Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison."Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with undying adoration, whether or not you deserve it, and we can't take our lives as seriously as yours. We snuffle up the crumbs from your table on the rare occasions you notice we're alive.
When my friends began to have babies and I came to comprehend the heroic labor it takes to keep one alive, the constant exhausting tending of a being who can do nothing and demands everything, I realized that my mother had done all of these things for me before I remembered. I was fed; I was washed; I was clothed; I was taught to speak and given a thousand other things, over and over again, hourly, daily, for years. She gave me everything before she gave me nothing.
It wasn't until the 1920s that a bare majority of children grew up in families where the father's labor purchased the family's provisions, while their mother did unpaid child care, elder care, and housework.The Great Depression and World War II disrupted this family form, but it roared back in the 1950s, when the percentage of wives and mothers who were supported entirely by their husbands' wages reached a high that has never been equaled, before or since.
Why do you think, A.J.," they say in unison, "that you find these boys so attractive?" I didn't say that this fiery chemical explosion leaps from somewhere inside me. Parents don't want to hear these things. I shrugged and said nothing. "Maybe you should try sitting on the intensity," Mom suggests, "just until your feelings catch up with reality.""We could chain you to the water heater," Dad offers, "until these little moments pass."You see what I'm up against.
I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness.
It was the sibling thing, I suppose. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of love and duty and resentment that tied them together. The glances they exchanged; the complicated balance of power established over decades; the games I would never play with rules I would never fully understand. And perhaps that was key: they were such a natural group that they made me feel remarkably singular by comparison. To watch them together was to know strongly, painfully, all that I'd been missing.
When people related by blood were so careful with each other, when they were so very polite, there was soon nothing left to say. Only niceties that meant so little they might as well have been spoken to a complete stranger. Pass the butter, open the door, see you after school, there's rain again, it's sunny, it's cold. Has the dog eaten? Has the window been shut? Where are you going? Why is it I don't know you at all?Such statements did not add up to anything like a family...
I’ve never gotten a love letter before. But reading these notes like this, one after the other, it feels like I have. It’s like . . . it’s like there’s only ever been Peter. Like everyone else that came before him, they were all to prepare me for this. I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you. And Peter does. He sees me, and I see him.
Anyway, it was Oscar who called me to remind me that our nephew, Lydia's son Garnett, was turning eleven years old. Fuck my life. I hated that kid. He smelled like asparagus, and he sweated way too much for a healthy child; but then Garnett, given his propensity for biting teachers and catching chipmunks in the backyard only to bury them alive, was no normal kid. He was a case study for sociopathic behavior in the making. A walking, talking, farting, sweaty, odorous, chipmunk-burying cry for help.
Don’t destroy yourself over somebody else’s foolishness. I know they betrayed you. I know they lied on you. I know they talked behind your back and told all of your business. I know they hurt you to the core. I know they turned their back on you. I know they cheated on you. I know they mislead you. I know, I KNOW. In spite of it all, you have to know that you are worth more than what they dished out to you. You will survive! You will make it through! Remember who YOU are and know YOUR self-worth!
I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead," she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and no doubt, the honor of taking care of several small children of other family members."The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather.
Places are supposed to look smaller when you go back to them, but my road just looked schizoid. A couple of the houses had had nifty little makeovers involving double glazing and amusing faux-antique pastel paint; most of them hadn't. Number 16 looked like it was on its last legs: the roof was in tatters, there was a pile of bricks and a dead wheelbarrow by the front steps, and at some point in the last twenty years someone had set the door on fire. In Number 8, a window on the first floor was lit up, gold and cozy and dangerous as hell.
There are millions of people out there who live this way, and their hearts are breaking just like mine. It’s okay to say, “My kid is a drug addict or alcoholic, and I still love them and I’m still proud of them.” Hold your head up and have a cappuccino. Take a trip. Hang your Christmas lights and hide colored eggs. Cry, laugh, then take a nap. And when we all get to the end of the road, I’m going to write a story that’s so happy it’s going to make your liver explode. It’s going to be a great day.
Your Barney?” Cole’s eyebrows shot up. “Yours?”“He’s mine all right!” Claire replied. “Everyone in this family belongs to everyone else – belongs with everyone else, rather. I’ve looked after him for a year now – ironed his shirts, made his school lunches, told him stories. I made that dressing gown he’s wearing, whereas no one knew you were alive this time last week. But what matters most is that he wants to be ours and he doesn’t want to be yours. That’s what counts.
I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on...........
