Re: Sleep and older children

Ericka Kammerer <eek@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
I didn't say that we didn't love each other or wouldn't support each
other. Actually we do pretty well at that I think. What I said was
quite different. If we were not related, I doubt if we would be
friends. We just don't have anything in common except having been
raised by the same parents.

Dh and I went to Costa Rica to see the rainforest. My sister said she
was absolutely not interested in doing things like that. Not
interesting in birds, or wildlife or anything like that, although she
has discovered snorkeling recently and does like that. She's
interested in dance and the theatre (performing, viewing and
reviewing). I have no interest in ever performing again (had to do it
as a kid and hated it). She hated going to my dad's lab, and I loved
it. She likes poetry and I am pretty much indifferent to it. She
likes going to a spa - I can't imagine anything more awful.

But that just reinforces my view that it isn't 'family time' that
makes connections between members of the family.

If you don't have anything to do together, then
what relationship is there to nurture? My sister likes
to travel and I'm less adventurous. Nevertheless, if
she wanted me to go somewhere with her, we'd find
someplace we could go together that probably stretched
us both. I love needlework and she doesn't have any
particular affinity for it, but when I'm looking for
someone to go to a show with me, I know I can count on
her in a pinch. If we had nothing we both enjoyed
doing, we'd find something in order to spend time together
on occasion because that's what family does in our book.
And you know? All those things that I'm not particularly
keen on aren't really so bad when you do them with and
for people you care about. For me, relationships are
about action. It ain't what you say, or what you think,
it's what you do.

This makes no sense to me. Why would you want someone like your
sister who has no interest in needlework to go to a show on it with
you? That would not make me happy at all - I would neither want to
be asked to go to something that I didn't have any interest in (and
would not go), nor would I want to ask someone to do that - it
wouldn't be any fun for me. It might be nice to have company during
the travel to and from the show and at meals but at a show? No.

DH has an interest in various things (antique cars, sailboats) which I
do not share to the same extent. I'm not a mechanic. I got to swap
meets with him, but we separate and I do my thing in my way and he
does his thing in his way and at his pace. We meet for lunch or to go
home afterwards. We don't have to be together the whole time. When
he was converting a car to electric, we went to electric car meetings
together - at least partly because the meetings were in DC and he
needed me to come along to read the map so we could get there.

I love to travel, but I would never want someone along who was even a
slightly unwilling participant. IME it is impossible to go on a trip
that makes you unhappy without the unhappiness coming out and spoiling
the trip for all.

We talk weekly about our families. We talk about and make an
agreement about how we are going to handle family problems. She came
and spent the day on our sailboat.

My mom died earlier this month. Before mom died, we discussed when we
would visit her (and when our various children would visit so as not
to overwhelm her), how we would handle medical problems, who she would
visit on holidays etc. My sister would go to church with her, and
write down her reminiscences, and I would handle the genealogy stuff
and the gardening part of my mom's interests.

She would tell my mother that she was being too hard on me, and she
would listen to my mom talk about her aches and pains. I appreciated
her doing that, because like my dad, I don't want to hear about
sickness. And in my turn, I would lobby for my mom to appreciate my
sister more and not take her for granted. We would kind of double
team her.

My sister has been phoning me on average about 5 times a day to
discuss the memorial service and obituary etc. (my mom donated her
body to the medical schools so there was no funeral and no funeral
director to take care of these things).

I'm supporting her in her desire to have everything like my mom would
have wanted (she discussed it with my mom before she died), and
comforting her, and letting her talk about her feelings (even though
that wouldn't be my thing), and driving 125 miles to visit with her,
and also volunteering to handle certain items which might be difficult
for her. When the Baltimore Sun refused to publish a staff written
obituary because my sister couldn't write it and get it to them within
48 hours (she wanted to do that), I comforted her and suggested better
alternatives and then implemented them. (a staff written obituary was
in the Washington Post this past Saturday)

I got a call this morning already about how much food to have at the
lunch after the memorial service, and whether hurricane lamps on the
tables would be appropriate, and last night it was whether we should
have condiments on the sandwiches.

This was quite similar to the way I had to handle my mom's obsession
with detail when I was married. All the details of the wording of the
invitations, and the rest of the wedding stuff was something I just
didn't care that much about.

I see my job as listening to and agreeing or offering an opinion and
basically just validate her feelings. This is the way she handles
the grief and loss. I do it differently - she talks and she cries. I
write about her and reminisce inside my head - and sometimes can't
sleep.





grandma Rosalie
.

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