The story behind the pictures….

The story behind the pictures….

She was 60 and I was 55

The sisters who did know each other... 

later in life..

Folly Beach, S. C.

  

These pictures are pictures of my sister over the years.

She passed away last week… at the age of 84.

The sad thing is…. I didn’t get to meet her until I was 55 and she was 60.   She is my father’s daughter from his first marriage.. I am the product of my father’s second marriage.

The divorce did not end well… and that is because of my mother. I don’t want to go into many details of how or why.

Just that the end results was that we knew of each other (I found out about her when I was 13, when my mother was telling a friend and I over heard it) but were to never talk to each other for 55 years.

And that was after my father died.  I thought maybe Dad would loosen up some after Mom died.. but  he didn’t.  He was quite adamant about it.   

I went to South Carolina where she lived and spend 4 days with her, a year after Dad died. To see what she was like, after a long phone call. I was still in the work force, so got a 4 day weekend and was able to fly there.  Which didn’t help my relationship with my full brother.  As he was in the line as my father.

Several years later, she came out and spend 4 or 5 days with me.  So once again we tried to cram a lifetime in 4 days of getting to know each other.   But we kept in constant touch with each other thru telephone calls.. and when we got internet.. thru the emails…   

Several years ago… she came down with dementia.  And she went to live in a health home.  Her daughter, became her caretaker… looking after everything for her Mom.. Even giving up her home in R.I. and moving to SC to be closer. Her daughter was very active in her care. She was my sister Sandra’s champion.. Researching her illness, fighting the powers that be over her finances and health care. 

As any one who has had a love one in a health care center (use to be called nursing home) knows, you really have to be very active in watching over your love ones care.  As a person who worked in one for over 17 years.. I too, know. And sometimes I could tell her daughter what buttons to push and what the center could not get away with.. But it was Sandra’s daughter who did all the work. Even staying the night near the end.. when it didn’t looked good back a couple months ago.. She and her daughter (Sandra’s granddaughter) stayed.

Then came Dorian the hurricane… and Sandra was declining… they evacuated her to another center many miles inland.  And her daughter and granddaughter went there too. After just a day and half.. Sandra passed peacefully with her two love ones by her side.  

I know my sister is at peace… but what I have taken away from all of this… is the fact.. it is a selfish act.. that parents do to their children.. when they forbade one family members to have contact with the other family members.  It was bad enough we didn’t get to know each other while growing up.

But to forbid such adult children from contacting each other with threats of abandonment… is almost unforgiving.. A very selfish act on my mother’s part over the years, to be continued by my father…

So if you are a parent, and you have children by a previous spouse.. I pray to God that you will let all the children be friends from both families.  God Bless, Sandra.. may you be in peace.

Happy Birthday… BCG