That Was Then/This Is Me (in no particular order)

That Was Then   
  

By the time I was born, in 1951, I had a fully crazed half-sister, Vikki, already 13 years older than me. And another sister, Barbara, yet to be fully crazed, 3 years older than me.  It took me many years to see the cause of this craziness, and how it had also affected me. 

My parents were politically active, they belonged to the Socialist Party of Great Britain.  We lived in Hendon where they had a bakery.  We moved to Winchmore Hill, and another bakery, when I was about 7. They’d often have friends round for a socialist gathering, and when I was about 10 I remember waiting for someone to come out of the only toilet we had, me with my legs crossed hoping not to shit myself, whilst being asked by one of their friends “and what do you think about socialism?”  Thankfully the toilet became free at that point as I farted my way inside and avoided having to answer a question that I had no idea how to respond. 

My dad was a baker, a very successful one, and my mum worked in the shop selling his lovely doughnuts (yes, I used to put the jam inside them) and bread and cakes.  She’d wear a badge with ‘Renee’ over one breast.  Often she’d be asked what the other one was called.  She loved a bit of a smutty joke, despite being quite a “proper lady”.  Meanwhile my dad would be sweating in the bakery at the back of the shop, usually swearing and tellingcustomers who’d look in through the coloured plastic ribbon blinds “yes it is fucking hot”.  He really didn’t give a toss what people thought of him. 

I was a shy child, smothered in eczema from an early age and for many years, up to my teens.  Eczema behind my knees (white bandages worn to stop me scratching), on my fingers (steroid cream to supposedly alleviate the itching, cotton gloves worn at night to stop me scratching.  My mum would give me enemas, as directed by Mr Vickery the naturopath.  She had lost her hair years before I was born, for reasons that made no sense (as they weren’t true) and I heard her whisper to him “will she lose her hair too?”     

As a teenager the eczema in my scalp was scabby and itchy - the hairdresser wouldn’t touch my hair - and in my eyebrows.  That idiot bloke who wouldn’t give me a lift along with my friends due to my hideous eyebrows, much later killed himself, so I heard.  Good. 

I understand from old school friends that I was a funny child and teenager, making my friends laugh.  I don’t really remember.  I was good at English and not much else. My English teacher at junior school told me I’d be make a good writer.  Maybe this is the nearest I’ve got to that.  I enjoyed netball and, well, not much else.   

We swapped ‘diamonds’ in the school playground.  My best friend was Alison Musson who had a corgi dog that I was terrified of, as indeed I was of all dogs. I could see her bedroom window from mine and we’d wave to each other as I listened to The Beatles on my red transistor radio.  Later, under the covers (after I’d kissed goodnight to my posters of Paul and George) I’d listen to Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline.  They were exciting times.   

Vikki eventually got married to long suffering Joe. My mother later wrote that it was the worst day of her life.  Vikki fainted, panicked, and was quite uncontrollable.  This photo was before the actual wedding. 

I'm clearly ecstatic with joy.

I left school early, no proper exams taken, (just shorthand and typing for the girls, woodwork for the boys).  Somehow I’d landed a job working for Harold Macmillan’s grandson (Adam?) at Macmillan publishing company.  Who needs exams eh?  Then I worked at Jonathan Cape for someone whose name I can't remember, but she had bought me with her from Macmillan’s.  I was a good secretary.  I’d learnt my shorthand (now entirely forgotten) and typing (at least something good came out of my crappy secondary school) and was doing well.  I don’t know what year this was, sometime in the 60’s I think.  I moved into a flat in Notting Hill with Beth and June.  We had a riotous time.  June was always stoned or tripping on acid, and Beth and I remain friends all these years later. 

             Notting Hill 1970s

Then I moved back home, and away again and then back again.  Then it was the start of the 70s.  Sometime around that time my parents informed me “We’re going to emigrate to California, and you’re welcome to come” (= don’t care if you do, don’t care if you don’t).  I was a young 21-year-old and somewhere deep down, way further down than I could ever imagine, I was horrified and hurt and about to be abandoned.  Of course, I probably smiled and replied ‘oh that’s nice’ whilst beginning to develop a belief that I had breast cancer.  I’d pop off to A&E to get checked, I’d make numerous doctors' appointments.  One time I was in the bath at home and had to get out and rush off to the local Highlands Hospital to be assured that I didn’t have breast cancer.  Then the next day I’d think ‘well I was clear yesterday, but I might not be today’, so another appointment with my long-suffering doctor was made.  Eventually he said “I think you may need to speak to someone” and an appointment with a psychiatrist was made.  As I look back at my diaries I see that I also wrote to Clare Raynor in Petticoat Magazine, and saw someone from the Brook Advisory Centre and another psychiatrist.   I was a mess.

