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I'm working so hard for my baby photos! The drama, the chaos, the insanity- all of which I am choosing to walk through just to have my childhood memories returned to me. For those that didn't see earlier posts, my sister took the entire contents of my parent's estate last year without offering me anything. Now she wants something from me. She wants to know what Mom left me. First she said she couldn't drop my baby photo album off at my house because it's winter, I offered to meet her at a coffee shop in her direction or pick them up from her house. She agreed to meet at a coffee shop and mentioned one near me and a time. Then she contacts me to say her husband was just arrested, can I wait until she's done meeting with her lawyer. I tell her that it's hard for me to be on call for her to meet, can she mail the album or can I pick it up from her house. She refuses to mail something so valuable but now offers to leave it on my front steps... and then makes a derogatory comment about me being on call for work. I offer a correction that I'm not on call for work, it's hard to be on call for her. She thought it was funny and laughed.
First she wants a favor, she wants me to copy all of the photos in my baby album that have my grandparents and give them to her. (I've already copied my parent's wedding album and other photos for her and mailed them. She said she'd split the cost.) She says she has other photos that I may want copies of and that she'll leave those with my baby album so I can copy them and return the originals to her. Then she said that we'll see who owes what to whom because it will probably balance out??? The math is simple- I made copies for her and I'm making copies for me- I'm wondering how she figures that I owe her money! (I'm trying to remember to breath as I type this.)
She said she'd come after her legal appointment and it's already a few hours past that. She can show up at any time... in an hour or in 10... or not at all. I'm working so hard for my baby photos. I don't know if all of this is truly worth it- I keep going over in my head thinking this will soon be over and I can have my photos, but I don't know.
This is so frustrating. I'm half thinking about contacting her and telling her to forget it... but maybe she never intended to give them to me anyway.
I can relate somewhat to your share, Bud. As you know, my family is very large. My Mom always kept the family pictures. When my Dad had his stroke, I noticed that many of the family albums and photos were missing. Somebody took them without checking in with the rest of us. I thought about looking for them because most of the pictures were of family members I knew but my sibs never met or didn't remember because they were too young or didn't go to spend time alone with both sides of my family as I was able to do. I had to decide - Did I want serenity or did I want the family photos - even if the bulk of them were of me and great aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles in their younger days and great, great grandparents and grandparents and multiple cousins. I decided I wanted serenity. I let go.
After Dad died, many of those photos but not all of them had been put on a flash drive by my brother and we all received copies of what he'd put together for us. Later, when we cleaned out my Dad's home, there were other family photos set aside for me by one of my sisters. I didn't receive as many of them as I knew there were - I'd poured over them for years. I received enough to be satisfied - even though it really was and is my opinion that all the photos belonged to all of us and whichever sibs took them didn't consider the rest of us. Serenity was the gift I needed to give myself and the only way I could do it was to let go of what I wanted and let whatever was happening at the time be.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 16th of January 2015 04:06:46 PM
Thank you for your wise words and for your share. I'm grateful for what I have. I either was naive to think this would be so much trouble, or I forgot just how insane insanity is... and, I know, it can and will get worse the longer I engage. Perhaps I should let it go for now- try and place my focus somewhere more constructive. Further contact will likely bring further chaos and trauma. Either she'll drop them off when she's good and ready or she'll blow it off. I'm sorry I suggested she drop them off. My mistake.
update: sis just contacted me letting me know, husband's not in jail, she's back home and not coming, and wants me to contact her when I want to have my photos?
Grateful wrote.........I had to decide - Did I want serenity or did I want the family photos - even if the bulk of them were of me and great aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles in their younger days and great, great grandparents and grandparents and multiple cousins. I decided I wanted serenity. I let go.
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this is what i had to do when the beast died....all the pictures, albums, etc., got taken by the "clean up" crew which consisted to 2 very toxic and selfish, (they do not exist to me) siblings...
i could have fought for those pics, of me, of my grandparents, but ya know??? i didn't want to go through the misery of dealing with those 2...so i let it go...kept my sanity, they can't erase the few good people in that family from my memory...my head...my memories.....they can't erase that.....i said to hell with them and let it go......less hassle....waaaay less stress
I am so sorry this sister , you have to even talk w/her at all....the more i hear about her , the more i think we came from the same sibling tree.....i would severely limit ANY contact with this woman who enjoys , it seems, to yank your chain...I would not put myself out there for her to push my buttons......let karma take care of her and keep your sanity....yea, it sucks...and i am sorry, but your serenity is more precious........
