Beech Tree News Network

My youngest sister tends to be an “in your face’ sort of person.  She believes that the only path to authenticity is through total revelation of the facts and airing of differences.  As a result, she seems to always be at the center of controversy, especially within our family. 

               In the past, she has challenged our dad and stepmom with what she saw as their hypocritical “Christian” lives in view of how they treated her and our biological sisters as children.  She wanted an apology.  She never got one.  Dad died, our stepmom has lost her mind, and still she waits for an apology from our stepsister and two half brothers from what she thinks were their roles in the injustices that were heaped upon her, well into adulthood.  She is right about the injustices, but she will not get an apology.  Everyone has moved on.

               “They can’t sweep this under the rug,” she says.  Presently, she is estranged from that side of the family.

               In the past, our dad, stepmom, stepsister and two half brothers and their families would have their own secret Christmas celebration on Christmas mornings, without including the rest of us.  She figured out that this was happening, so one Christmas morning, she got up early and baked an apple pie.  She took it to my parents’ house, rang the doorbell, then presented it to the “family” gathering, wishing them all a very Merry Christmas.

               “What did they say?” I asked.

               “Not much,” she said.  “They were too shocked at being caught.  Dad just shifted from foot to foot.”  She beamed as she told me the story.  She had exposed what was hidden and exacted her revenge with “burning coals.”

               I have always been the exact opposite of my sister.  I don’t like controversy.  I try to avoid it at all costs, and sometimes that costs me.  One year, my sister asked me to host a Christmas party at my house for her and our other biological sisters. 

               “I’m going to tell them—Mom and Dad—that we’re going to do this,” she said.

               “I wish you wouldn’t,” I objected.  My sister is quite religious, so I appealed to her with a Bible verse, “He who seeks love will conceal a matter,” I quoted.

               “That’s not what that verse means,” she argued.

               Our parents found out about the plan—ironically, through one of our other sisters—and all Hell broke loose.  I was blamed for trying to fracture the family—behind my back, it was never said to my face—and to this day, not one of that side of the family has ever heard my side of the story.  At the time, I was just too exhausted by it all.  Someday, maybe after my stepmom passes, I will tell my stepsister and two half brothers my side, if it even still matters then.

               I continue to have a relationship with all my siblings: biological, step and half.  My stepmom no longer remembers who I am.  Years ago, I tried to talk to our dad about the hurt and pain of my childhood.  I did this only once.  He shut me down pretty quickly.  He didn’t want to hear it.  My sisters and I remained a reminder of a past he wanted to forget.  A past in which he wasn’t the hero of his own story.

               I read once, “The true measure of a man isn’t what he reveals to the world, but what he hides from it” (a variation on the Andre Mairaux quote).  I’m a pretty forthright person most of the time, but there are things I hide from others.

               “I just don’t want to start something,” I say to myself.  “I don’t want trouble.” 

               It’s funny how trouble will find you, even when, maybe even especially when, you are trying to hide from it.  Trouble, it seems, is the one thing that nobody can keep hidden.