I don’t think my parents knew anything about this at the time, though at some point down the line my mum said “don’t keep thinking like that or you’ll give yourself breast cancer.”   

So, I sat opposite this old shrink, behind a big leather topped desk and he said “What would you say if I told you your parents were outside?” and I burst into tears.  That seems to be the sum of my one session with him. 

When my parents eventually emigrated in 1972, my diary entry says “mum and dad left for California.  Washed my hair”.  I had no sense of how I felt, my emotions had been shut down for so long I had no idea that they existed.   

My sister Barbara and I visited them the following year.  At that time we were sharing a flat in Kilburn.  I had a job somewhere, I’m sure.  I had also just met John who I later married, (and even later divorced).  So Barbara and I spent some time out there, extending our trip to see Elvis at the Oakland Colosseum, getting temp work in order to send rent back home. We both auditioned as topless dancers in some seedy office above a night club.  I was the better dancer but wouldn’t take my top off.  Barbara had no rhythm (and no bosoms to speak of) but she would go topless (less being the operative word).  I don’t think we ever told our parents anything about this.  It was not to be, as far as I remember, though she may have done it once or twice.  Again, I can't really remember. 

I had a job for 6 weeks or so at the San Francisco Progress newspaper.  They loved my accent and kept asking me to say ‘blimey’ in my quaint English accent.   I had a miserable 21st birthday out there. We went to a restaurant that I didn’t want to go to but had no voice to speak of.  

My 21st birthday

But soon it was time to come home to drizzly London and work.  Barbara went back out there and made a life, of sorts, for herself.  She had a brief and unsuitable marriage to a boyfriend that she’d being seeing (and arguing with) for years.  They rowed constantly.  Soon after the marriage she woke up one day and all his belongings had disappeared, with no word from him. 

John and I got married.  My parents didn’t bother coming over for the wedding. We had two beautiful babies, Leon and Dylan, who now have their own beautiful babies.  When Leon was 9 months old John and I took him out to California to meet his grandparents (they were too busy to come over and see their new grandson).   

I eventually realised I’d married my mother and so I left 24 years later, though I didn’t fully know why at the time, (see shut down emotions above) but I knew I had to go.  I moved to Belsize Park and felt free and wonderfully rampant.  I felt (and was) desired and fancied and like a grown-up woman at last.   I had a job at Prudential where I made many friends, again who I’m still in touch with.  It was a fun time.  Then I was made redundant and moved to Brighton to be near my boys, who had moved there and who were at that time not yet parents themselves. 

Therapy continued, off and on and I began very slowly to find my voice.  Men came and went but I wasn’t desperate to be in a relationship again, though of course it would have been nice but online dating was fairly crappy and by now I was getting on a bit and couldn’t really give a toss. 

In Brighton I took lots of arts classes, a foundation course, 3 MA courses, all related unbeknown to me, to my childhood, to feeling invisible, to being ignored. The clues were all there and clearly somewhere I knew what the problem was but not consciously.  It's bizarre looking back at my work now. Its fucking obvious. I applied to St Martins School of Art to do a graphic design course.  My wonderful foundation course tutor Phil Tyler wrote me this insightful reference: 

“We all have awful memories, the kind of ones that make us cringe or send us into cold sweats at night. For most of us we bury these deep inside trying to forget them, to be reminded at odd moments when we least expect them.  Lou must have had a lot of bad memories, but instead of letting these haunt her, she has embraced them and used these as the subject of some of the funniest images I have seen in a long time.   

I associate a lot of laughter with Lou. She has a gift for it, to make humour out of her tragedies. She raises awareness of our own private sufferings yet allows us to step back and share the joke. 