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Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
I was frustrated just reading this Bud. Give it to your HP? I like the line about forgetting how insane insanity is. Very true. You have done your part. One of my sisters once stole the only photo I have of me and my mother as a baby, I believe she destroyed it. But she'll never steal my memory nor the moment. In your circumstance, it looks like she's trying to get you to join in her game, dangling the carrot. Let her trip over it. Stay you. Calm healthy and lovely. (So there! Lol).
Bud I do hear you and have experienced many of the same crazy making behaviors when we attempted to divide family pictures . I finally walked away and, like aquamom statesand felt they can never take my memories and I can go there in mind any time.
Today one sister has passed and her children still guard the pictures but my other sister has them in the attic gathering dust and I can take anyone I want any time interesting. I guess the moral is let go and they will come to you.
Thanks Grateful- it felt better to let go and I didn't feel like a loser. I love the tug of war visual- it went a long way! I also made a change by giving sis a non-damaging tiny piece of non-useful information and something changed.
Thanks Neshema- yes I'm beginning to thing that our relatives are related, as well. I have lived a separate and extremely private life and sis resents this above all. Recognizing this, I threw her a bone (more like a bone chip) and let her know that I teach yoga and have been scraping for a living. Ha! Read on to see what happened after that...
Thank you Aquamom - it's so helpful and means so much when I'm understood.
I had given up when sis called back last night saying I can pick the photos up from her house. Dare I!? Yes, I brought a friend with me to wait in the car. She had a grocery bag containing my baby album and other photos and instructions- she tagged many photos in my album that she wanted me to copy and provided others that I can copy if I wanted. I stood in her doorway being overcome by cat urine fumes and could see small walking paths lined on both sides by piles of dusty hoarding. Sis unapologetically explained that the cats were unkind to some of the photos.
Well, I have my album. I'm not happy that sis went through it, lifting the protective plastic to place her many instructions and markers of what she wants, but I can live with it temporarily. It just seems like an aggressive way to mark things. It will be work to remove them and have them copied on a CD, but mailing the return will be doable. The other photos are so cool, but most were not taken care of and are extremely faded or may otherwise be too fragile to try and even flat scan. I may choose a couple to have for myself and print out to bring to Dad. The originals will need to be dropped off the same way I picked them up- short and sweet and with someone waiting in the car to make sure that I'm ok. The return should be a little less crazy, we can set the time and I can let her know I need to stick to it. She'll likely want them back enough to receive them.
I've been reading a lot about siblings and inheritances on the internet; and how even the most closely knit families hit speed bumps when it comes to this. I can see how easy it is to equate inheritance as a measure of how much we were loved by a parent. I had spent so much time focused on loving my parents as much as I could, and, thinking that because of Mom's sicknesses that I would receive nothing. I did feel loved when she left me things that I found most sentimental and close with her. My sis got plenty that she wanted too, but not everything, and that sums up my whole relationship with her- she still resents that I was born. Kind of has resonance to my exAH's wife who also resents my history with my exAH. I am grateful for Alanon and MIP where I can work on growth and be supported through growing pains, sometimes the necessary down-side path to finding serenity.
Thank you so much for being here, for the support and strength.
Thanks Betty, it is so fascinating how people treat this- not sharing the photos does not hold a loved one closer. I'm glad that one sister has opened the photos to you and I also find it interesting that they're in her attic.
My sister has too many photos for 1 or 2 people to display. My sister displays some, but her cats urinate on them, and the rest she keeps in a moldy basement. I have enough photos and am glad that I now have a few of my baby pictures- I previously had none- and even looking at the album, the 2 favorites that I had been looking forward to having were not there- maybe, my Mom removed them and did something else with them, maybe my sister has them in her album... but, I'm not going there. I'm done with this enough.
I think everyone is right, the memories I have are what is the most valuable. I thought the photos would help; maybe they will, but the memories are what I lean towards. I'm learning, ODAT.
Many hugs to you Bud, so much of what you describe resonates with me. I'm glad at least you are now able to do as you choose with the pictures and are not waiting for her any longer. I would be inclined to treat her written requests with about as much attention as she treats yours? I wouldn't be in a rush to jump through any hoops!! But I am just a bit angry on your behalf, it sounds so infuriating and your sister sounds so ill and heartless.
