I think about my sister now and then. Then what follows is either a longing to have a big sister kind of relationship that I always dreamed about. Or, and this is the one I usually have, I'm glad my worshipping of her is over and that we don't talk to each other anymore. And then I wonder if she ever thinks about me after six years of silence.

It was my own damn fault. I agree and admit. I deleted her sent box file from Netscape while I was out there visiting her and it screwed up her e-mail. They had to call in a techie to fix it. Well, I didn't mean to do that, of course, but I crossed over the line and a slip is a slip. Our family comes from a long line of grudge holders and this is one grudge my sister isn't going to let go of. Even though I wrote her a long e-mail after I got home and explained what I did and why, and added some grudges of my own that I had had for 40 some years. She didn't take it very well and shot back with a short three-liner, the subject of which was titled, "Snoops get what they deserve."

I come from a long line of snooping in my sister's things when we had a bedroom together growing up, so I can't blame her for assuming that I was doing what I am good at doing. But this time it wasn't snooping, it was me innocently trying to cover my tracks after having written to my husband and my daughter about the revelations I was having about my sister. In searching for my e-mails to delete, I stumbled upon a couple of e-mails that she had written to our brother that contained her opinion of me and mine. It wasn't very nice and I was in shock. In shock that she actually thought that way about me. I was hurt to the core. Hurt so much that I couldn't stick around her house for the next two days. I rented a car and went for a drive up the Pacific coast to a bird sanctuary. But before I did that I found a phone and made a call to my husband and cried and cried on his shoulder.

The drive to the bird sanctuary was awesome. The coastal mountains are beautiful and the road is amazing. The treeless mountains go straight up on your right side and the cliffs to the ocean go right down on your left side. And there are hairpin-shaped curves all over the place. In one little town, I found Mervyn, the black stuffed bear we have that Bill wrote so many poems about. I got back late at night so that I wouldn't have to sit around and talk with my sister and brother-in-law.

The next day my sister told me that the Internet connection was down so that I wouldn't be able to use it to write to my husband or daughter. She didn't offer any explanation or sorries and she rather gave me a hard look. I knew something was up then. She had seen me the day before browsing in other areas of the computer except the e-mail and had hurried over to get a closer look as I hurriedly closed the windows explorer down.

I took my rental car out early and spent the day in Golden Gate Park by the ponds to try to birdwatch even though it was raining like mad. Mostly, I sat in the car and cried. The foggy windows shrouded my misery. My plane ticket would get me out of town the next day. I should have left that day even though it would have cost me a ticket change. I had a good reason to get a ticket change and maybe I should have tried. Our father had died a few days earlier. Our brother called my sister three days after his death to tell us about it. So, even if I had wanted to try to go to the funeral it was too late. Or so I thought. For some strange reason, my dad had requested to be buried in Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C. so the funeral was held off for a few months till they could get him in there. I wasn't told of that option either. My brother just assumed that I wouldn't want to be a part of it because my sister definitely did not want to be a part of it. She and our dad had had words years earlier, decades earlier, and weren't talking with each other. Hmm, seems there is a pattern there.

But I suffered it out at my sister's till the last day. Thankfully, I was to leave early in the morning. After spending the day in the park, and returning my rental car and getting chauffered back to my sister's house, it was time for dinner. She had cooked an exquisite dinner. I think it was lamb chops and mint sauce. Or was it the takeout pizza with artichokes? I can't remember now. She is an excellent cook, I have to say. And after dinner, which was rather stilted and forced, I asked if I could see pictures of their trips to Europe. I thought that would get us through the evening with something to talk about, at least. It did and I gratefully went downstairs to the guest quarters to sleep. My brother-in-law took me to the airport, my sister stayed home since she had work to do. I was uncomfortable and he seemed to be, too.

It is a shame that it turned out the way it did. I had a premonition that things weren't going to go well before I left. I felt like canceling out on it before I even left because I didn't want the relationship to change. BUT...I also felt that whatever was going to happen had to happen. And I'm glad it happened because I have felt so relieved of that burden of yearning. Yearning for a sisterly relationship that had never happened and that I kept hoping would happen. I hadn't wanted to see before how opinionated and judgemental she was but I saw it during that visit. I also saw that she had me in this little box in her mind and that she wasn't going to let me out of it. I was always going to be that depressed pesty little thing that she had had to put up with. Note that this is MY opinion.

My relationship with my brother is difficult, too, but at least we are still talking. When he learned that my sister and I had disowned each other and I was banned from her house, he insisted that I talk with her and clear it up. I told him that I had tried. I had written an apology letter and an open letter of how I had felt all those years. She dismissed it with a sarcastic "Grow up."

It's a strange thing to feel like an orphan adrift on a sea of strangers although I know that I have brothers and a sister. My mother and father are both dead. I suppose that this time of year brings up these family matters again. My husband's parents are dead, too. He has one brother who lives in Ontario and they correspond sporadically. I wouldn't say that Bill feels close to his brother. Bill's two kids live in Saskatchewan and the correspondence is infrequent and never asking how Bill's life is.

I can see how the holidays can be very depressing for so many people. Is it a rare instance where a family gets together for Christmas or Thanksgiving and are truly happy with each other? No sniping, no bickering, no backstabbing, no jealousy? In my naive and optimistic way I will cling to the idea that there truly are some happy families out there and they are not just on the TV in the 50's.