Barbie dolls hide on chairs from barking dogs. Xmas trees act as metaphors for abandonment and loss.  Lou is an ideas person who has been able to understand her strengths and develop those as well as work hard at her weaknesses. 

She has already demonstrated herself to be a highly committed student who has a real passion. She has been a real asset to my course and a pleasure to teach over the last two years.  I feel she will make a valuable contribution to your course, and I have no hesitation in recommending her to you” 

Phil had more awareness of my inner self than I ever did.  
 

I was accepted onto the course, and it was a teenage dream for me to be learning graphic design at St Martins.  The building oozed history and creativity from the walls.  However, I soon discovered that I was the obligatory old person to be accepted and they just wanted my money. The interview had been pleasant but not entirely representative of the course and students.  I was the oldest by far in the class.  And there were so many children, well ok, teenagers, in the group that if you didn’t get there early enough, you’d have to stand in the corridor to listen to the tutors in the enormous cathedral type hall of a classroom.  Most were foreign students (mega income for the school) and most presumed I was a teacher.  I lasted less than a week and then had to fight for a refund due to misrepresentation of the actual course.   

So that’s when I did my first MA, Sequential Design at Brighton University.  I loved that course, I loved the tutors.  My animations were a success.  And then onto  Sussex University to examine how older women are portrayed in the media, and finally my 3rd MA back at Brighton for a Fine Art course.  More successful animations.  I felt like a proper artist.  But still, I was unable to relate my work to my inner self.  I decided therapy was again in order.  Despite my happy years at college and universities, I had purposely chosen to create work that couldn’t be compared to anyone else’s.  No-one was making animations and so I was in a class of my own.  I hadn’t realised how comparing myself to others was to be my downfall. 

I returned to therapy. More and different therapy, some good, one or two fairly average, and one, my current excellent therapist who introduced me to the idea of Generational Trauma, and Gabor Mate.  What an eye opener.  And so the slow progression to awareness began. 

Vikki had died years earlier.  Just like her bizarre confused lifelong behaviour, her death remained unclear.  I have no idea how she died. She was intensely tiresome, annoying and desperate.  In retrospect now I realise she had a difficult childhood, was sent to boarding school at a very young age, in New York where my mum was living with her father.  They separated and Vikki was looked after by various aunts and didn’t see her father for many years.  She hung on to our mother like a limpet, desperate for love and attention.  I learnt very early on not to be so needy so I’d play under the kitchen table, building train stations - maybe in an attempt to escape - or I’d go to my room, scratching my itchy fingers whilst sulking.  “She’s sulking again” my mum would say.  Or later I’d shout that I was going to run away.  My mum would say “ok dear, don’t forget dinner is at 7”.  I would go and hide in a garage at the back of the flats and collect red ants called Herbert (no, me neither) and I’d post “keep out” signs scrawled in crayon.  But I’d always go back for dinner at 7.  No-one asked how I was, where I’d been or what I’d like to eat.  I tended to live on spam and baked beans when I was on my own.  I’m still fairly lazy now when it comes to making my own food. 

Meanwhile Barbara was dolling herself up to go out with friends.  I don’t know where they went but they seemed to have a good time, and she remained friends with some of them until her death.  I admired her, I wanted to be like her.  She seemed glamorous and knowledgeable and loved to tell me what I should wear, do, feel, think.  And what I shouldn’t.  I think it was her favourite word.  I believed everything she said. 

Eventually though, I began to get irritated with her.  She was now living in California and I was back in the UK.  We’d write to each other, and my mum would write and call me, signing off phone calls with “love ya”. I think that was as close to emotion as she could get, though she loved my dad (and Barbara).   

My parents were working in their bakery “Dimond Donuts” with my mum out front as usual and my dad sweating even more in the Californian heat.  This time he had a sign outside the entrance to the bakery that said “yes it is fucking hot”. I loved his ability not to care what anyone thought of him (apart from my mum). I visited a couple of times before and after marriage and once or twice they’d come and visit good old blighty. Barbara had a job in which she stayed for 44 years.   She wasn’t one for adventure or taking risks.  She was terrified of everything.  She once sent me some warning that could only have been written up in something like “Neurotic News” - how to avoid dangerous situations.  When you fill up your car with petrol, after you’ve paid be sure to check that no-one has got into the back seat of your car.  Also, another useful tip, always carry two sets of car keys with you in case someone demands your keys.  Then you can chuck one at the beastly robber and run off to your car with the other set.  She was scared of bannisters (germs!), public door handles - the ritual of using a public loo for her took hours.  I could have had a shit, gone home and come out again and still she’d be wrapping herself and the toilet, door and taps in toilet paper.  Covid prevention provided some confirmation for her - “see, that’s what I’ve always said” She put Howard Hughes to shame.  The best though, and honest to god, mother Mary and the wee baby Jesus, was staying in a hotel here in the UK and putting newspaper down on the carpet so as to avoid walking on the carpet. 

