Let's face it...."My Son" was mom's favorite, my sister tells me. My sister and her x husband came to see our newly remodeled home, we took them for an early dinner and we had a good time. We both had a small drink, and I chose each and every word that came out of my mouth, very, very....carefully. I listened more than I spoke. I am always cautious about what I share with my own sister. She still, to this day, shares pretty much nothing of importance with me. I guess I always find that to be an untrustworthy trait, for a sister at least? I used to share way too much with her, and got tired of her sharing absolutely nothing with me about her life. My husband, for years, urged me to stop telling her about our life, it took me many years to finally stop. She waited six months to tell me that she and her husband divorced and he had already moved out before I was told. We live 19 miles from each other, not 19 hours, and we've always lived very close to one another our entire lives. Our families shared almost all Holidays together, mom & dads birthdays , anniversaries, you name it we were all together.
My sister, feeling brave after having a drink, goes on to list all of the things her son did for our mother. A list of reasons in her mind, that made her son, our mother's favorite grandchild.
I was at such a loss of words , I stood there, almost frozen by her coldness and listened as we walked to our cars. As the words were coming out of her mouth, she was speaking it seemed, in slow motion. At one point I couldn't hear her any longer, I could hear my heart beating in my chest, and I felt myself floating away, thinking I couldn't wait to get into the car and leave, and what seemed like an eternity as she told her story about her angelic son. I was bargaining with myself, very quickly...do I shout at her and tell her to shut up, or maybe just punch her right in the nose? Instead I stood there, with my mind contemplating all of the horrific things she's said and done to me while our mother was slowly slipping away as she tries to prove to me that she and her son did more for our Mother than it seems, anyone else. I chose to say nothing, and to be honest...after her first few sentences, I have absolutely no idea what she said to me as we said goodbye.
Let's face it, I was nobody's favorite, how could my children be "Our Mothers" favorite I thought? How can she say such ridiculous things to me? After all that has been said and done, she still feels the need to "One up me" or to hit me below the belt. She still, after both of our parents being gone now for years, feels the need to flaunt her superiority, proving that "She" is the important birth child and that her children still are our mothers favorite, and how she feels about our Mother is much more meaningful than how I feel about her.
Lets face it, my sister feels that because she is our Mothers "Blood Relative" that her feelings, her regrets, her sorrow and grief are more meaningful and more important, than mine. With her cunning words, she downplays anything and everything that I shared with our mother, the time and precious moments we shared together.
Lets face it, my sister still feels threatened by me, as I wipe the tears running down my face as we drive home, I will always be my Mothers daughter and as much as she hates that idea, she can never change it. Adoption, is a four letter word, it is the invisible abuse, the life altering decision nobody wants to talk about. The others want to pretend that it's "My fault" - never wanting to own their part in the dysfunction and feelings they have about the fact that I was not born to my mother. But trust me, at age 59, I can hear that pain in my sisters voice and her lack of really saying to me..."She was MY mother not yours" and telling me that her pain, the loss of our Mother is much more meaningful to her than it is me. If she could, I think she would say I have no right to anything that belongs to her.
Let's face it, adoption doesn't always work, and I have to find a way to live with this reality.
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