Thanks, Perna. I think we gravitate toward people who help us feel good about ourselves. Your aunt is critical. Also, she's unrealistic about what to expect on the phone. It doesn't sound like she exudes warmth. She called to tell you she had been through some difficulty in her life. She interrupted your evening in way that did not enhance your life. I think I see why calling her back, or writing her, might seem like a tedious chore.

I felt that way about my own parents when they were alive 2000 miles away. I knew I had to call them on Christmas eve. All that day I would dread it. I knew my mother would ask how I was doing and interrogate me to see how I might be screwing up. I knew my father would yak and yak about himself and ask me nothing to show sincere interest in me. He'ld slip in some oblique insult toward my boyfriend. Who needs that? Who wants to be subjected to that? Not I. No one does. Yet, I miss them now that they are gone. I tend to remember the good things . . . the great holiday dinners they put on. I look back through rose colored glasses. Yet, part of the reason I was willing to move so far away was because there was a lot that I didn't mind distancing myself from.

It also meant there was not much help that I gave them when they got older and needed help. One of my sister was there to give the help needed. She went to the doctor's appointments, took my mother shopping, etc. It wasn't heavy duty caregiving, but it was of enough importance that they valued her for it. They left her most of what they had . . . the house, its contents, some financial assets. I truly felt that I relinquished claims on that stuff when I went far away. I figured that was the trade-off. I encouraged my father to give my sister P.O.A.

None-the-less, I was left something (financial) that I thought was nice. But all heck broke lose when it was made known that my two other siblings were left nothing. They had been problem children who, when growing up, caused my parents some grief. It seems that my parents' plan was to settle all those scores with a spiteful will. Only my sister who was POA knew what was coming after the second funeral.

She has been a person of such character that she has given the two "disinherited" sibs generously out of what she inherited. Still, as most people can probably imagine, nothing she does will seem right to them. I have 3 sibs, no 2 of whom speak to each other. The POA sister, accused me of encouraging the other two to be mad at her. Believe me, they needed no encouragement from me. Each got a lawyer - the real pros at fomenting ill will. That was futile for these sibs, as was no surprise to me. They got what the "endowed" sister chose to share. Of course, in their eyes, they got short-changed. What was really wrong, as I saw it, was that my "endowed" sister participated in the scheme to emotionally "sock it" to the two dispossessed kids. And she allowed herself to be used as a lackey. Both parents passed away with no one knowing what the will said. "Disinherited" sis was at the bedside of each parent, oblivious to how badly she was regarded by each of them. I thought the whole thing stank. I told as much to POA sis.

So I guess I know why POA sis is polite to me, but that's all. She knows I don't think much of what she participated in. (Though I'm impressed as all get-out at how she has given to the other two.) People hate criticism, as I hated it. Even when it's unspoken. POA sis was cold toward me prior to the making public of the will. I guess, she knows my values and foresaw that I would be horrified.

So my parents orchestrated that their children would have animosity for each other. I wish they had died penniless, instead. That's how my grandparents all died. My aunts and uncles survived with warmth for each other. I wish I had that. Never having had children, I so wish I had that. My heart is broken.

My two "disinherited" sibs, whom I've treated with kindness and generosity, now treat me with resentment . . . not that they have much to do with me. It's not jealousy over money. (I didn't get enough to cause that, and I gave freely.) I guess they are mad that I was "loved" and that they, in the end, were not. Actually, growing up, it was always I who received the lion's share of my parents' praise, esteem and attention. That's probably got something to do with all this. I can't change how we grew up. Always, I've tried to acknowledge whatever hurt I knew they had felt over not being of such favored status. I tried to make up to them for what attention they seemed to lack from our parents. I could not. That is not doable.

This has gotten off the topic of "geographical" distance. I guess I've gotten to what seems the heart of what grieves me. I have cried typing this. I get suicidal thinking about it. As the child appropriated to meet my parents' emotional needs, I did not have a normal childhood. Growing up, I did not have friends, as my sibs all did. All I had was them, my sibs - my "always" friends . . . now, my "never again" friends.

Surely, I am not the only person to whom this sort of thing has happened. Somehow, I suppose, one is supposed to get over it. It seems that I am not doing so, but falling into deepening despair. I keep wishing for those days when it seemed that there was enough love going around for everyone, and we did have fun all of us together. My world is broken and I can't fix it.