 Honestly, who could make this shit up? 

She’d rather totter down a spiral staircase terrified to touch the germ ridden banister, preferring to trip and fall down the stairs and shatter into tiny bony pieces. Nothing was good enough for her.  She was the queen who deserved only the best.  The face lift, the new teeth, the fancy “mani-ped”, the designer clothes and - get this, the Prada slippers.  What kind of woman needs all this external validation?  Well, I’ll tell you. 

We grew up in a fairly loveless home.  Busy working parents.  My dad woke up at 4 and got home at 7 or so after sweating in the bakery baking beautiful bread.  He was too tired to talk, though I remember him bathing me when I was little, which is always a lovely memory.  I remember too asking him what to do about a boy I liked at school.  He said I should drop my schoolbooks near his desk and maybe he’d help me pick them up.  I treasure that memory.  He told an anonymous caller on the phone, who threatened to throw acid in my face when I left the flat, to ‘go home, drink a glass of warm milk and get some sleep’.  He was my hero in those moments. 

My mum had no hair, as I mentioned.  She told us some stupid story that made no sense.  But now I see she lost her hair through stress, maybe from her previous marriage to the man who had an affair with his secretary and left her, and Vikki, to fend for themselves.  She also had ulcerative colitis, way before I was born.  Apparently cured with a grape diet suggested by a famous doctor, Max Warmbrand.  I learn now that this is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself.  My mum and Dr Max were way before their time in terms of health and diet. I grew up with so called health foods; Cranks restaurants were named after people like my mum who were regarded as cranks.   But never mentioned was inherited trauma as being a cause of auto immune disease.  I don’t know what went on in my grandparents lives, other than the holocaust, which was never talked about.  Who knows what happened to my mother in utero, in her childhood, to make her be unable to show emotion?  She died, after returning from California in 1982, 3 years later of a brain tumour which had grown on the part of her brain that affected emotions.  No coincidence I believe.  My dad killed himself 4 months later.  So i had little time with them after their 10 years in California.  My sister remained out there, returning back to the UK for their deaths and funerals.   

So, we grew up in a perfunctory environment. If my dad hadn’t been so knackered we might have seen more love from him.  But my mum, who was jolly and funny and liked a raucous joke, never showed any other emotion.  Barbara thought this was a good thing and couldn’t understand why I thought this was odd.  She didn’t seem to realise that it was healthy to feel and show all emotions. Not just the jolly smiley ones.  She thought they could do no wrong. She had them on the highest pedestal of all.  “It is what it is” whenever I dared mention our childhood wasn’t entirely a barrel of warmth and love.  “Don’t be so hard on mummy” she’d say when I eventually saw the light and complained about our upbringing.  She didn’t (want to) acknowledge it wasn’t about blame.  It was about trying to understand how we grew up and became the oddities that we were; her more so than me, I might add. 

Meanwhile, years later I had breast cancer surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy (which was particularly shit). Barbara wanted to come over and look after me which sounded like hell.  Previously when I was married and thoroughly depressed, she came back to the UK to supposedly look after me.  She wondered if the coloured plates on our dresser were somehow the cause of my depression.  I know, I can't figure that out either.  She made me feel utterly worse, though didn’t mean to.  She suggested we go see a film, The Road, described as ‘a bleak film that focuses your attention on what it mans to hold on to your hope, your humanity and your family in a world bent on devouring all three’ Didn’t I say that no-one could make this shit up?  I came out of the cinema more depressed than before I went in.   

