Better late

When you spend a lot of time in your own head you imagine all sorts of conversations.

Your imagination may very well run away with itself.

Take, for example, what I said yesterday about being stigmatised when my parents took me to Asia leaving my brother in England and I became the child “not left behind”.

It is entirely possible that the concept was all in my head. I shall never know for sure.

.

If father had had his way, both his children would have stayed behind, but I was severely asthmatic and my mother felt I was too young, so she insisted on bringing me to Cambodia when she went to join him, after packing up the flat and finding a boarding school for Peter.

Sibling jealousy is natural. Often, the older child feels threatened by the arrival of another, though my mother liked to tell me that when Peter first saw me he exclaimed: “Isn’t she sweet!” He never appeared jealous, only sometimes disdainful of a younger girl-child!

My mother once accused me of being jealous of my brother which hurt me deeply. By then, I too had been sent to boarding school and felt that my status ought to have equalised, but apparently not. I suspect that Mum never got over her guilt about leaving Peter and she always saw me differently, but she did not talk to me about things that mattered.

The accusation of jealousy caused me to examine my feelings. It seemed to me a hideous emotion, but was it true, what mother said? Growing up in England I had been very aware that Peter was the elder and a boy. He went to cub scouts and to cricket matches. He got a lot of extra attention once when he was hospitalised with pneumonia and I was aware that other family members doted on him. He was the first child and he had a sunny disposition. He was a nice child, albeit naughty at times, as little boys are expected to be!

All of that was perfectly normal, I’m sure. It was only when Peter passed his 11+ exam that I was aware of feeling slighted. Passing the exam determined the sort of school he would go to and it was particularly important because it was to be a boarding school. Mum and I were going to join my father in Cambodia. Of course the family would make a fuss of my brother. They had a dim view of the situation, which is understandable.

Yet I still deny that what I felt was jealousy and after what my mother said, I determined than no-one would ever again have cause to accuse me of it. It is an emotion I refuse to allow. When men I liked fell for other women, I managed to be pleased for them. People cannot be forced to feel something they do not and if you care for them, you rejoice in their happiness.

.

Sadly, though, that accusation left a deep scar. It was one of those troublesome thoughts that came to eat at me repeatedly. I chewed at it over and over, coming to conclusions that I cannot confirm and that certainly no longer matter.

Staying behind in England, my brother was cared for by relatives. Leaving school at age 18, he took an apprenticeship in a bank and was soon “adopted” by his girlfriend’s family. My parents made the terrible mistake of objecting, causing a rift that took years to heal.

My mother spent the rest of her life trying to make up for it. Typically, father never acknowledged that there was anything to make up for.

Peter and his wife went off to Africa where they raised two children and eventually they paid occasional brief visits to my parents. Once, when Peter was on leave in England, I arranged for him to fly out to Barbados. I flew down from New York the same day. Amazingly the flights were on time, so we met at the airport and went to surprise Mum and Dad. It was one of very few times we were ever together as a family after 1956.

Working for an airline, you might think I should have gone to visit my brother’s family in Africa, but I wasn’t sure whether Peter believed I had sided with my parents in their disagreement. Did he think of me as the favoured child? As stuck-up? I had no way of knowing. The fact that I was never invited for a visit was not significant of anything other than that Peter was a hopeless correspondent, so perhaps I should just have gone, but there was an imaginary wedge between us.

And my life had its own complications.

.

It is so easy to analyse family politics from the remoteness of old age, when most of the participants have departed the field.

Two years after our mother died, came the shocking news of my sister-in-law’s sudden death. I barely knew her, but I thought it was important to support my brother, so I flew to England for the funeral. I had not expected to be affected, so I was astounded to be overwhelmed with grief. Honestly, I cannot say that it was for my sister-in-law. It was for her family, certainly, but mostly I am sure it was feeling that I did not belong.

Some years later, Peter and I took our father on holidays a couple of times and I had hoped that in the evening, after the old man had retired, we would have a chance to talk, but it never happened. The wedge was still in place.

Only after my brother was diagnosed with cancer, spending months alone in Cyprus during treatment, did he open up, corresponding by email. We exchanged memories, comparing notes and got to know each other the way we always should have.

Better late than never.

.