Dear Aunt Rhonda,
Over this past weekend, I finally got brave enough to look through my deceased mother’s old boxes of pictures and papers. I’d procrastinated opening the boxes for months because the pain of losing her was complicated to say the least. We hadn’t been close right up to the day she died, both of us thinking we would have all the time in the world to repair our relationship. Even if it had been possible, that wish died with her.
As I sifted through each picture, I realized just about everyone was in them on my mother’s side of the family. Not wanting to ruin the picture frames, I took some pictures of the photos that included us all and sent them to my photo editor where I restored them as much as I could.
One of the people I forwarded the pictures to was you, Aunt Rhonda. I made sure to include a friendly note to say hello. I still had the hopeful heart of the little girl I used to be. Maybe the pictures would start a back-and-forth conversation between us. Maybe we would laugh and joke the way we used to. Even though I tried not to care too much, damn it, I cared much more than I wanted to admit.
Your return note, as you know, was short and formal. It basically said that I do not need to send you pictures and should instead save them for me and my daughter. Even the “Merry Christmas” you added at the end made me wonder if you really meant it or were just being sarcastic.
Even after all these years, I was still Charlie Brown trying to kick the football before Lucy yanks it away. Charlie never learned, something he and I have in common.
It hurt me, if that was your intention. I moped for the rest of the day and went to bed early instead of spending the evening with my family. I didn’t yell or complain. I just went quiet.
I also blamed myself.
I never had a father’s side of the family. My dad walked out on his relatives when he was twenty years old, after his beloved mother died, and never spoke to any of them again. Strangely enough, I also didn’t meet anyone from my mother’s side of the family until I was three years old. The story was that she ran off with my already married dad to Hawaii due to an inconvenient pregnancy (me) and told nobody I’d been born.
I met you for the first time, Aunt Rhonda, along with your fiancé, my grandmother and my Uncle Jason (my mother’s brother) in a fancy Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. If there was tension between my mom and her siblings, I didn’t notice it and soon fell asleep with my head on her lap. I found it weird that my daddy hadn’t come to dinner. I didn’t know then how much you all hated him.
As you know, my parents later split up, and my mother took me and her four Arabian horses to my grandparents’ house in New York, 3000 miles away from my beloved father. My grandfather yelled at us and coughed loudly from his emphysema all day and scared me. I’d never been around anyone who acted drunk before. He also spent several days a month in his basement drinking himself to death. You and the rest of the family labeled me a difficult child because I wasn’t nicer to him.
I’ve often wondered if everybody just automatically tied me to my mentally ill mother as some kind of extension she had like an extra leg. When my mom was in her 60s and went to the hospital for colitis, I was staying at her apartment, so I called you to give you the news. Do you remember what you said, Aunt Rhonda?
“Well, I hope she heals soon and you guys can get back to whatever normal is.”
I let the comment go as you hung up, but I felt scorched by your words. What exactly did you think we were doing in her little old lady apartment that was so abnormal? When my mom came back home to rest, I could hear both of you gossiping about me over the phone as I stood there. You told my mom not to believe a word I said and not to trust me. Yes, I heard it all, and my mom simply shrugged when I confronted her.
I have not heard from my Uncle Jason, your brother, in several years. After my mom died, he told me he would talk to me about anything I needed to get off my chest. As a black sheep is wont to do, I told him the truth about the things my mother had subjected me to and the trauma that resulted. He never wrote back. I personally think he didn’t believe me, but you would likely know that better than me.
Most of the time, I can accept things the way they are. I have had a lifetime of traumatic memories to deal with, so I can’t spend too much time obsessing over who likes me and who doesn’t. However, I do want you to know that your cutting words hurt me. Every time you are nice enough to send my little girl a Christmas present, I never expect there to be a card or acknowledgement for me and try to buck up when there isn’t one. We’re just not family anymore, if we ever were.
Being the black sheep of the family is a double-edged sword. I consider myself lucky that I have the ability to see through the lies and deception we went through without sticking my head in the sand the way you all did. I remember speaking up as a kid about the abuse I was suffering and being told I was an ungrateful daughter. I was foolish enough to think somebody would help me. Instead, nobody wanted to believe or deal with the truth.
I’m older now and have my own family. My sweet daughter does get the cards and presents you send, but in reality she doesn’t know anything about you. That is a choice made by you, so I can’t really give her an explanation of why we never see you. Just knowing that you go out of your way to be unkind makes me relieved we only hear from you on holidays.
Thankfully, I’m healing mentally and emotionally day by day. My illness isn’t your fault or anybody else’s, at least not completely. Sure, it would have been nice to be believed about the abuse that happened to me and have your support, but I guess I also should thank you because it taught me to be supportive of myself.
Aunt Rhonda, I feel sorry for you and the rest of my mother’s family. My amazing husband, my two loving sons and my beautiful daughter are outstanding people that you will likely never get the chance to know. Believe me, they are well worth knowing. The love I feel within my family is worlds apart from the love I got in yours. You don’t have us anymore, but at least you have your grudges to keep you warm.
I don’t have to be damaged or afraid or feel “less than” anymore. Whatever you may think of me now, my family adores me and is kind to me. That’s all I ever wanted to make me happy.
Sending you mountains of hugs Glenna. I'm so happy God blessed with a beautiful husband and family. Its through your experience with pain of rejection that you have grown to know how to be a lot bing wife and mother. Love is precious to you. Bless you 🤗💖✨🙏
BTW if you noticed I subscribed to you this morning - It’s because I am re-subscribing to you. For some reason I mysteriously lost a lot of my subscriptions.
Some human beings are so very limited that their brokenness is a chronic source of abuse to vulnerable people.
And those of us who suffer their brokenness , are able to heal in spite of and because of our vulnerability. Because we can still feel and offer love.