My aunts (my mother’s sisters) are an odd pair — one of them claims never to talk to the other one, and in the next sentence she’ll refer to a conversation they had recently. The same one says her sister never comes to visit, and then relates something her sister said the last time she came over. I just smile to myself and don’t confront her about her contradictions.
I think this one aunt (and maybe the other one, too) is carrying over squabbles they had when they were children into their later years. Each of them has called me and complained about the other on at least one occasion, and then sworn me to secrecy about our conversation. Hey, I’m Switzerland on this issue — since I’m not around either of them very often, it’s easy to keep my mouth shut. However, more than once I’ve wanted to sit them down like naughty children and lecture them — tell them to cut out the negative complaints on both side, and just be nice to each other.
It’s really a shame they don’t get along better — because at this point, these two women are the only remaining siblings out of nine children. I really wish they were able to be closer and more loving toward each other in their final years. But without deep introspection and understanding of where their hurt feelings come from, I don’t hold out much hope for that outcome.
Both sisters tend to have bouts of depression. One of them had electro-shock therapy in the 1960s, at least in part because she was so distraught over the loss of her husband to a heart attack at a young age. The shocks pretty much changed who she was from that point forward. Although she’s definitely functional and very sweet (at least in my experience — her sister begs to differ on that point), there’s always a hint of “vacancy” in her demeanor, and I have serious doubts as to whether introspection would be a good thing for her (if she’s even capable of such a thing, after the shock therapy). And the other one likes to put on the “poor me, I’m so picked on” persona. I’ll just have to leave it alone and let them work it out between them.
I went to visit the elder of the two sisters today. She’s 87 years old, and still as sharp and feisty as ever, although physically she’s fairly frail. She’s been a widow for the past 10 years or so, and after her husband died she moved back here from several states away to be nearer to her sister (which again doesn’t make sense, if they truly don’t get along). She is a college-educated woman and has been a businessperson most of her life — not working outside the home, but taking care of the business end of her husband’s various entrepreneurial ventures. She had a severely mentally handicapped child, and took care of her and her brother, while also helping renovate apartments they owned and managing her own antique business at various times along the way. She’s very knowledgeable about business subjects, and I relate very well to her, since I’m sort of the same way.
The reason for my visit was to interview her for a book I’m writing about my mother, who was two years older than my aunt and served as a sort of surrogate mother and protector for her two younger sisters. I vaguely knew my mother’s history from stories I had heard over the years, but the details were either not shared, or I’ve forgotten them now. So I bought a little voice recorder and sat down for a nice long conversation with my aunt. I had made up a list of questions, and she managed to cover most of them, although she took an agonizingly long time to finish a story sometimes, because she would go off on a tangent about different cousins and their wives, and their wives’ families, etc., etc. But I managed to smile and be patient through it all. Today I listened to my aunt, who, after her initial reluctance to be recorded, forgot about the voice recorder and talked virtually non-stop for almost five hours.
As I heard her stories of their life on the farm, I realized that much of the information probably wouldn’t make it into my book. It didn’t matter, though, because I learned some things I didn’t know about my mother’s family. I don’t have children to pass that knowledge along to, but it’s good for me to know it, anyway. If nothing else, it gives me a better understanding of my mother, and why she knew how to do the things she did so well.
I very much regret not sitting down with my mom a long time ago and hearing her story in her own words. It just never crossed my mind to do so. Absent that, her sister’s recollections will have to serve as a reasonable substitute. I learned exactly what I needed to know today — and if any of you have an elderly relative, I encourage you to record their stories and memories at length. It will do both of you some good, and you’ll be glad you did.
Tags: Family, relationships
