The "Beloved" Sister

Visiting my sister, once or twice a week, is an interesting exercise. The poor woman is out-in-the-left-field when it comes to people's skills.

It is sad that she is so mean and self-righteous. But sadder yet is that she's clueless about it. When a person is so sure that being rude and controlling is a good thing, what hope is there for them?

The only reason I visit her, occasionally, between my nephew's naps and feedings, is because of him. Because of her too, the day may come when she needs to leave the baby with me, due to an emergency, and I don't want him to see me as a complete stranger.

He's an adorable, smiley, agreeable baby. As soon as I get to his house, he starts playing with me. When I leave he looks very serious. I wouldn't be surprised if he shed a few tears for me.

His mother is a nightmare to be around of. She has always been very good at minimizing me, but I've been ignoring her lately. It's easy to do that when there is a smiley baby trying to get your attention.


She is also educational for me to watch, as she is extremely similar to my mother. That aspect of me that I call the "fight or flight" response is one of our mother's traits. It has to do with black-or-whiteness.

That is, in Mother's mind, people expect perfection and nothing less. Apparently, in her mind, people will think she is horrible, lazy, uncaring, and lord knows what else, if the food is less than perfect, if her attire is below the highest standards, if she is late by a second, if instructions are loosely followed, as opposed to to the letter.

All that causes Mother to label even meaningless situations as emergencies. Even going to the mall wearing non-matching pieces of clothing seems to be unacceptable. Yes, she gave me all that. No wonder I've carried so much stress on my shoulders during my lifetime. I've been trying to create perfection and expecting to be rewarded for my efforts.

I never did manage to create perfection because such utopia is in the eye of the beholder. I got little praise along the way, because unbeknownst to me, the only area where perfection was required was where I wasn't even trying: being easy to get along with and agreeable.

So I look at my sister trying to impress me with her perfect timing for the baby. He eats exactly every three hours, even if she has to wake him up. And I'm supposed to be quite impressed by that. She cooks him food from recipes followed meticulously. She dresses him in expensive clothes in matching colours.

All along I'm thinking, who the heck cares if the baby eats on schedule to the second? Isn't that teaching him intolerance? Won't he for the rest of his life be demanding that people be timely on their dealings with him?

Aren't babies in underdeveloped countries lucky to eat once a day? Lots of them grow up to be tall and strong, too.

I'm not suggesting that she be neglectful. I'm just saying that her baby won't starve to death or go malnourished if he goes without food for four hours.

What's sad about my sister is that she is rude and disagreeable to everybody, yet she delusively believes that others approve of her, because she dresses well, COUNSELS others wisely, and looks like a perfect mother. Ah when is she going to wake up?

Like I used to be (a thing of the past, I hope), she is a nasty bitch with a know-it-attitude.

Why don't I say anything? Because if I do she will hurt me. She will leave me bleeding inside and depressed for days, by showing me the skeletons I have in my closet, of which she is quite aware.

The other reason is that it won't help her. People change when life opens their eyes. She may change someday, when she finds herself utterly alone, and she is forced to see the error of her ways. I don't see it happening any earlier than that.

My husband and I are seriously toying with the idea of moving to the other side of the country. We think that there may be more jobs there, and from there, we can more easily visit Europe, Eastern Canada, and the eastern states.

Personally, I wouldn't be too heartbroken to leave my "beloved" sister behind. She's as thorny as a rose and as self-centered as Scarlett O'Hara. I would miss out on my nephew, but I already enjoyed 13 others in the past, and they all grew up and forgot me. Let's face it. He isn't mine, and his loyalty is to his parents, so I've got to look out for ourselves. We have nephews on his side who have promised to put us on a nursing home at the end of our days.

Here is hoping that by bitching about my sister, I have helped myself to see the error of my ways as well.

Mother-in-law: Miracles do happen—no praying involved

My late-thirties brother-in-law married a 32-year-old this weekend. Both of them are the youngest in their respective families but were raised differently. He was raised to obey. She was raised to command, with an iron rod, passively aggressively so.

