Background
John and Billie Jo taken on July 27, 2014
Toms River, New Jersey
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"Hiya, Pat. I got your email this morning. Are you okay?. I think we need to talk…"
Patty, I got your email. What do you think you are doing?
Over the past week, I emailed the first few chapters of these memoirs to my brother and sister. My brother lives in Georgia, and my sister still resides in New Jersey. Their reactions were very different.
My brother called and expressed his sorrow for not being there for me in any meaningful way. I told him there was no reason for him to feel guilty. The only crime he committed was to live his own life. He cried and told me he wanted me to fly out there in the next few months so we can finally talk about the things he has refused to talk about for years.
And then there was my sister's response. She texted me first. The message was not pleasant and I knew she was upset. I received an email early this morning. She begged me to not write about the abuse I suffered at her hands. She told me she couldn't be held responsible for anything she did. She was a victim. I was just a bystander.
One would think that after my father left for good, we would have a happy ending. My brother did, sort of. He got married that winter and left the house. I was forbidden to take any of my problems to him; he had his own life. I obeyed that rule, and as a result, my brother and I took years to form an adult relationship.
My sister and I have been pitted against one another for years. My mother may not have intended for it to happen, but she never seemed to want us to get along. Every time I tried to connect with my sister without my mother around, there was trouble. I was resented and assumed to be a big part of the ever-growing problem. My sister was thrilled when I left for the Army. She told everyone I would probably end up with a dishonorable discharge. When my first marriage ended after five years, she said no one would ever be able to put up with me.
The picture I included with this chapter is of my brother and sister about three years ago when my brother turned sixty-five. My sister was sixty-three when the photo was taken. The occasion was my brother's birthday party and he was opening my gift. I couldn't be there because my daughter was eight and a half months pregnant with my first grandchild. They look happy, don't they?
A photo can tell lies. For years, my brother will call me and refer to my sister as, 'your kids' aunt.' My sister has referred to my brother as a drunken womanizer for forever. But to each other's faces, they are best friends. It's no wonder I can always find dozens of other places to go on vacation, and I'm paranoid about how they talk about me to each other.
But it needs to be said that my brother paid a big price. He is a functioning alcoholic and on his third wife. He lost an eleven-year-old son to a tragic skiing accident in 1989, a part of his soul died. His remaining son has given him three grandsons, and he must schedule his visits around that of his first wife and her family.
My sister has two adult boys of her own. She has been blessed with five grandchildren, but she lost her husband about nine years ago. Bitterness tinges her life, and she still smokes, despite losing both our mother and her husband to lung cancer. Every phone conversation I've had with her in the past twenty years finds me frustrated and wondering what it will take to get her into counseling.
So, this chapter will serve as a bridge from the painful early childhood to the start of my life as an adult. I joined the Army just nine days shy of my eighteenth birthday, and I truly set out to be all I could be.