My ex husband took all of my daughter's baby pictures and our wedding pictures, everything and claims he doesn't have them (lies). The baby pictures were all in a special album that I bought and filled, I paid for the pictures and took them, yet he helped himself to them and I do not have any pictures of my daughter as a baby now. She asked me for baby pictures recently, and I told her that her dad has them and she will have to ask him. She got a sad look on her face and gave me a hug, I told her I don't need pictures, I lived every wonderful moment with her and we both have that deep in our memories, if she wants to see pictures she can ask her father or grandmother. But not having pictures doesn't take away the memories. Well that's how I am choosing to see it. Still I'm sorry you received them in such bad condition, that must be really dissapointing.
(((Bud)))
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Read your recent update and glad you got the pictures. My bf is currently going through this as well with his brother who has all the family pictures, has the same "wishes bf was never born" dynamic as you and your sis and posts pics on fb of the whole family including those with whom he wants no relationship. There's just no end to the violation of personal boundaries. Bf chose to just leave fb for his own sanity.
As far as the pictures you received and your sister leaving her mark on them, just a suggestion but maybe you would feel better with a totally fresh copy of the pictures for yourself if you can afford to do that. You could make a new album. You could shop for one that you like and place the fresh pictures in it and return the original, cat urine, sticky notes and all to her.
When I came to Alanon, I began a program journal. On the first page, I placed a photocopied picture of myself as a little girl at one of the happiest times in my life. I wrote the serenity prayer on that page under my picture.
In a way, I think we experience a sort of rebirth when find this program and work it. Maybe the action of creating a new album that represents a fresh start with fresh pictures placed on pages as you would like them or made into a photobook or page online as you would like them could be cathartic and empowering. I don't know but I do care that this is hurting you. I just wish you continued serenity and healing. ((((((((hugs)))))))) TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
Thanks Melly- Good validation and also I appreciate your great suggestion that I don't need to feel pressure for a lightening turn around time. I have so many things to catch up on and it would be cool to review them with my daughter to determine what gets copied. My Mom, being a complex person, had shared a secret with me before entering the nursing home. She felt guilty having so many photos of her first child (my sis) and hardly any of me (mom's get busy as moms do), so she removed photos from my sister's baby album and placed them in mine, wanting me to imagine what it was like for her to spend time with me in the park, etc. It was a sweet gesture, but I told her that my sister would be angry. However, this is how Mom wanted it. She must have known that my sister wouldn't know the difference... and here is the truth of it all. I have noticed that I know many, many details about my parents that have bypassed my sis, Aunt, and Uncle. Sis not seeing the difference in our baby photos- we were very different babies....my Aunt and Uncle not knowing that my Dad likes thin, button-down sweaters with a V shaped neckline and pockets, etc.
I was sensitive to my mom and dad not being able to take many photos of me growing up- even though I knew it wasn't personal. So, I now have volumes of photo albums of my daughter growing up. She has her whole life photographed! lol
When your daughter is older, maybe has children of her own, she can give them the photos that she would have wanted for herself. You've done a beautiful thing by letting her know that it's the memories and not the photos that are the most special. What I have learned through this challenging and frustrating experience is that the shared memories are what's most important because this is what we carry with us as part of our soul.
Thanks TT- I'm sorry your bf is having this difficulty with his siblings. I would wish that no one experience awfulness but this is not how life works. I love the idea of making fresh copies for myself and recreating the album that radiates warmth. Thank you so much for the fantastic idea!
Just as an aside, my sis keeps rehashing the time I drew on her doll when I was like 3 years old. She also mentions that the permanent marker faded to nothing and laughs.... but, obviously this still burns her up. I am no longer 3 and haven't drawn on her dolls since that singular incident. My, and how she feels so entitled to mark up my baby album as a women in mid-life! I can now think of this every time I have difficulty dropping something that does not serve me well- how it would be like looking in a mirror and doing what sis is doing -not letting go- it's really unattractive and unnecessary and a very good lesson for me... now I'm sure I'll be practicing, practicing, practicing...
Oh, bud. I did laugh when I read your sister keeps rehashing the time you drew on her doll. Oh, my. I think I laughed because I've clung to some stuff that happened a day, or a week or a year or three years ago until it became almost like my "today." Thank goodness we know that yesterday is over. The future isn't here yet. And just for today - we won't be drawing on our kid's sister's doll or letting them draw on ours. Grin.
You're doing good Bud...not perfect and GOOD!! I read your post and the memory of my sponsor telling me "You're going to have to separate yourself from all things alcohol" jumped into my mind cause without resistance I did that which included separation from my family of origin as part of the "all things". I still do that. The "BLOOD connection" has been diluted with alcohol and I don't do well with that. HP helped me get it straight and I am forever grateful.
