Rejected by my own sister

Emma is the eldest of my sisters, and was born in December 1960. I have known of her existence for a while, but it was only in the spring of 2020 that I finally got to know a bit more about her through my sister Susan, and decided to send her a letter to see if she would respond. Here is the letter I wrote to her back in May:

Dear Emma,

I hope you don’t mind me addressing you by your first name even though I don’t really know you at all. I give myself that liberty only because we are related through our birth mother,   Christine Marie Medenhall I am your half brother, Peter. I was born in 1977 if you remember? I was too young to remember you, and I know you were a great deal older than me. But I’ve known about your existence for a long time because you were mentioned in my adoption statement as my elder sister, Caroline I address you as Emma though, because that is the name you have chosen to be known by, and I respect that.

I just wanted to write to you and say how happy I was to hear about you through my sister, Susan. She tells me that you have broken contact and that you haven’t been in touch for a while. I don’t know fully the reasons for that, but really that is none of my business right now. For me, you are part of the family I never really knew. I don’t care about whatever has happened in your more recent past. I just hope that you will contact me once you get this letter. If you don’t then, I will respect your privacy. I first made contact with Susan a week ago. The funny thing was that she was located not by me, but by a friend of mine in the Philippines!

Susan did mention some things which happened before you broke contact. I just wanted to say that I too have more than my fair share of crazy things I have done and experienced. What I didn’t realise was that my past would eventually come back to haunt me. I first realised there was something very wrong with me 2 years ago. I am 43 years old and I should be married with children by now, or at least, divorced. I am not, because I have never found anyone I have been able to settle and fall in love with. I feel a strange emptiness inside me, like being alone, or a sense of not belonging anywhere; of feeling of being an outsider. I eventually self diagnosed myself as having Emotional Deprivation Disorder or Emotional Detachment Disorder, and have been having therapy. I have these emotional walls around me that I built up in my earliest years, most likely due to neglect and the trauma of separation. I know that my past has caused this. It has probably affected all of us in ways we cannot understand.

I think you may have had a brief contact with Thomas Henry Friday, our mutual half brother. I am sad to relate that he passed away last year on the 29^th December 2019 in the afternoon.  Actually, he took his own life. He had spent some time in mental health institutions and he had made numerous suicide attempts. His final one was successful and he walked into the path of a lorry on the A59 (Longsight Road) in Langho, Blackburn. Not far from the mental health hospital where was had been staying. I was sad to hear the news; even sadder than when I heard about our mother passing away in February 2018 in the Toxteth area of Liverpool. However bad a mother she may have been, she clearly had mental health issues of her own, and I will try and find out as much as I can before making any judgements.

So there we go. I hope that news isn’t too much of a shock for you. And if it is, I apologise. But I thought you had the right to know.

I would like to make contact with you at some point in the future, once things are back to normal. To this end, I will give you my telephone numbers and email. I won’t think any less of you if you decide not to make contact. After all, I think our mother’s behaviour and our early years have affected us all to varying degrees. And if you have decided to move on with your life, I can do nothing but wish you the very best. I will leave you with an old photo of myself. I think I must have been around 6 or 7 at the time? It was when I was at Christ the King School in Childwall. I hope you are doing well, my big sister, and I hope you remain in the best of health.

Take care

Love Peter

To my great surprise and initial delight, Emma made contact by email and she then gave me her mobile number so we could chat on Whatsapp.

Emma was very scathing about her past and about our mutual mother and she held nothing back. Her words were full of bile and loathing. It made me realise that whatever issues I had paled in comparison to my sister's. She was so just angry and bitter. She had not been able to let go of her past and move beyond it.

I will paste an edited transcription of one of our chats on Whatsapp so you can see for yourself. I have corrected the odd spelling mistake, capitalised the 'I's and the names of my relatives but otherwise I have left it pretty much as it is.

