I have a sister who, like your brother, doesn't share the wounds I have. Her relationship with our mother was significantly different, though she was damaged in different ways that are harder to identify. My sister was mom's best friend and confidante for most of her life and was with her when she died. It was hard on her.


I offered to give her the keyboard just now to explain, but she has confidence in my ability to share her experience a little better than even she can and so here I go...

She is capable of seeing ...hmm, this may be tougher than I thought... we don't much care for the word 'bad' but she knows who my mother was. Hmm. Sonseearae is much more spiritual than I am...that probably needs to be said. She's my guru in many ways. She knows the terrible things that my mother did, but she also saw my mother's pain in a way that I could not and still struggle to see today. So she saw the bad but embraced the hurt little child within my mother. That's who she loved. She has no problem giving love and compassion but she trusts me to keep her safe, reminding me always that we can love from a distance even those who hurt us and are not safe to be around.


We have another, Lori, who is about this age - and yeah, she is angry. Anger was something we never were allowed to express and she learned that lesson well. Today we are working on finding ways to lessen Lori's burden.


Sonseearae is confident, and honestly, I've never known her to be wrong on anything like this - not ever, that your mother knows. Accepting it would be more than she could handle though as it would mean she is as terrible a mother and person as she is afraid she is. We are not saying that she is - but that she believes herself to be.


Expect us to sit with you.