I never did like this girl—I may someday—but so far so bad.

Always smiling and softly speaking, she knows how to say “no,” firmly, good for her. But in our interactions, I’ve felt a heavy energy emanating off her, as if she were saying, “Get off my lawn or I’ll kill you.”

When I tried to talk to her about wedding stuff, I got a half-smile from her, as if to say, “Who are you to say anything to me about my wedding.”

Things got slightly worse when she didn’t invite me to her wedding shower. It was held at the church and it was her responsibility to invite outsiders. I was the only female relative in town from the groom’s side and I didn’t get an invite.

We all have known for a while that she was heavily involved in wedding planning, changing the colour several times, driving even the groom mad. She sent specific instructions to my husband on how to dress for ushering (she thought it necessary to tell him he should wear a suit) and declared early on that she had to approve of my mother-in-law’s outfit. We all knew she wanted to have a great wedding. Messing up with the groom’s family, apparently, would help her have a great wedding.

Things started out pretty bad on Thursday at the rehearsal dinner. Her majesty the queen sat down to be served. I picked up the food at an Italian restaurant, rushed to the church to have it in on time, and helped the volunteers serve it. She never raised a finger, and neither she nor her husband-to-be bothered to say even a little speech to thank anyone. Everyone ate and left. We weren’t even introduced to her family ever—not even at family pictures during the wedding.

Heading to the parking lot to go home, my father-in-law and I saw they’d started to decorate for the Saturday wedding, and I said, “Interesting, we didn’t do any of that for mine.” He smiled widely and said, “Ah, it was much simpler.”

I laughed, and he started to recall how much he enjoyed our wedding. Score: Lorena one, new sister-in-law zero.

On Friday, the family got together at a restaurant, 18 of us. Slowly the truth came out. The immediate family was pissed. Husband’s sister started to detail how the queen had been micromanaging and driving everyone crazy. “She wants to have the perfect wedding,” she said.

“She can’t have the perfect wedding” said I. “I already had it.”

“Yes,” replied the women, emphatically “It was perfect and so much simpler.”

Our rehearsal dinner was catered, and we gave little presents to everybody who helped, from the pastor to the sound guy to the groom’s and bride’s people. Everybody was clapped at and sincerely thanked for their awesome contribution.

For the wedding, I hired a company to decorated the church and the reception hall, and to to take the stuff away when it was all over. For everything else, I assigned activities to a number of friends and never told them how to do anything. Even the piano player chose her own pieces, and the singers had rehearsals without my knowing. The ceremony was so beautiful that I made myself cry and when I did, many others wept too.

For the reception, I asked a couple of friends to do skits and never even asked what they were doing. An obsessive-compulsive friend of mine was given a list of tasks and names, and she made sure everybody did their job. Everyone did. I never did pester them. Never. And in the end, we had the best wedding I’ve ever seen. Our friends made it happen, particularly the MC, who is so smart and funny that went on to become a lawyer.

As for the current wedding, during Friday-night’s dinner we found out there was a schedule and that the happy couple would have five, yes 5, different photo sessions all over the city: a hotel, a famous park, outside the church, a relative’s house, and another park. The schedule even told the family what time to start driving to the last park, where we were required to be for immediate-family pictures. I told them I was giving up my immediate-family rights.

We were all bewildered at her micromanaging skills, and incredibly enough, now having a “common enemy” my mother-in-law, her daughter, and I for the first time ever felt we were on the same side of things. I told my husband that the queen was making me look like a saint and a genius. He heartily laughed.

Far from perfect, the wedding was underwhelming. At the reception, the MC did nothing and the guests left before final speeches. There was no entertainment and we mostly just talked amongst ourselves. I enjoyed it. But it wasn’t the perfect wedding she so carefully planned for months.

On Sunday, the whole family got together at our place, and it became obvious that the relationship between MIL and I had been permanently altered by all the mayhem. It is almost as if now I understand how she felt when I took her precious boy years ago, and now she can see that I ain’t so bad after all.