I called my sister Cynthia today just on the spur of the moment when I saw her phone number. Didn't know I had her number. (She called me a year or so ago.) She answered and we talked. She relayed some disturbing family news. I was able to feel loving and be loving toward her and she reacted with tears and thanks. It moved me to be able to be in that place where I could offer her that. She's been through so much. She lives in Illinois now, near my father.
I wondered about her relationship to my father, who I have regarded warily and not trusted due to some incidents with him and my brother's feelings against him. But my sister seems to be able to maintain a relationship with him. The more I marveled at how one (wo)man's pride is another (wo)man's poison (or something like that), the more I realized that we all had someone.
We all had some kind of life even if it wasn't very pretty. I thought of an older friend I had who's been like a father to me and how I didn't want to let go of that friendship and counsel. I don't know my father and probably never will -- out of awareness of his mental/emotional limitations -- and my early fearful experiences of him -- but I do have someone that I hold in high esteem and look to for what I didn't get with him. And I emailed him that. Satisfying to let someone dear to you know what they mean to you. Both through words (with my friend) and through actions (with my sister).
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