26th
Glutton for Punishment
Last night, I tried to add my sister-in-law on Facebook. It’s ridiculous to even call her my sister-in-law, because although I’ve always held a fondness for her, I very rarely ever call her husband, Bill, my half-brother, let alone my brother. In fact, last Thanksgiving, Rob’s family asked if I had any siblings. My answer was, “No.” Not, “Just a half-brother, but we don’t talk.” Not, “Kind of, but we’re not close.” Not any of my usual rhetoric that lets people know it’s a long story but I’m still holding onto hope. And these people are my new family! These are people that are going to be around for the foreseeable future and the relationships it brings into my life. And my simple answer was, “No. I’m an only child.”
So why on earth did I send a friend request to Carla, my sister-in-law?
Because I have a niece. She was born shortly after our dad’s funeral (or the poor excuse for one Bill provided) and since that day, the one thing I’ve wanted was to be her aunt. I wanted to show her all the incredible things I’d encountered as I grew up. I wanted to give her all the words of reassurance that the adults I knew had long forgotten how to speak. I wanted to tell her that her grandpa would have loved her. And I wanted to tell her that I’d waited years for Bill to have a child so that I could be in its life. Yes, at twelve years old I had waited and prayed and begged for my half-brother, whom to my recollection had never cared for me, to have a child so that I could be an aunt. And by the time it happened, it was too late. The one thing that binded us had died and been burned to ashes to collect dust on someone’s mantle, but never mine.
About four years ago I’d tried to contact Bill, at an ex-boyfriend’s urging. I e-mailed him at an address I found on a website concerning the public office he was currently holding (ever our father’s son). I told him how happy I was for him and that even though I knew in my heart he wanted nothing to do with me, I was so glad to hear he had a daughter that I knew was beautiful. Not only did I never receive a response, but Bill had the webpage taken down.
So I added Carla last night. And I had a few scenarios in my mind concerning how it would go. None of them turned out in my favor. So imagine my surprise when, a few hours later, Carla had sent me two messages. The first one explained that, although she was hesitant to add me as a friend because Bill was not ready to have me in his life, she was so happy to hear from me. She’d thought of me often and wanted to know how I was doing. The last sentence was, “I will send you pictures of your niece, Amelia.”
When I opened the pictures, it broke my heart. She looks so much like our dad it hurt. She’s beautiful. She looks happy and just… fantastic. Carla and I e-mailed each other back and forth, during which she explained that Bill resented our dad for his affairs and, out of loyalty to his mother (who amazingly still manages to outlivemour father, despite her two decade-long battle with bone cancer) was reticent to talk to me, although she insisted that he didn’t blame me. However, she had explained to him that, since he has little family left, it’s important that he establish a bond with what he does have, i.e. me. She wants me to be in Amelia’s life, but now is not the time and she hopes I can wait.
I have mixed emotions over the whole thing. I’ve come to a few realizations in the past twenty-four hours. One of them is that Bill didn’t have Dad cremated out of spite for me. I always thought he did it (and did it before the funeral service) so that I wouldn’t have a chance to see him or to have a grave to visit. And maybe that’s still true. Or maybe Bill held so much resentment in his immature, mama’s boy little body that he couldn’t bear to be bothered anymore. And it kills me to say that about my own father, but I’ve always said that I had the luxury of not knowing my dad on an adult level. My dad had a very short amount of time with which to disappoint me. Bill had triple that time. Maybe he had to get the whole thing over with in order to try and move on with his life and get over the resentment.
I’ve felt many different ways about Bill. When I was younger, I was convinced he would one day be the big brother I wanted so desperately. After Dad died, I hated him. Not only would I have crossed the street to get away from him, I would have walked into the street, carjacked someone and run him over. I was (and still am) convinced that he’d hit our dad on more than one occasion when he was in the hospital and I was helpless to stop it. I was twelve and angry and abandoned and I hated him more than anyone I’d ever known. Now, he’s a means to an end. Carla wants us to be a family, and maybe one day, after several long talks, arguments and probably a significant amount of therapy, we can be. To be honest, it stung a little that Amelia doesn’t know who I am and Bill doesn’t acknowledge me, even though I’ve grown to do the same. But as it stands, I don’t have a brother. I do, however, have a niece. And one day, she’ll know about her aunt.