"I am a baby boomer technically your mother was born in 1939 I think as she told me she was a toddler during the second world war, she was 20 years old when she had me, my father who is not in heaven got her pregnant, so they had a shotgun wedding

I actively hated hugs, and hers smelt/stank/wretched me of her skanky fag smell, she smoked 40 a day, and never used deodorant or had a bath, we never had hot water either, her hair was always greasy, and her teeth golden brown, so she never smiled either, lol

Her swearing was beyond belief, I started running outside just to get fresh air, even in the rain, I washed myself at school with the free soap

Really, 5 minutes in her company and you wanted to run away, she was not a person to talk to, anger management people would be swearing at her lol

She was an utter cow to everybody, our grandmother was at her wits end, I look like my grandmother a lot in the pic with the roses. I miss her the most, but my picture is the only way I can remember, her sanity kept me alive till Helga decided I didn’t need her anymore

I have never met anybody as bad, bi polar, ADHD, cold turkey, and a twisted mind all rolled into one person who could not give a shit about anybody else, except her fag/booze supply, and the lack of money for it

The reason Susan ran away one evening, never to return, was your mother knew Susan had money, and told her to give it to her, "any money you have is mine" Susan obviously refused, mother pulled her hat off, and pulled her pony tail, swinging Susan into oncoming cars on the road, Susan screamed and ran off, mother never saw her again

Thomas was in a push chair, we had all had food at gran’s, under Helga’s scornful stare, it was freezing, but we walked to the police station to report Susan "missing" farce that was

The police didn’t have mother on their radar then, but it was ironic she went there willingly, only to tell a bunch of lies, Susan went to live with Christina Leatherbarrow, mum’s aunt, poor as a church mouse

I saw Susan at the same school for about two weeks, Thomas was gone, and the only food I has was the school dinner, till half term, then reality struck, I was going to starve to death in 9 days"

Emma didn't even stop at ranting about our mother. Patrick Latchford, her ex husband didn't escape unscathed. She mentioned how in 2000, she and Patrick had been made bankrupt after he had run up a large credit card debt due to spending money on a new motorbike and a car. Patrick had been involved in a road traffic accident just a few years earlier.

One Saturday morning, Emma and I talked on the phone for 3 hours nonstop. Well, Emma was doing most of the talking and I was just listening and trying to take it all in. She chatted endlessly about her life both past and present, her children and her career, telling me that she had created an alternate moniker on Twitter where she could vent her spleen behind the veneer of this persona. I took a look at her Twitter handle. On it, she described herself as a comedienne, although God knows how she could see the funny side of life when she had been through so much. She also told me that she posted regular comments on the Daily Mail news app. I could tell she was actually a very intelligent woman and from the many selfies she sent, still very much attractive for her age. She was into art and liked to draw pictures of animals, plants and even people. Her artwork wasn't amazing by any stretch. But it was good. And as for me, I couldn't draw for all the tea in China. Art had never been my strong point in school.

Here above is a photo of Caroline (Emma Louise) with my other sister, Susan, when they were seven and six years old respectively.  Caroline is the grinning mischievous girl on the right and Susan is on the left.

This is a photo of my sister as she looks today. For her age, she certainly looks great. I told Emma that as soon as things were back to normal, I would make plans to come and see her down in Bagshot where she still lives with one of her nieces. Unfortunately that was never to be. One Friday evening while I was staying at a friend's house, she sent me a message asking me if I was in contact with my other half-sister Susan. I thought this was a really bizarre question to ask because it was through Susan that I had managed to get Emma's contact details in the first place, and Emma must have known that. Anyone reading that letter I first wrote to Emma on the 23rd May 2020 would have logically deduced that I had been talking to Susan beforehand. And so, I replied back and confirmed that I had indeed been in touch with Susan.

What Emma did next was so shocking. When I woke up early on Saturday morning and checked my phone, I saw that she had blocked me, as if without a moment's hesitation. Just like that! She had erased me from her life; her own brother who had made the effort to reach out to her. I tried to reason with her, but it was already too late. My replies went unseen and unanswered. The pain this caused was indescribable. It was almost like being rejected for the second time. On the way back home from my friend's place, I sobbed and cried uncontrollably in the car. I was wearing sunglasses at the time so hopefully, none of the other drivers could see the bitter stinging tears rolling down my cheeks.

