The one in the middle
A few days ago I received an email from my elder sibling, it was addressed to my younger sib, his wife and myself, in it she told us some very upsetting news about her health. She wanted to make sure that we all knew at the same time. The sort of news that is hard to hear, the sort of news that is very hard to reply to. But (of course) I did, I replied with the 'so sorry to hear this', 'let me know if I can help' and 'I love you' lines and followed it up with a phone call to her today. We chatted for a long time about everything in her life, decisions she is having to make about her daughters future and what medical tests were going to be taken over the next week. She also said that neither my brother or his wife had replied to her email, and the she was "cut to the quick" that they didn't make even the smallest effort on hearing her news. We talked a while longer about different situations and family members and ended up saying goodbye reasonably happily.
Then I called my brother, we chatted for a while about this and that. Holidays, diving and moving home, just general news. Then I asked if he'd read his sisters email, he said that yes he had, but didn't know what to reply. I offered a few suggestions, to which he mumbled that yes he probably should. Then said he was just too busy to get online much these days. At this point I reminded him that thanks to Facebook news feed I knew how often he snatched a moment during his day to do a movie quiz, post some photos or send some pokes around and that he should spend 2 minutes sending a message of care to his sister.
Seriously I wonder how it is that I'm the only one in my family that takes the time and effort to make contact with anyone, is it that everyone else is married and therefore doesn't care about their blood family anymore? My siblings are 12 years apart in age and have very little in common with each other, and both of them seem to be happy to let each other drift away - yet I am so close to both of them and adore them with all my heart. And sometimes it really makes me sad that they don't share that love with each other - especially as they only live 2 hours drive from one another.
5 comments:
Ahhh, the life of a middle child. We're the glue that holds the whole world together sometimes.
My younger sibling is terrible about keeping in touch. She'll move to a new country and not even send a "we're here, here's our contact info" email until she's been there several months. I think a big part of it is that she's married and her sense of family is her own immediate brood. Not that she doesn't care about the rest of us, just that her circle of immediate concern is tighter. Since I'm not married, I think I tend to reach out *more* to the rest of the family so as to have a decent head count in my immediate circle.
As for your bro not writing, not everyone deals the same way - silence can mean even more deeply felt concern than one might imagine.
Sorry about your sister. Hope she will be better soon.
Even though I am the oldest and have one younger brother, I think I can imagine it's not easy to be the middle child. Your siblings are lucky to have you keeping everybody together.
Both my brother and I are very close to our family. I feel sad when I hear some people aren't very close to their siblings and parents.
Also, like DG said, perhaps your brother is very concerned about your sister but didn't know how to express himself.
DGNY: Yep the whole immediate circle is the key to this I think. Bro said that he just didn't know how to reply as this was the first time Sis had sent him an email with this kind of news.
Tiny: Thanks, fingers and toes are crossed here. I feel that I've spent my life trying to keep my family connected, which is kind of odd as I'm the only one who lives out of the UK.
Sometimes, being physically located close to a person doesn't mean you are emotionally close to him/her. Two people could well be in different planets when they are actually sitting next to each other on the couch.
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