For Phoebe........

 

I have struggled with myself as to whether I should actually write this post. After last night, I feel that I should. Life is too short to not say the important stuff.

This life article is for my sister, Phoebe.

 

I have no clue why Mom spaced out our siblings the way she did. She never really explained that. I was 8 years old when you came along. To say that I was thrilled with the idea of having a younger sibling would have been an understatement. When I learned I had a sister, that was even better…. Or so I thought. That is how things SHOULD have been.

I helped set up the nursery. I read all of my books to you. Back then car seats weren’t a thing. You had a small back seat bassinet, and it was my job to ride in the back with you to make sure you stayed safe. I shared the Barbies with you and even gave you some of my favorite ones. Things were good for a while.

I have spent many hours trying to understand your attitude towards me that began from the moment you learned to talk. I have been discussing such issues with my therapist and only recently truly understood the attitude issue began when you were a toddler.

But what I have to say is important. I need to say it and you need to hear it.

Before you came along, I was bullied in school, at Sunday School and pretty much everywhere. I could count the people I called “friends” on one hand. I am not including the ones Mom considered family and we grew up together. I was a chubby kid, had coke bottle glasses, a lazy eye and I read a lot. I did not fit in with any crowd, not neatly anyways. So, I spent a lot of time being a free range kid, a tomboy and alone.

But then, I had a sister. I thought that meant BFF’s for life even before the “BFF” came to be popular. I tried to be the best big sister. I helped Mom a lot with you and I loved doing it. I think this was the single thing that drove me to want my own kids and NOT space them out the way Mom did with us.

As you became a toddler though, things began to change. Again, looking back, it seems like you were born hating me. For all of the external bullying I endured on a daily basis, none of it compared to how cruel you were.

It started with typical toddler stuff that I never tattled about. You broke something I cared about, on purpose then ran away laughing. You destroyed fancy Barbie dresses, on purpose. You ripped pages out of my books, even my school books. You dumped juice on my turntable and broke many of my vinyl records.

Mom got tired of replacing what you broke and at the age of 11, informed me that if anything else got broken I would have to do odd jobs and replace it myself. You laughed yourself into fits over that. The one thing she kept replacing was my glasses. You delighted in breaking them. Many times, you would sneak in my room at night and bust the ear piece off or break one of the lenses while I slept.

But it was verbal too. None of the external bullies were as cruel as you in the words you chose to use to tear me down. I did not deserve any of it, but you made sure to demean me multiple times a day. Some of the names you called me were too cruel to repeat here.

As you entered grade school, a new way to torture me began. You lied to Mom, a lot. You would do things and blame it on me. I would be the one punished. I began to detest having a sister but still tried to do my duty as the big sister. It was also during this time that the age gap became a wedge of its own.

I could dress up nice and Mom would tell you to “say something” and the nasty remarks sent me back to my room in tears. Mom knew my face cleaners, the ones from the dermatologist, were messed with. She refused to believe it was you that put something in them. Same thing for my make-up, snacks (that you said I didn’t need to bother with because I was already the size of a whale) and literally anything you could ruin, you tried to.

Even with all of this going on, I still took you trick or treating, helped decorate for birthday parties, took you to the mall, and tried to be the big sister I thought you deserved. I was not perfect. I snarked some comments right back at you, but none of mine were as cruel as the ones you threw at me.

When I was 14, I spent the summer in Missouri with George. That summer I lost a lot of weight, cut my hair and made a lot of changes to myself. The changes were so drastic that you didn’t even recognize me when I got off the plane. What I expected I would hear was not what I heard though. I had expected to hear how good a job I did at dropping nearly 100 lbs., clearing up the acne and how nice the new haircut looked.

Wow, was I wrong about that. The insults began when you realized who I was. Right in the airport you called me a whale in Jordache. It was around this time that I quit trying to be the “good big sister”. I spent most of my time away from the house in an effort to avoid you. I also began dreaming of the day I would turn 16 because I would be out of that house one way or another.

It was also around this time our tit for tat game began. You would ruin something of mine, so I returned the favor. I was always the only one being punished though. I began resenting Mom for being so blind she couldn’t or wouldn’t see what you were doing. The name calling and cruel remarks you said right in front of her, and I cannot recall a single time she ever spoke up in my defense on that.