This is a screenshot of the last conversation I had with my sister.

Not long afterwards, I penned another letter and sent it to Emma's address in Bagshot. I wasn't exactly hopeful of a reply at this stage but I knew that I at least show that I had made some effort. Here is what I wrote:

Dear Emma Louise,

I thought long and hard whether I should actually write this letter to you. In the end, my determination to reach out to whatever is left of your feelings of kinship and sisterly affection won through. And so here goes. If this letter does not foment some emotional response, then I really am lost to you.

Last Saturday, you blocked me on Whatsapp. In doing so, you not only plunged a dagger into my heart, but you twisted the blade in the wound. I have never felt so much heartbreak in ages. I know that sounds really melodramatic, but please do not underestimate the hurt and upset I felt on that morning when you cut me off so brutally. It must have been pretty much equivocal to the same feelings I had as a young baby when my mum abandoned me at Alder Hey hospital in a very poorly condition, just at the time when I needed her the most. The hurt I felt last weekend must have been similar; a long since buried emotional memory.

I have been left scratching my head, wondering what wrong I have done to you. For 43 years of my life on earth, I have been a lost soul without a root or a firm sense of belonging, in spite of the love I have been given from my adoptive family. That all changed in early May when I chatted to my older sister Susan for the first time. Who knows? It might have been you I came across first. However fate decided otherwise. And so it was Susan, the first family member I was reunited with.

It is true that Susan gave me your address. I thought that much was fairly easy to work out from my first letter to you. But I have always been open and transparent. And I believe that I have made it quite clear that whatever issues you have with Susan I do not want any part of. I am not here to take sides. You and Susan are part of the family I never knew. I was so overjoyed in learning about you both. I was looking forward to one day meeting you and learning more about you and your children, my five nieces and nephew Conrad.

I have spoken to Susan since last weekend and she admitted that she sent you a letter or card, which I believe was to try and patch things up between you. I had no part in that, and I did not know about it. Yet, I do not have any problem in her taking that action because I want this rift to be healed as much as she does.

Please be reasonable. If you no longer want to speak to me, then I know I can’t force you. But at least consider this. You have grown up with so much bitterness and hate towards our mutual mother. I totally understand that. But there comes a point where you really have to let go of all this pain and bitterness, because it is poisonous to your soul, and you will never be completely at rest until you can do so.

The most remarkable thing about all of this is that, while you hated our mother Christine with a passion, ironically enough, it feels like you have become just like her in some respects. This is just a vicious cycle which has been repeated throughout generations of our family. I want this cycle to stop, otherwise you one day run the risk of ending your days as a resentful and lonely woman who is so fractured and broken by her childhood, she has created an alternative persona for herself on social media.

Please open up your heart. I know there is a lot of good in you. You have raised 6 children in spite of all the odds. For that alone, you have my admiration.

My door is always open to you. Only you can decide whether to come back to the fold or not. But I am not going to stop talking to Susan just because you have had a falling out. It is not fair that you should expect me to be partisan when it comes to family. I will never take sides.

As flesh and blood, you will always be my sister, even if right now, you have chosen to alienate yourself from me and Susan who wants nothing more than to rebuild broken bridges.

Take care, Emma Louise. It was an honour and a privilege to speak to you. You made me laugh with all your accents. I really do hope we will reconnect one day. But the ball is in your court.

All my love,

Your brother Peter

It has been seven long months since I wrote that letter. And there has been nothing but silence since that time. I one day hope for a happy family reunion but realistically, this is very unlikely to happen. You see, children learn about developing and maintaining good healthy relationships from their parents. If the relationship with either or both parents is bad, then all they are ever going to do is repeat that behaviour when they themselves are adults.

This is a good cautionary tale about the consequences of child neglect and mistreatment. My sisters remember the cruel treatment they had at the hands of their mother. My half-brother Thomas took his own fucking life his head was so messed up. I consider myself so lucky in some ways that I have forgotten everything from my terrible experience.