More Sister

I never said this to anyone. The hardest thing I had to deal with was my mother telling me something.

My sister does not have children. I do not know if she wants them or not. My mom said that she did.


One day my mom told me something. It was one of those evenings when we sat in the dark.
She told me that my father gave her a vinereal disease when she was pregnant with my sister.
She felt that was probably the reason my sister could not get pregant.
That put me in a very terrible position. I did not know what to do. My father was dead. I could not ask him. I believe I know what he would say to that.


My mother was angry at my father. For many years after she divorced him, she let my sister get away with anything at the house. It was after her college years but she was at home and I shortly moved home. IT was the women against the men kind of thing. I figured it was a phase. Janice, my sister manipulated it to her advantage. At the same time my mother was taking alot of her anger out on me. I understood the root of it so I perservered.


But this disclosure about VD. Could it affect my sister's ability to have childbirth? Was the allegation true, that my father did that? Was she just lying on my father? Was it a confusion of facts due to dementia? I could ferret out the truth/fiction matrix, or the truth/t ruth matrix

(facts of one story, I would have to cut and paste and put in another).


However, this was new territory. Also my sister and I were not on close terms. I did not know what to do. If it was true and it had a impact on her child bearing ability, she had a right to know. How would I find out the truth? Impossible. How would I be able to have a conversation with my sister? We barely talked at all, I barely saw her and yet I was going to have to ask her if she wanted kids.


yet, at the heart of this whole dilemna, was the very simple fact that I loved my sister deeply. You have to understand, my mother gossiped alot. She and a couple of the old ladies gossiped alot. The problem was that as she began to get older, she would mix facts with fiction and confuse the two or transfer the gossip to something else that was in real life and insert fiction to be fact. I had to ferret out the truth. I became dam good at it.

Near the end my mother told me she just found out my sister was going to have triplets.

I figured she took some fertility medicine and voila. I started to call her and congradulate her but I did not. I am glad I did not.



I had to wrestle with truth and fiction, everyday. It was part of my "job duties" at the house.

It became clear that my job was to take care of my mother and I was getting good at it. VEry good. Especially when she finally let me have total free reign to cllean, repair and spruce up the house.


However, my sister does not know what I went through. She knows none of it. She probably does not even want to. Here I was worried about her reproductive capabilities while she was trying to crucify me.


I never told anyone about this and yet I am writing about this in this blog. I feel I have to get it out of my system. Maybe someone will read it and put something together. Maybe someday my sister will read it and understand how much I anguished to find a decision. I had to search every day with the dramatic stories my mom would tell me.


I know my mom could have been saying things about me to her to have my sister think things. I do not know. I know that Alzheimer's is a very erratic thing. My mother liked to gossip and talk and she liked attention. Those components wreck havoc on reality in the family of an Alzheimer's victim. IT gets into motive, baggage, emotional needs, prejudices, and many other things.

My sister does not know how many times I defended her. She has no idea I anguished over this pregnancy thing. It was not an easy thing to keep to myself or decide what to do. It was something deeply personal and my sister and I barely said hello, let alone even think about thinking about talking about personal matters. I felt she would have taken it the wrong way if I said anything. If I said "good morning" to my sister, she would have a problem with it.



That is why I tried to stay out of her way and out of the dealings she had with my mother.



We should have had a family discussion but my family had a history of not discussing anything with eachother. The family tradition was that I was the last to know anything. It turned out to be a catastrophic characteristic of our family. All of the thing's that I could not understand in John Bradshaw's "The Family", a few years ago, I understand now.


I never would air out family laundry in public. I would never do that. I would ask questions. anything.



My sister never asked me about anything. I would have loved to talk to her about my mom, about her and even my drugs. I just didn't think she cared enough about me to even talk to me about my problems. Certainly, whenever she called me, I took the time out to talk to her about her problems. I felt like an older brother then. I felt valuable.


