I have a sister. She has 2 kids. The little girl is about 6 months younger than the little one – the little boy a couple of years younger.
I don’t talk about her much. To be honest we are still getting to know each other. Both the hubby and I have a lot of respect for her. She has had a very tough few years. Her pregnancies have not been easy and her relationship with their father even worse. We don’t know much about it because she deals with it on her own with lots of strength. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be for me to share.
Let me tell you why we are just getting to know each other.
She is the daughter of my stepmother and my father.
She was born shortly before my brother and I left to live with my mother and stepfather. She was still a baby when we left home so we knew about her but she never knew about us.
When I went to live with my mother, my father wanted nothing more to do with me. Obviously my stepmother didn’t as she hated us.
I believe my sister only found out she had a brother and sister when she was around 16 and a school friend asked after us. We’d all gone to the same primary school you see.
She went home and asked my father and he confirmed it was the truth. So she was brought up as an only child. She had a very different life to me. It was a happy, well cared for family life. When she was 18 she wrote to me and I immediately wrote back. I met with her not long after.
At that stage her parents had split and she’d been left to fend for herself – having to find somewhere to live and a job to support herself. This was a bit of a shock for her.
It was really difficult for me.
How do you reconcile why you are unloveable but your sister isn’t? How do you not make that about you? Same parents, completely different childhood. We were starved, hit and lived in fear every day. She was fed well, not hit and even had family holidays.
For many years I searched for answers. What is it about me? My brother would visit my father in later years when we moved to a house only 2 miles away. They would chat. When I tried to visit I was sent away with my tail between my legs. What was it about me? How bad must I be that even as a child I was so difficult to love.
But after seeing Trevor I don’t need answers any more. I am ok with that all now. That in itself is pretty amazing. And it makes my relationship with my sister a lot easier.
I know it has been hard for her. I have shared with her what happened in my childhood, with both sets of parents. I have also made it clear that she has no responsibility in the process because she doesn’t.
My brother and I are both in touch with her these days. I wish I lived closer because I would love to help her out more and I would also love the little one to have a relationship with her cousins. Ironically, my stepmother and mother now live in the same village. It’s still hard to feel any sort of real connection with her but we both work at the relationship and she knows I will always be here for her and the kids. She’s been going it alone for many years now, and doing a great job.
So I don’t talk about her on here much because we don’t have a huge amount of contact but I do occasionally mention her and wanted to share a little bit of our story.