Between the external bullies and the torment I was forced to endure at home I began hating school, hating pretty much everything. My goals were crushed by a child who cared only for herself. Somewhere through all of that I lost myself. My dreams were written in my diary, with a bulleted list on how to achieve them. Until you found that diary and mocked the words before destroying it page by page. The look in your eyes that day was one of pure hatred that to this day I do not understand.

You have always tried to pass off the blame onto others as to why you behaved this way or that way. But the behavior existed long before either of my two husbands came along. That hatred towards me existed within you from the moment you could form sentences.

Just before we moved from Michigan, I volunteered at the public library. I had done it for years, loved doing it and likely would have pursued a degree in Library Sciences. That came to an end though when you kept sabotaging my bicycle. The day I gave up was the day my bike was stolen. I always thought you had that done but I could never prove it.

When Mom uprooted us to move from Michigan to Kentucky, yes I hated it. I loved living in the hills, loved when we lived in the holler, even began to thrive again. But you found a way to make it miserable for me. If I had a school function, sorry Phoebe has this or that so she wouldn’t let me.

I was in advanced placement and college prep classes in Kentucky. I even tried out for and MADE the tennis team, a sport I loved. I had to quit the team because you made sure I could not make it to the games or practice. Oh Mom, I forgot I have this or that on that day. Even if I managed to work up enough money I was forced to attend your school functions.

The last straw was the Sweetheart dance that my date stood me up for. You knew his parents were super strict and you made sure some pretty nasty rumors got around about me. Rumors you knew would get back to them, gotta love small town gossip. Between the rumors Mom told and the ones you started my “reputation” was ruined before my flower was ever picked. Those rumors almost got me raped on more than one occasion.

When the chance came for me to get out of that house, believe me, I jumped on it. Aunt Lou, a truly amazing woman, needed help and asked for me. So, Mom sent me by Greyhound back to Michigan to live with her and help her. For the first time in years, I slept amazing. I enjoyed waking up and facing the day, even though I had to get up an extra hour earlier to tend to Aunt Lou before rushing off to school.

While I was in Michigan, you convinced Mom to move into town, a much smaller place. You made sure there was no room for me if I needed to return. So, when Ray proposed to me, I saw a long term solution, not love. When I got pregnant, you and Mom came to Virginia Beach for the baby shower. You were rude to the guests, making the entire visit almost unbearable. But you liked Ray. I think you only liked him because he got me out of the house for good, until it fell apart.

Maybe one day I will detail everything wrong with that marriage, today is not that day. The circumstances became that I had to flee him. When you woke up and saw me there it was right back to the hateful comments, cruel remarks and sick forms of torture. The one thing I thought was good, you and Brandi bonding. I was like maybe you two could have a better relationship than you and I ever had.

Again, how wrong I was.

While you and Brandi became closer, your torment of me kept growing. In those two years I went back to finish my GED, held multiple jobs trying to do right as a single mom and had not even begun dating again. Maybe you forgot about all the jobs I worked during that time, maybe not. When I had a car, you always asked me to take you places, which I did. I was the Sister Taxi Service, you called it that, even said I should paint it on the door of my car.

I wasn’t immediately aware that you and Mom had gone behind my back to try to force Ray and I to reunite. The two of you kept the pressure on even after the divorce was final and I had won sole, full custody of Brandi.

Once again, I looked for a long-term way out of that house. I call it a “house” because after you came along it was no longer “home”. When the opportunity presented itself in what I thought was love at first sight I could not have imagined the lengths you and Brandi would go to in order to have Brandi move back with you and Mom.

When I met and moved in with Lewis is when your true hatred for me really started showing its teeth. You wanted me to leave Brandi with you and Mom, demanded it. Our life in the holler wasn’t perfect, but for once I was truly happy and in love. I was blind to how he manipulated me back then, but the physical abuse didn’t start until After May of 93……

I never even knew the whole story until Brandi visited me in California in 2019. She confessed how the two of you cooked up the idea that if she accused Lewis of hitting her then CPS would take her away and put her with Mom. The two of you tried so many ways to get me to let Brandi go back to live with you. By that time though, I had seen how your toxic influence was affecting her and I wanted to distance the two of you.