Once, she called me at the Home of Lydia Kennard. It was Thanksgiving Day. She and my mom got into a fight. She was crying. I told her to come up to Lydia's.Lydia and I were couple at the time. It is funny. A plane flew by when I typed her name. Lydia is the executive director of LAX. (An article came out in the LA Times about her when I was in jail. Imagine reading something about a former girlfriend and being in jail for no reason. also Ms Shaw who was on the Department of WAter and Power Commission, lived on my block. She told me she saw LYdia and Lydia told her I was a KINd man. I am kind and to ne labeled a violent person is an injustice. That is why those articles about Alzheimer's victims are so important.)



My sister was crying on the phone. She wanted to come see me. I said sure. She came up to see Lydia and I at Lydia's condominium. I think Lydia's cousin came over as well, Her cousin was the ceo of Hallmark cards.



Anyway, that is how I was with my sister. We were not around eachother much but I would stop anything I was doing and speak to her if she needed me. She thinks I did not make time for her. I believed she did not want to be around me. That is why I harp on this communication thing. I want people to communicate so they do not have these tragic situations. Families should talk. People of different races should talk. People of the same race but from different educational and financial backgrounds should talk because there is a lot of friction and people do not want to see it.



Would people have approached their sibling and mentioned the statement about our father and vinereal disease when the statement is so personal. When my mother had so many issues concerning my father and the possibitlity that Alzheimer's could have played alot in her telling me that, it makes the decision difficult. I welcome comments.



Am I wrong in writing about it and not telling my sister first? Am I being a fool about loving my sister so much and having her stabbing me in the back? Is she stabbing me in the back?



Does she want to get rid of me? Does she realize that this is a tragedy?



Does my sister realize that she could regret this course of action and unwavering position concerning me and my mother when my mom dies and she had to do with the fact that she kept a mother away from her son and son from his mother because of personal animosity?



My sister does not realize what she has done? She does not realize what she is doing. I

commend her in some areas but she is pushing me to the point where I am going to be forced to air her dirty laundry in public. It would break my heart to do that. However I am left with no choice.



And I sit here and think about the fact that the judge wanted me to write an essay, on Thanksgiving Day, about what it means to be thankful about not being on drugs. It is difficult to see anything good when somthing that I worked so hard to do, to enjoy life with my mother and hopefully my sister, clean from drugs, is out of my control. IT is in the control of the courts that have biased information and unsubstantiated allegations.


It did not help that I plead guilty. Of course I found out that the public defender is not what I thought the public defender was. I was stereotyped and thrown to the wolves. Steffen was her name. I bet alot of people have plead guilty because of her and alot have gone to prison. "see you the next time you come to OUR court" she said to me as I was led away.


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As you can see I am in this flow of conscience today. I never said a word to anyone about that VD disclosure my mom made. I wrote about it because it is a real part of the struggle of dealing with certain things. I was agonizing about my sister while she was plotting against me. I was agonizing about some things that may not be true and said only as a result of anger with my father. Speaking of which, The wedding anniversary of my parents is ON November28.
They were married in New York City by the lateAdam Clayton Powell. JR, the congressman.

Also November 22 just passed. JFK assasination was tough on my mom. When I cleaned out my mother's house, she had magazines about the assasination that were published in 1964. I told you also of the letter RFK sent to my mother 5 days before he was killed. So this is an emotional time. IT is a time for family to be together. NOt one in exile because of nonsense.
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You know, I wonder about Skid Row. I wonder about the future of this place. I wonder how many stories abound in this place. I wonder what will happen to the good people who fight for their lives like I am fighting for mine. I wonder what will happen to them. Will they make it? Will I make it? Will America make it by ignoring it? Will we ignore it? Will people see that there is a great opportunity to tackle the problems that plague America by tackling the problems of Skid Row? Will they see how vital it is to get a deep understanding or are we going to sweep things under the rug?

Are they going to examine the court system that feeds Skid Row? I am here as a result of a court order? I also have to say that the judge only can do what is in front of him in paper. He was shocked that I made it five months in the program. 90% of the people do not. I saw so many "escape" and head out. I am sure they are in prison now if they have been caught.

Yes this is a time for me to share more of my story. I can not be true to total sharing and honesty if I do not let you know some of the painful ironies that swirl in my brain.

I must get these frustrations out of my system and I am doing so. The next topic is drug rehab.