Then I had ovarian cancer.  After surgery, Leon came and stayed with me for a few days to look after me.  It was during covid.  No-one could visit me in hospital.  Surgery and the aftermath were horrendous.  It was a joy to have Leon take care of me.  Barbara suggested he wear a hazmat suit while he was here.  (Yes, I know, don’t even go there) 

Meanwhile she had a stroke at the same time.  I couldn’t visit as I was having chemotherapy again. She was in a bad way but she survived though never returned to full health and her left side remained damaged.  She could no longer work and finances were hard.  She had to sell clothes in order to buy food.  Though somehow she still managed to buy the Prada slippers.  And my cancer returned for the second time. As she was vaguely returning to some sort of normality, she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer.  She was told on her birthday, May 19th, by telephone. And 2 months later (2 months ago as I write this) she died.  She’d been in pain for months, she’d ignored symptoms but when she did eventually have an x ray of her painful bones, nothing was found.  But the cancer had spread to her bones and liver. She’d had a tragic and terrifying time but at least died peacefully with my cousin at her side, for which I’m grateful.   

Despite my complaints I loved her, of course, and feel so sorry for the last couple of years that she suffered.  I was unable to visit as due to my health, I couldn’t get travel insurance. This was also a tragic realisation that I’d never see her again. 

She hadn’t been able to face up to reality her entire life.  She wouldn’t see a counsellor when she had the stroke - she told the nurse to fuck off at the very suggestion - she avoided the doctor for as long as she could.  Though her diet was so organic it made our mum’s look positively lethal.  Organic ice cubes were vital.  So was alcohol but i’ve no idea if that was organic or not.  When it was suggested she have care and food delivered via a local Jewish charity (two words that horrified her) she refused, claiming she liked to know where her organic food came from and it had to be from the swish pricey organic food market nearby and only from there.  For her, having the equivalent of ‘Meals on Wheels” deliver to her was simply not her style, my dear.   

And the Prada slippers were, if you’ll forgive the bad pun, the nail in the coffin. 

This Is Me 

And so the story really begins…. 

Before I knew the reasons why, Vikki always seemed demented.  And incredibly annoying. Like a bag lady she’d wear everything at once; the huge straw hat, the glasses hanging on a chain round her neck, mingling with her necklaces.  Bracelets up her squidgy fat arms, tight rings on her fingers that cause the flesh to bulge out around them.  Handbags, shopping bags, any bag she could carry, she would. She’d never be parted from them. 

She wanted desperately to be like Barbara and me.  We’d ask each other if we’d seen a particular film, with a made up name to test her. “Oh yes, I saw that film in Tel Aviv, I loved it”.  If we went to a pub she’d didn’t have a clue what to ask for as she wasn’t a drinker, but if it was going free she’d have it.  I stood behind her once as she asked the barman for something like a vodka and wine.  He gave me a look as if to say ‘what the fuck?’ and I just shrugged and pointed to my head to indicate ‘crazy lady’.  She didn’t drink it, she only drank water.  But she couldn’t refuse a free drink. 

She was visiting the UK from Tel Aviv when my mum was first ill.  She was returning with way more crap than she’d had when she arrived.  Empty Paul Masson wine bottles were her speciality.  She had to put the excess baggage in a locker as it was too much shit to take on board.  Eventually we had a desperate, breathless and tearful phone call from the airport “The plane left without me.  It left early.  Come and get me.” She had actually asked to speak to the pilot to ask him to wait for her….but in his desperate rush to get away from the crazy deluded bag lady, who’d been too busy loading up the locker with empty bottles, he managed to escape.  When my dad got the phone call from her, my mum - despite her brain tumour -said What the fuck has she done now?”  My dad and John drove to Heathrow from Hertfordshire to go and pick her up.  They managed to book a late room in a hotel above a pub in Hoddesdon. (They couldn’t have her stay with them again).  Everyone was exasperated.  It was way after closing hours. The pub owner was kind and friendly and as they all heaved up the top of the stairs, Vicki heavily breathing and sighing, the landlady asked if she could get Vicki anything.  “Oh yes” she said with her regular pained expression ” a smoked salmon sandwich please” breathing heavily and looking febrile.  The landlady explained it was now midnight and all she could offer was a cup of tea.  Vicki sighed again and agreed to a free cup of tea. 

