Previously:  I muse on why my sister didn’t want me to attend her memorial service.  Since I couldn’t go, I wrote a eulogy and mailed it to her. When her husband sent me a tape of the service, the minister read one that Barb co-wrote with a colleague.  She used two of my lines. I had to be satisfied with that.

Chapter 73 ends:
A week after her return to Missouri, Barbara called me. That was a first. At least ten years had passed since she chose not to talk with me or Mom except face to face. Now, she gave me her e-mail address and phone number.  Another first.  After I jotted down the information, she didn’t waste time with pleasantries but went right to the point of her call.

"We need to talk," she said, “I can't die feeling the way I do about Mom."

And the poison that had been in her mind for at least sixty years spilled out.

“I can’t wait to see Dad again, but I don’t want to see Mom. That’s terrible, I know.” Her voice stayed steady with the control she had mastered in a lifetime of disappointments. “I’m hoping you can help me come to terms with this.”

Unfortunately, my mother had issues too during her life, but couldn't even talk to her husband about them. Although kind and loving, Dad didn't know how to handle emotional problems. Does any man?  He wasn't one for self-examination or analyzing the behavior of others. Mom was the opposite.  She needed to talk about mistakes she had made, the guilt she still felt. Since she would never confide in anyone outside the family, she turned to me and my sister after we both had established our own lives. Whereas I could process insensitive remarks (You were close to being spastic as a child.) I accepted them for what they were: a worry she felt.  She made the statements with no malice or intent to injure. We were sounding boards. So Barbara would tell me now what I, as a listener, had already heard.

 “Did you know that after the doctor told her she was pregnant with me, Mom locked herself in a closet for hours and cried?” Bitterness assaulted the phone.

"Yes, Mom told me that," I answered.  It was a mystery to me that she shared this with her sensitive daughter.  Did she think that since her youngest was brilliant she would not be upset?   Maybe she shared the story to point out a moral when Barb decided to give up on her marriage. Maybe it was her way of saying “Hang in there. It will all work out.”  This is speculation on my part. For the moment now, I answered with the wisdom of  old age.

“Put yourself in Mom’s place,” I said. “When she got the news, I was still in diapers and sucking my thumb. How would you have felt about having another baby to take care of when Bobby still needed so much supervision?  I think her reaction was perfectly normal. To be honest, I would have cried too. ”

Silence as my sister digested my words. Finally, a sigh. “I see your point of view.” Barb acknowledged. “Thank you, Shari, for clarifying that. Your children are four years apart. You were smart.”

Knowing my mother, I’m betting she followed her story with something like, “But you were such a pretty baby and hardly ever cried.” Barbara could have blocked that out. Some people choose to remember the negative messages. They focus on memories that reinforce a tortured mindset.  These thoughts create a world that becomes their reality.  

That’s what Barbara had done. What she heard was Mom never wanted me, at a time when her husband rejected her too. To add another log to a flaming fire, Mom brought back the time when she kept me at home and sent Barb to stay with her aunt and uncle for a couple of months. My sister had just started walking. "When you came back," she told Barb, "You were a different child."

To be continued.