Today I choose to blog because my head is full of all kinds of emotions, muddled feelings, confused thoughts and I need to process them. Feeling sad but angry, because I shouldn’t be sad. Ashamed that I can’t grieve, how can I? So please, only read if you want honesty, openness and raw emotion.
I have reached a time on my life when I want, no crave, peace. These past years have been anything but peaceful. Pain, loss, betrayal, hurt and disappointment.I have written on here about some of this, about those who have chosen to hurt me, lie about me and cause me unimaginable pain.
I am by no means perfect but I don’t lie. I don’t try and hurt people even when they have hurt me. I don’t try and ruin a person’s reputation or destroy anything that means something to others.
When a family member dies, you should feel sad. You should feel unhappy at their loss.You should think you will miss them and their love. But what if you can’t feel any of this? What if there wasn’t any love? How can you miss something you never had?
I have spent my life loving those around me, sometimes from afar. Being honest and that has cost me dearly. Keeping in touch with family, here and in Canada.Thinking of others and how they feel , forgetting my own welfare or feelings. Caring about them and letting them know that I care.
Today that has to stop.I need to write this.
On Wednesday 11th September, I was told that my youngest sister Patricia had died. Was I shocked? Yes because I suppose I thought she would outlive me. But I was surprised at my confused feelings.
Was I sad? Was I happy? Was I wanting to cry? Wanting to shout with relief that now I was safe? Safe from the vitriol of her tongue,her horrendous lies? Safe from any more hurt or damage she could inflict on me or those I love. I don’t know. Just don’t know!
I suppose, over the years of her hurting me, I had hoped that one day the little sister I had loved would materialise. That the young school girl I found looking scared out of her wits at Gosport ferry, aged just 14,scared that she had to face her Mother, our mother. The girl I took to see a doctor only to be told that at 14, she was pregnant and then have to go and tell our mother. The mother who had a few months earlier thrown me out because I didn’t marry someone she thought suitable.The Mother, who for some unknown impossible reason, shouted at me when I told her my sister’s predicament, like it was my fault! The little girl I visited when she was ‘shipped away’ into the country to give birth because of my Mother’s shame. The little girl who I visited in hospital when she had her first son, who was adopted, the only person who was there for her and with whom she came to live for weeks, following the birth. The young girl I rescued from bad relationships when she had got herself in with the wrong crowd again.When we were so close and I loved being her older sis. I suppose, I had, in the back of my mind, thought maybe she would one day come back.But I was so wrong. This same young girl went on to cause me so much pain that it is hard to believe.
I don’t think that is the reason for my confused thoughts, not really , how could it be when she caused unforgivable pain and hurt over the years for me, my family and my brother Tony.
When Dad was dying and he hadn’t seen Patricia for many months, in spite of her being asked to visit,I asked him if he wanted to see her, she often stayed away from our parents for years at a time, he said he didn’t. “if she can’t be here for be when I am alive, I don’t want her to be here when I die”. So I didn’t contact her.After he died, I went against my mother’s decision and went and told my sister that Dad was dead. She screamed, hit me and then sobbed in my arms. Mum had said she wasn’t to come to the funeral but I went against her and said she could come. I was quite ‘close’ to my mother at this time, because it suited her ,so this was accepted. Once she was back in the fold, I was, again shut out. I had promised Dad I would scatter his ashes from the lighthouse where he grew up in Cornwall, all arrangements had been made. When I went to collect the ashes, I found my sister had already taken them. She and mum then closed me out and I don’t to this day know where dad is resting. Again, cruel and unkind.
I shouldn’t be surprised, my family is dysfunctional to say the least and I have often been excluded. If any of you have read my life story you will understand. My mother and I had a very odd relationship, if you can call it that. In the last years of her life, I visited her in Hospital, drove 6 hours to do this. Spoke to her on the phone every evening when she was on her own and my youngest sister was out. She said she was unhappy living with Trish but I knew that was her playing us off against each other.She asked me to go to her funeral when it happened and to take flowers. Again, I wasn’t told she was dying, wasn’t told she had actually died until secretly, a family member told me, had to ring me from a public toilet so no one knew and sent me all the details. I saw my mother in the funeral parlour although I was told my sister had said I couldn’t. They allowed me to sit with her for a while and leave a card and little silver cross.My mother never loved me, I always knew that and knew why. I was born out of an affair and she punished me for that all of my life.But she was my mother and I suppose I always hoped that one day she would, love me I mean. I was later told my sister had removed both the card and the cross.I did attend her funeral, only my sister, her sons and husband and 3 ladies from the Glee club attended and me and my husband. I also took flowers as she had asked of me. No-one spoke to us on the day. But I kept my promise to be there and take flowers.
On my return home, I received a long letter from my sister, it was , in fashion, cruel, nasty, jealous and unkind to the emph degree.I still have that and have read it again today. Cruel doesn’t cut it. Sadly I am a literary horder and have kept every nasty message, email, comment on SM, everything she has ever written to me, my friends or on S.M. Don’t know why but today I have read everything, trying hard to unravel the mixed emotions I have .
