On the evening of the 8th of this month, I received a call I was both halfway expecting and dreading and hoping would not come this soon. My sister, Debby, called to tell me that our sister, Susan, pictured here in a photo taken quite a few years ago, had passed away, quietly, in her sleep. Younger than me by 14 months, she and I were close for quite a few years and then...then not. We grew in different directions and it was hard but I had to love her from a distance.
She had severe COPD and her heart was not able to withstand the strain and effort it took for her to draw every breath. I would check with our youngest sister or with my niece for updates on her condition and I did talk to her a couple of times. I also wrote her a letter trying to let her know that it was just the differences in our lives that had caused the distance. I certainly still loved her with all my heart. I still do. The love lives on. I miss her, There is a hole in our lives that will never be filled.
It was an experience, for sure, going back to the town I wanted to leave so badly 19 years ago. I was not cut out for a small, conservative, hyper-religious place like Spartanburg county or the little town, Drayton, where I grew up and learned hard lessons about life. I loved the hills, the lush, green woods and grass and the fireflies on summer nights. But the ugliness of bigotry and the arrogance of the "Miss Betty Lou Better-Than-You" religious folk threw a pall over all that.
Susan did what most of the kids did...she got tough. I didn't. My nick-name was "Cry-Baby." I can still feel the pain of little me, teased and tormented to the edge of my endurance with no one to understand, comfort or care. Even the bigger kids got in on the action. I never had it explained in a way that made sense to me. My youngest sister did her own thing and tried to stay out of the way of trouble but she got her share, as well. That's the mill hill for you. Susan was lovely, talented, athletic and a bit of a bully. NOBODY pushed her around. A middle child, she was book-ended by her favorite victims. We were cowed and handy. Because we were cowed, I suppose she didn't respect us. Hell, I didn't respect myself back then. I was so sure I was a changeling that would never belong. She really didn't want to hurt us. It was just important, for some reason, for her to be in control. Power over life and people was something she craved. She didn't accept weakness, feet of clay and never met a grudge she wasn't glad to carry. Forgiveness and the art of leaving the past in the past was not her strength. Yet, if anyone else ever gave us a hard time, she was on them like white on rice.
I am a member of a Facebook group of people from Drayton. I have been individually un-friended by most of them. They don't understand that they can just cut off notifications and not get any of my posts in their news feed and still be "friends." My son (also a liberal freethinker) and I are outcasts in our own home town. I find it funny that I can accept and appreciate people who are Christian and who are conservative, even if I do disagree with them. That definitely doesn't go both ways. There is something about an outspoken, liberal atheist that scares and angers a lot of these people. So I am, again, on the outside looking in because I don't care to be in the closet with either my politics or my free-thinking. I stopped hiding a long time ago. I spent too many years apologizing for who and what I am. No more.
I loved my sister dearly, warts and all. She was a rose who had her share of thorns. I'm sure the same can certainly be said about me. I was bowled over by a man who was alternately my boyfriend and my tormentor as a child when he, at the mortuary, came up to me and apologized for those childhood wrongs. I took that apology as my earned and merited due and accepted it and thanked him for it. I miss my home town, but I don't miss the narrow minds and the angry hearts that can't accept anything different from the rest. I can't even have a casual conversation about it with my youngest sister because she seems to fear that I am trying to impose my atheism on her. As much as I love her, I am denied being able to be myself even with her.
So here it is...I am as much an outsider now as I was then. My sister's passing has brought me full circle. I like who I am. I am a good and caring person. I don't need that old time religion and I will vote on the left for the rest of my life because I think it is the truly compassionate, egalitarian way to go. If you can't handle it, then click on "unfriend" because I am not going to shut up. I might, if I am able, move back up to the temperate zone just because I love the climate and the beauty of that area. I sure am glad I have a few friends who think along the same lines as me who live up there. I doubt that there will be a Welcome Home Party in Drayton. But my journey is my own and I like where it has led me. Really, you guys...I'm good.