While she was here, I took her to Leon’s school to pick him up.  She sat in the front seat and as the children came out of school she took a photo of some unknown child.  I said that that wasn’t Leon. “Oh I know” she said “I was taking a photo of the brickwork in that wall”.  Never one to admit to being wrong (not unlike my dad actually, who once sat in a chair in my lounge with a trail of dog shit coming from the door to his shoe.  “Nothing to do with me!” and carried on chugging on his pipe.) 

On the way home from picking up Leon she demanded we stop at a sweet shop.  So we did and she spent some time in there.  I thought perhaps she was buying sweets for the boys, which would have been a thoughtful present, despite the fact I never gave them sweets (and they thank me for their excellent teeth).  Alas, they remained in one of her many bags, never to be seen again by any of us. 

When my mum was ill and dying in hospital, my dad, Barbara and I would go to the local pub for a drink and something to eat. It became a daily ritual.  One day we walked in and the barman asked my dad if everything was alright. “My wife is dying” he said in his usual loud voice.  My dad wanted to continue this practice after she had died.  Vikki was with us after she had died and we sat down and looked at the menu.  Vikki ran her finger down the right hand side of the menu, checking which was the most expensive meal; once she got there she ran her finger to the left to order whatever it was.  My dad said “You’ve not lost your appetite then have you Vikki ?”  She put on her pathetic face in the hopes we’d all agree she needed to have the most expensive thing on the menu.  She ordered all the drinks that were offered.  Her place setting looked like an advert for Woolworths glasses, “on special offer, buy the whole set now!” 

All she drank was water though.  Still, why not take what’s free eh?    She also thought this was a good time too to ask about my mums’ fur coat, where was it, who was going to have it, gimme gimme gimme.   

After my mum had died, we three sisters hugged each other at the end of her bed.  They both said ‘I love you” but i couldn’t.  I didn’t love Vikki.  I couldn’t lie. 

Eventually, thankfully, she had to return home to Israel and her long suffering husband.  Vikki returned to the airport, this time on a bus from Hertford bus station.  She probably was horrified to have to travel on a bus, and I pity the poor passengers on that bus.  She managed to get on the plane this time but asked that we go collect her crap from the locker.  I suspect the numerous empty wine bottles and carrier  bags may still be there, 100s of years later. 

 When Barbara would visit, it was good to see her initially.  But she was also difficult and annoying in a different way from Vikki.  Whilst Vikki would make do with anything (as long as it was free) nothing was good enough for Barbara.  Brighton restaurants weren’t really up to the standard of San Francisco.  We’re kind of relaxed and casual here.  There are restaurants that she might have approved of but frankly I couldn’t take the risk that the tablecloth might not be clean enough for her.  So finally she agreed to one, after quite a few attempts of her walking out huffing and puffing out of cafes that simply weren’t stylish enough for her. 

We shopped a lot. Or rather she did. She’d spend hours in a make up counter, much as she did when we were on holiday as children, with our parents. My mum and I would go and drool over stationery in a store in Belgium, on our holiday, while she tried on any number of lipsticks, or whatever. Back here, I lost interest and would wait outside Boots or Mac or Space NK, Nars…. endless same old same old. Then the underwear shop where she bought a designer bra for her 32a child like chest.

She followed my dads’ political views, despite  ‘having’ to fly first class (“under socialism everyone will fly first class!”) and her high end taste in clothing.  I’m not sure how that fitted in with the idea of equal opportunities for all. 

On the few occasions when she did stay with me, I didn’t need to put newspaper down on the floor thankfully, but she did cover a dressing table in the spare bedroom with kitchen paper in order to lay out her enormous amount of make up.  Made up, by the way, in order to give a natural unmade up appearance.  She’d had the regular botox (“look at me frowning!”), the new teeth, the fillers etc.  Never one to admit her age (oy, as if!) living a pretence of youth and with her minute bony body looking self conscious and somehow unreal, and not now the sister I envied when I was younger. 

She would rarely speak on the phone to anyone, but occasionally we had a phone call together.  We even had a zoom call but it took some time to get it going.  I could hear her but she couldn’t hear me.  I held up big handwritten signs saying ‘YOU’VE GOT YOUR MUTE BUTTON ON!”  It took some time for her figure out how to do that.  She couldn’t figure out WhatsApp either, despite being previously able to.  I’d call her on WhatsApp and say, “Can you hear me?” and she’d say no.  I’d send her a message “Are you receiving me?”  “No.” She wasn’t ill at this point but seriously and worryingly lacking in technical skills.   