But May 18, 1993 changed everything…… I actually found a “pink, plastic fly flap” at a yard sale after I moved to Barstow and still have it to this day. I had two miscarriages as a direct result of what you two cooked up. But your hatred turned to rage when your plans were thwarted by CPS. You could not have known they would NOT place Brandi with Mom because of Mom’s health issues.

It was after that when your coldness hit hard. It was so cold you refused to even try to bond with the other kids. You looked disgusted by them and they did nothing wrong. You refused to “love” them because the child you chose was out of reach and you blamed me. CPS refused to even give you phone calls, that only upset you more.

But you never cared for what that little plot did to me or MY family. You didn’t care how it affected anyone except that it blew up in your face when they denied Mom. The first time he ever laid hands on me we were having words over that issue. He tried to tell me that you were somehow behind it, and I stood up for you. Lewis saw it before I ever did.

Much of the abuse after that was directly caused by your little plot. Your rage towards Lewis exploded after that.

When Mom decided to weird out and Carol called me, I took you in so Carol could help Mom get better. I knew you hated it in the holler, but you couldn’t stay with her until she got better. Choices were limited and Carol refused to allow you to stay with her because of issues she was having in her own marriage at the time.

You made sure everyone was as miserable as you were, that’s for sure. You also treated the kids like trash every chance you got. I can say the influence you thought you had on them was little to none, thank God for that!

After you were able to move back to Mom’s you did everything you could to drive a wedge between me and Mom. For a while it succeeded. As she got sicker, she knew her time was coming and she wanted to mend our relationship. The more she talked to me or wanted to visit though, the worse you became.

When she passed and only me and Jimmy were named as the ones to handle her final plans, oh you were livid because they wouldn’t even let you in the room. I think you picked the dress she hated the most out of spite. You fail to recognize that she had set all of that up when I was a toddler and she never changed or amended it.

The snowball of issues that happened after your little plot with Brandi though affected more lives than you even considered. I had two miscarriages because of the stress, and after the second one the doctor said I may never carry another child to term. Do you remember what you said to me? I remember it like it was yesterday because the pain of losing the baby was still so fresh. You said, “Good, you don’t need HIS kids, you only need Brandi back.” You pointed right at Lewis when you said it too.

We had a lawn care business we were doing fairly well with back then. We were growing each week, and it would have been an amazing business to hand down to the kids. All of that fell apart because of all the court dates, trauma and stress over your little plot. Each thing that went sideways as a result of that little plot only caused the physical abuse to get worse.

In 2000, after Lewis didn’t even have a fair trial, he was found guilty of a crime he never committed. This is where you need to pay attention to the price that was almost paid over your little plot. The court gave him a month to “get his affairs in order” and then report to the jail.

During that month he wanted to run to Mexico and never come back. At least that’s what he told me, even though I was against it. It was summer so we camped in many places for a couple of weeks in order to spend some quality time together. It was during these camping nights that I knew I had to get the other 5 kids out. I had zero choice, even though I knew I could not get myself out, yet.

Lewis didn’t want to go to jail, and he didn’t want us to go on without him if he did go to jail. His idea was murder suicide. Noah was 8 months old at the time, still breast feeding and your plot had driven him so far off the deep end he wanted to KILL the children and both of us. I knew I had to get them out before we got back to Kentucky too.

I did get them out and I also worked with CPS to keep the 5 together. I worked with them, behind his back, to allow Carol and Jerry to adopt them. This was the beginning of the end of my marriage. I stayed with him until they turned 18. I figured they were adults and could handle themselves.

You and I had began talking around then and you said “if you ever leave him I will do my best to help, even help you get an apartment until you get on your feet”. When I contacted you informing you that I had left you spent hours yelling at me about SSI you thought I was receiving. Nothing I said could convince you I was NOT receiving it back then. God, I wish I could access those old Yahoo Messenger chats……

You turned your back on me in my one, true time of need. But the thing you always want to bring up is about $75 when I was locked up. You also fail to recognize that I had no record before Lewis and literally only one issue after leaving him and that issue was spawned by Brandi.

Your little plot almost had dire ramifications for 5 innocent children. Just collateral damage to you though huh? The best thing I ever did was begging the judge in Mississippi to make damn sure neither side of the family had any contact with them!!!

I have spent a lot of time wondering why you hate me so much, trying to explore traumatic events in my past in search of why my own sister was born hating me. I have made peace with the fact that I will likely never know why.

