father figure to her children when her husband passed away when their kids were very young. However, my dad's children were all grown up and had moved away at that point, so the relationship continued to be almost non-existent.

Eventually, in their own time, they all came around and reunited with him & my mother. Oldest daughter was first - once she married and had her own children, she began to speak to my parents again (I was about 7 at this time). Her first daughter even stayed with us for a few weeks so that my mother could potty-train her (she's an anesthesiologist and didn't have the time to do it due to her work schedule). After my father died (and her mother died a few months later), she became very close with my mother and confided in her as a friend up until my mother's death. She never tried to have a relationship with me. Seeing as she's almost 20 years older, I think she never really had an interest in knowing me, partially because of our age difference. When I graduated from college, she had a child starting college that next fall. I've sent her a few random cards & letters over the years, but I've never heard back from her.

Youngest child (the son) was the next to come around. He reappeared in our lives by phone one day when I was in high school, and came over for dinner the next night. After college, he had traveled around the country, working odd jobs. From what I was told, he was undiagnosed bipolar for years and had gotten himself in and out of trouble. He even spent a few years in jail. When he finally came back, he said he had finally gotten his life together and was ready to have a relationship with my parents. He had a tearful talk that night with my father and told him he was gay (my dad already knew that, but they hadn't really talked about it). After that, they started to rebuild their relationship and he even came to my high school graduation party. He also had a close relationship with my mother after my father died, but disappeared one day after an episode in which he broke down and told her he was ashamed of his past and felt like no one would ever really love him. He also mentioned to her that he thought if I knew what he had done, I wouldn't want to know him. I actually already knew about his past at that point, but I never mentioned that to him. We were never able to reach him again after that. I am still sad about the situation because I don't want him to feel like people did not love him because of his past. I was just starting to get to know him when he disappeared. For all I know, he could still be in Bay City, but just under another name. Or perhaps he moved back to one of the many states he had traveled through during his troubled years. I'd like to find him someday.

Middle child was the last to come around. I think the divorce affected her the most because she really loved our father and had a lot in common with him. In fact, she has a lot in common with me. She started at the University of Michigan on a scholarship (English major!) when I was about 8 years old. Periodically, she would come home and would visit dad. They would sit in the living room and watch U of M football games together. My dad would sometimes drive her back to Ann Arbor after breaks. During this time, she showed very little interest in me and barely acknowledged my existence. After graduation, she faded out of my father's life, as she moved on with her friends and her new life. To me, she was exotic and mysterious. On the rare occasion we would see her, she was always dressed in all black & had cool jewelry and make-up (she was heavily into the punk scene). She spent a few years living in London and was filled with tales of far-away lands. She didn't really show back up again on a consistent basis until almost ten years later, when she heard my father had cancer and wasn't going to live much longer. She showed up and tearfully forgave our father. She told him she had spent years resenting him for leaving their family, but was finally able to let it go. No one knows if he actually heard or understood her, as he was in and out of consciousness at that point.

During his funeral, middle sister invited me to come to Ann Arbor and live with her and her g-friend for the summer. She said she was ready to get to know me and thought we could have a fun summer of bonding. Of course I said yes. We spent the next several months emailing & working up to the summer. I returned from my first year of college a few months later, stayed with my mother for a week, and then moved to Ann Arbor to start my summer of bonding. Unfortunately, it ended up being anything but that. She tried to put on a happy face, but on the inside, she still resented me horribly. I was completely oblivious to this until about a month into my stay. I had dealt with her moods up until that point, but I really thought the moods were a result of the job she hated. I didn't realize that her moods were partially because of me. She came home from work one night and told me that I had to move out. She didn't even tell me why. When I confronted her about it, she eventually told me that just seeing my face each day was filling her with rage. I reminded her of everything she missed out on when she was a child. She said the reason why she rarely came around when I was younger was because I represented everything she didn't have as a child. Her family struggled, as they were on and off welfare because dad's ex couldn't hold a job for years. Besides not having a father, she also didn't have many material things - and when she would come over and see what I had, she would start to resent me more and more. She also said she resented me because we were so alike - we had similar tastes in music, books, we both loved to write, and had strangely similar personality traits - but I was the one who had our father. She asked me to live with them because she had thought it would help her get over her hatred and move on. However, that wasn't the case.

I moved out the next week. She took a trip out of town with a friend that day so that she wouldn't have to be there when I left. She didn't even say good-bye.

I was devastated. It took me a long time to stop thinking there was something wrong with me and understand her feelings towards me really had nothing to do with *me*. I wanted so badly to have a relationship with her and had honestly thought I would.

She contacted me about 6 months after I moved out & was back at college. She sent me a b-day gift and a long letter, apologizing for what had happened and explaining her feelings more in-depth. She begged for another chance and promised me it would be different this time. Because I so desperately wanted to have a connection with her, I agreed to forget the past and start over with her. We emailed and wrote letters for the next two years. We took the relationship a lot slower, and things seemed to go well. I felt like we were really starting to become friends.

The next time I saw her was at my mother's funeral, a few months after I graduated. We had arranged that she and her g-friend would stay at my parent's house with me that night so that they didn't have to pay for a hotel. I was glad I was going to have them in the house after the funeral. I felt I really needed the connection that night.

I waited up all night for them. They never showed up. Sick with worry, I left several messages on their home phone. She called me back a few days later and said her g-friend wasn't feeling well, so they decided to drive back to Ann Arbor (which is several hours away) instead of staying. She never explained why she didn't call me back until then.

I haven't heard from her since then. It has been six years.

Out of my three half-siblings, she is the only one who really hurt me... and she's still the one I long to have a relationship with. I don't know where she's living or what she's doing at this point. The week of my mother's funeral, she had mentioned she was starting her MA program that fall & that she and her g-friend were thinking about moving to San Francisco. I have no idea what ended up happening.

I still think about her. I still want to know her - and I still harbor hope that we can have a healthy relationship. She is one of the few connections I still have to my father. I'm sure if I put some effort into it, I could find her. But part of me is afraid. She has already rejected me twice. What if I do find her and she really has no interest in me? What if we become close and she dumps me again? I don't know if I can take it again.

I would like to one day call them my siblings... or at least my friends. Unfortunately, as much as I want it to, I have so many doubts that can ever truly happen.