I experienced only a small bit of sexual abuse when I was a child within my family, and that was from my older sister, who I loved and who seemed to love me, demonstratively more than my parents were able to. She provided empathy where there was often only sympathy followed by impatience and judgment. She supported the person I really was, not her idea of who I was supposed to be. I am grateful to say there was not more. I'm certain in my heart she feels a deep remorse for it. I am certain she remembers it and she would not scream at me if I brought it up. I forgive her, for she, too, was a controlled and neglected child under the rule of a couple of narcissists who appeared respectable to the outside world. It was pretty minor compared to what I experienced at school and on the streets in my neighborhood growing up. Still not a perfect picture, either.
But she also saved my life. Twice. At least.
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| About 10 months old there. Sister was 8. |
I remember one very stormy day when I was very small. I don't recall if I was in Mexico or India at that stage, but I do know we were traveling and were staying in a hotel. I was out front watching the lightening. There was a porch with an overhang around the whole hotel, like the cheap kind have. My mother was no where that I can remember, but my sister was keeping a close eye on me.
I remember seeing the lightening. There wasn't even the slightest doubt in my little mind, it was headed straight to me. I stood against the metal rails under the porch overhang and could easily see that it was going to miss the overhang and hit me. It all went so freaking fast. I saw it coming closer, almost as if in slow motion, and suddenly I felt strong loving arms surround me, pull me inside the door and the door slammed. Immediately following that, lightening slammed against the door and fried a big black circle into it.
That lightening had my name on it, I knew it and whoever grabbed knew it. It would have killed me and even as a very young child I recognized this. I looked up behind to find my sister's face looking down at me, her brow furrowed. I recall she said something like, "woah!" The love in her eyes was clearly discernible. I remained in her arms.
My mother wandered out from a back room and saw us on the floor together. I don't recall clearly what happened after that, but I do know that it did not involve my mother kneeling and taking both her frightened daughters into her arms to comfort them. I'd have remembered that.
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| Sister & I, Halloween 1972, she took me trick or treating |
On another occasion, I was 11, my sister and I were in Quincy making those wonderful memories. My sister had taken to riding a horse named Priscilla every day out into the forest. I'd see her disappear like a dot across the fields and into the trees. I wanted to ride the horse, too, but was nervous and shaking. I climbed onto Priscilla's back and the horse suddenly went crazy. Maybe she felt my intense fear, but she was ready to take off into the woods with me on her back hanging on for dear life. My sister had a hold of the reigns. She held on to that enormous animal, it dragging her along, she refusing to let the horse take off or buck me off her back. After what seemed like a really long time, but was probably only a minute or so, my sister stopped the horse. I got off.
She held me tightly as I shook. She also tried to make me feel better about having some how set the horse off. We spent a long time talking about it, processing it. She was always willing to help me process stuff when she was around. I don't even think we told my mom about that one. It was just in another example of my sister actually being there in my life, to save my life and my mom (and certainly not my busy self-important dad) being nowhere around, or even vaguely interested. My sister fought laying her own life on the line for me both times.
My mother was never there to save my life, she just didn't live *with* me. She couldn't have saved me. She didn't have the ability to save her own emotional well-being, let alone mine, or my sister's.
I don't think it's unusual for an older sibling to save a younger sibling. I think it's probably fairly common. I also don't think it's unusual necessarily for an older sibling to care for a younger sibling -- but mostly in households with lots of kids. My mom wanted the position of having kids without having the really messy emotional hard work of having kids.
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| The family with one member missing, the metaphor for my childhood |
My siblings were 12 and 7 years older than myself, and only one of them was at all involved in my life. Had I been in an only child situation, I think I might have died long before my parents could ever raise me to be the scared and trapped person I grew up into. That lightening would have taken care of that. For my mother was not in my life, not in any real meaningful way. My parents only wanted us involved in their lives. Not really the other way around.
Because my siblings were so much older, I did end up spending a lot of time alone, left to my own devices...
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| Grateful for my wonderful patient dogs. |
I treasured most all of the time I got to spend with my sister. We had some mean sister arguments, too, but the good times with her were really good times. That was a treasure I never got with my brother.
In fact, for whatever icky stuff may have occurred between myself and my older biological sister, she was by far much more of a mother to me than my own mother. And for that, and for those memories, and for saving my life, probably even more than those two times I can clearly recall, I am deeply grateful to my sister. I will always hold a soft space of love for her, no matter how far apart we have grown now. Her politics may be different than mine. Her beliefs may be different. But she really did love me. She was the one (mostly) gentle person in my childhood besides Shanti, my Āyā (आया - nursemaid, carer or nanny in Hindi), who gave me unconditional love, in ways my mother hadn't. This was something my parents could not bring themselves to do.
Shanti was hired almost immediately when we went to India (as was Babulal, our handlebar-moustached live-in private cook, who watered down the food because we were Americans). My mother had very little to do with me that year. I remember only a few incidences and then coming together to eat dinner at night. A most stuffy and unfriendly experience in which my father commanded sternly. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what my mother was doing most of that 14 months. At dinner, my sister and I would mush around with our watered-down food and then excuse ourselves and go eat off of banana leaves on the floor with the servants (including Shanti). That was the real food, the best food I ever tasted. And the most wonderful company.
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| Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_religion |
In India for 14 months when I was 4/5, my parents could afford a nanny for me full time. Shanti lived with us. Had my mother been able to afford a nanny stateside, she would have no doubt done that, too. In a way I wish she could have. She did have good taste in nannies, and carers which she used in both Mexico and India. Shanti provided me with a contrast, but she was careful, too. I know she didn't want to take the place of the Ghara kī rānī (lady of the house). There was no shame or getting into trouble with Shanti, and she never once "told" on me to my parents for any kid-like thing I did. She let me explore and be me. Shanti loved me openly and freely and I loved her just as much as I'd ever loved my mother.
We were well-to-do in India and hung out with "important" people. I do not remember this day, or Tuks [pronounced Toocks], or anything about it, although it was important to my parents. This is Tuks Edwin's birthday party. He was the son of the Ambassador to Nigeria. Can you find me in there? The one with the grimace.
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| Tuks' Birthday party, 1966 |
This above photograph, however, and pictures of famous buildings, seemed to be the most important ones to my folks. There were a few posed ones on horses, too. Where they were and who they met and this is what we did photos. The kids were not the focus of their cameras unless it was in those situations.
UPDATE: Digging through the stuff I took when my mother passed away, I found an entire photo album of India, with just 4 pictures of Shanti for the whole 14 months. But there she is! Look how tiny she is! I was 4/5. My sister who was 11/12 was already taller than Shanti. I am so happy I took that photo album. We look like the little British Patriarchical family my father so wished to have, "old school," he used to say. There is my beloved Shanti.
When I find the paintings we sat for while there, I will scan them in and post them to this blog. At least mine.
When we left India, Shanti begged my father and mother to take her with us, to take her to America. They refused, feeling it would be too complicated. I was heartbroken. It was harder to leave Shanti behind than it was to ever leave my mother.
Later other people and families would provide contrast. But my sister and Shanti will live in love in my heart as the deepest bonds of my childhood.
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