I have forgiven you, a long time ago. So, why pen this now if I forgave you? It needs to be said. I need some questions off my plate so I can move forward in therapy and for my 5 children who also deserve to know that their own aunt was the driving force of the wrecking ball in our lives.

I do not want an apology from you. It wouldn’t be sincere. I listened to enough of your fake apologies for a lifetime. The ones who deserve that apology are the kids.

 

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In 1994, when Clyde passed away and Mom received his life insurance settlement, I heard you both discussing missing money. I also heard you trying to blame me. But I wasn’t the one on a spending spree buying name brand things (Items Mom could not afford and you had no job). It was just another thing you did and blamed me for. There was a time when I think Mom realized it was you and it broke her heart.

Maybe lying to Mom about your line of work in college…. An accountant’s assistant? Candy Cane? Nothing wrong with exotic dancing, it got you through college for sure. Mom knew all along. She wasn’t as blind as you thought she was. She and I talked about how worried she was about you doing that work.

I will not even go into how you treated Stefanie. She and I have reconnected and do keep in touch now. She treats me more like a sister than you ever did.

 

Actions have consequences, and the actions you took in 1993 had serious consequences. You wanted Brandi to live with you. You hated Lewis for “taking her away from you”. You thought you could kill two birds with one stone. Send Lewis to jail and get Brandi back with one little lie.  

The sad thing is you never cared about the consequences. All you saw was what you wanted, no matter what the cost was to anyone else. That little lie did permanent damage to Brandi too. It messed up her head so badly that she may never recover from it. You screwed things up so badly I could not repair it no matter how hard I tried.

Part of me wants to believe that you wanted to tell the truth, stop that snowball to hell and fix things. Another part of me knows the sadistic side of you likely enjoyed every second of the pain you caused.

 

Maybe you forgot how you tried to make yourself the saint. Remember when you told everyone that you paid for the Corsica? That you made the payments on that because poor Evelyn didn’t have money? Girl, you were in junior high when we bought that. We used some of the old cars sitting on the property as a trade in and the payments were auto deducted from my bank account, money I earned doing work study while attending college. But, you seem to need people to think that I could not survive without you helping me. You helped me ONCE in your entire life, once.

Another thing you hated about me was that I drew welfare. Lewis and I were building the lawn care business. It would have grown to a point that we no longer would have needed welfare, but court dates, trauma etc made it near impossible to continue and then Paul allowed Kim and Tina to steal the equipment we purchased and steal customer payments. For a time I was a stay-at-home mom. When welfare began the welfare to work program, I didn’t throw a fit. I seized the opportunity and got my college degree. Maybe you didn’t know, but after 2000 I never drew welfare again.

Am I on SSI now, yes. Why? Because I did not get enough quarters to qualify for SSDI due to many of the jobs I worked being viewed as independent contract work. I think you should know too, I did not get it on mental like you enjoy telling people. I let that BS go for too long now.

I was approved for disability (for LIFE) due to the damage Lewis did to me. My back is what the SSI was approved on. I am now looking at multiple surgeries the doctor wants to do in order to repair some of that damage. So, your accusation in 2011 of me spending all the SSI and cursing me out when I left Lewis was about 4 years too early. From 2011 through 2015 I supported myself. I worked until the doctor told me to stop that all I was doing was further damaging my spine. I also had to fight for the benefits, they were not easy to get approved.

So, you see, your little plot had consequences, those are consequences you never saw coming nor even had to truly experience. You lit the fire and then walked away. Through it all you judged me, talked shit about me and how I handled things. Not once did you ever attempt to apologize sincerely or try to make amends.

This is why I stopped contact with you. The toxic behavior is not something I want or need in my life, not then and most certainly not now.

 

 

My therapist was right. Speaking my mind on this has made me feel so much better. I may never be able to understand why you did what you did, but at least now it’s not a dirty little secret hiding in a dusty closet hoping to be forgotten.

I also hope that one day the kids can find it in their hearts to reconcile with me. For now, I am respecting their boundaries on the matter, no matter how much my heart aches for them.

 

 

 

 

 

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Phew, I finally said it. I do have more on this, but I am exhausted and need to do morning rounds before trying to nap. I will expand on this later next week. Just forcing myself to remember it all and type it out is exhausting.