When my eldest sister died, Georgina , we were close and although my youngest sister would try and make it difficult for me, I promised I would go and say my goodbyes. I used to talk to Georgina every Sunday and every day in the weeks before her death. I promised I would stay in touch with her sons and I have kept that promise. My youngest sister tried hard to make a scene at the funeral wake but I ignored her. She then tried to flirt with my husband, he ignored her attention, knowing how she had hurt me in the past.Then, as the family went back to my brother’s for the evening, Tony asked me not to, because ‘Trish will cause a scene you know what she is like’. He knew I would not allow that so we made our exit.
Around 2016, while my husband was undergoing Cancer treatment, she, Patricia, Trishy to those who really didn’t know her, befriended my eldest daughter, whom she had had no contact with for almost 40 years. She told unbelievable lies about me and my daughter’s father. Called herself Grandma to my grandchildren, posted all over my social media, that she was their Nan and that my daughter was now her daughter. Stupid yes, but hurtful. She ingratiated herself into my brother’s family, again spreading such lies that it caused them, at first, to turn against me but not for long.
I had written my life story and it was a huge bestseller and still is but she tried very hard to discredit me to my publisher, lying and threatening to sue them if they didn’t take my book down. I have letters she wrote to them, and messages, where they say they know my story is true because it was scrutinized before publication but couldn’t risk litigation, so I lost my literary contract. Shameful and cruel. At this time, she wrote all over my author page,Cassie Harte, to my readers with her lies. She even wrote to friends of mine, privately who had known me all of my life, trying to spoil my friendships. Telling horrendous lies. They sent the messages straight to me. Nasty, hurtful and unbelievably cruel.
All of this and the other things, made me quite poorly and rendered me unable to work. I had to give up my Counselling work and try and rebuild my self belief and esteem. No-one can hurt you like family.
During the next few years, she caused huge problems for my daughter, for me and for my beloved brother Tony. She stole from him and blamed it all on my daughter who I am sure wasn’t blameless. This resulted in a court case that she lost, at a time my brother was dying of cancer and should have been concentrating on himself and his family, not in court fighting for his money. Cruel, evil and nasty. One thing good came out of this, his family could see her for who she really was and apologised for believing her wicked lies.
A few years ago I discovered my sister June had died. Wasn’t told by family, no phone call, text or call, no message. Went onto Facebook and was told over Social media. I tried very hard to find out details of her funeral etc. and was stopped at every turn, by one person, my youngest sister. I was told lies, told that she had been cremated and her ashes taken to Canada, long before she had even been cremated, all to stop me going to say goodbye. Unbelievably cruel. June and I had always been close but lies told to her by others, one other, Patricia, my youngest sister, without my being able to talk to her and tell her the truth. My sister kept me away from her at the end of her life and from saying goodbye. But I did go, in spirit and in the guise of a good friend, who photographed her flowers and told me about the service, not the same but felt I was present even though my sister tried hard to keep everything from me. I have photos of the flowers and family who attended but I should have been there, that is what June would have wanted.
My book had purposely not included details of my siblings lives, they were so different from mine but that is their story to tell. Georgina, June and Tony and my half brothers, all knew of the book as did my Mother. I didn’t tell Patricia as I had no contact with her as I sadi, for many many years but I know she knew of it through Tony and my mother. All except my mother, have a copy and the boys, my half brothers, knew some of it and suspected most of the things that had happened to me. They knew how I was treated differently and cruelly by the woman they called my mother. Georgina and Tony both said they knew there was something bad happening but didn’t know what to do. Our mother was not approachable and they were, themselves, children. I never blamed any of them.
So today, the reason for this blog. I am shocked at how people can fool others into believing they are good people. How easy they believe lies of someone’s life, when they don’t know the person who is lied about. How they can be unkind and nasty to someone they barely know,or don’t know at all even if they are family. I have always believed in taking someone on face value. If they are kind to me and those I love, then I will love them and be kind to them. If I am told something about someone but haven’t seen that with my own eyes, I keep an open mind. So many have believed lies and gossip about me when they have never ever met me. Lies told by someone, who for reasons no one has ever been told, I believe because there is no reason,hated me with a vengeance. Mum used to say, when she wasn’t speaking to Patricia, that my sister was jealous. ‘Of what?’ I would say. Trisha was loved and spoiled by my parents and all of us all of her life. During her life,Mum could make anyone believe anything,fain illness, cry at the drop of a hat, ruin people’s lives with her lies. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree it appears.
So today, I am thinking of me. I can’t afford to take anymore and not speak up. I choose to grieve. Grieve for the lost years , lost to pain and hurt inflicted by someone who is no longer here to take account.
But the strongest emotion I have today is the feeling of being safe at last. I am, at the end of my life, at a time I need peace, need love and a time I need to give myself forgiveness, Forgiveness that I can’t be sad, or sorry that my sister is no longer on this earth to hurt me or hurt anyone.I suppose, along with that feeling of safety, I feel huge relief that she can no longer hurt me or those I love.
I feel sad for her sons and anyone who felt love from her and feel bereft. Of course I do. But sad for me, Carol Ann? Sorry but no. Now for whatever time I have left, no one will hurt me in the way she did for so many many years.
So Goodnight Patricia wherever you are. I can’t forgive what you have done, just because you are no longer here. I just can’t.
Thank you for reading. x
carolannwright 