She didn’t have a particularly fulfilling life, by most people's standards.  She had one friend who, when she was ill, bought her lunch (“she had the nerve to put a spoon down on the counter and not on a plate” she exclaimed in horror to me).  She wasn’t very sociable.  An old friend and her husband were going to visit her from LA.  She was terrified.  She kept putting them off.  The friend insisted, and that they’d take her out for a meal.  The friend later told me she was terrified the restaurant wouldn’t be up to Barbara’s standards.   It was raining heavily on the day of the visit.  She told her friend it was far and too dangerous to drive in the rain.  She told me she didn’t want them to visit, despite this being her oldest friend, but Barbara just didn’t want anyone in her space.  I didn’t believe it was raining so hard that it was dangerous to travel.  And clearly it wasn’t.  The couple turned up, took her out for a meal and Barbara enjoyed seeing them after all.  She rarely saw or spoke to anyone, other than the staff at the swish organic food market.  She could have made use of a local support centre, offering all kinds of entertainment and contacts and, more importantly assistance for older sick people.  She'd have none of it.  She wouldn’t ask for help (and I admit I have difficulty with that too, at times - see later information re crummy child rearing). All she did was watch TV.  Or shop. 

When she later was seriously ill, she didn’t want to go to a nursing home, or have a hospital bed in her own home.  She had no choice over the latter.  She still wouldn’t have any organisation deliver food or care for her.  She couldn’t walk around her tiny kitchen without having to sit down.  She was in a bad way.  My cousin and wife lived 3 hours away and came to take care of her.  I had hoped to visit with my sons but I couldn’t get travel health insurance.   

She was permanently angry, way before she ever got ill. On a phone call with her at the beginning of her diagnosis I asked how she was feeling ‘HOW DO YOU FUCKING THINK I’M FEELING?” It’s a fair response I guess, but it didn’t need to be yelled down the phone to me.  Another phone call, a pleasant chat and suddenly my dog barked ‘WHAT’S THAT GODDAM FUCKING DOG BARKING AT?”  I gently told her a leaf may have fallen off a tree.  Her vitriol over the years, mostly aimed at Trump, seemed to be misplaced in my opinion, though she’d have none of that.  She’d get banned from Facebook for her various aggressive comments towards the republican party.  However, she wasn’t a citizen of the USA so she couldn’t vote. She’d chosen not acquire citizenship because it might mean she’d be called for jury duty and she couldn’t possibly take time off work for that.  Nothing really makes much sense to me. 

Eventually, and way before her illness, I tried to explain my understanding of our childhood and how we had both been affected. She wasn’t having any of it.  She acknowledged that Vikki’s bizarre behaviour was as a result of her childhood, but of course that hadn’t been the same for us.  And in a way it hadn’t.  Our dad was our dad.  We weren’t sent to boarding school as young children due to being ‘difficult to handle’ as Vikki was, and we weren’t looked after by various aunts from a young age.  But we had other issues to contend with. 

I've always believed that Barbara was the favourite of the family.  Apart from anything else, she was left half of my parents will while Vikki and I got a quarter each - apparently because we were married.  Vikki was the poorest financially of all of us, and I later divorced so really that was a nonsense.   

Looking back through my old diaries it's obvious I was unhappy, confused (and seemingly obsessed with noting that I'd washed my hair) and fell in and out love frequently.  Seemingly desperate to be loved and depressed when dumped, the pattern continued for years.  My teenage years seemed to be, shall we say, quite "active" with various boys, some of which I hardly knew. Many of which I thought I was in love with.

My diaries also show proof that my memories about some things are fucked.  Where I can picture in my head certain comments, such as "Mum and dad emigrated.  Washed my hair" The actual entry, I see now, on March 13th 1972 reads "OK day.  Beth came home.  Went to Aunty Jo's in the evening. Said bye bye to mum and dad.  Wasn't too sad!" which pretty much says the same thing.  Both show my feelings were buried way way down in the soles of my feet.  And they stayed there for years.

The diaries prove how often I went to get checked for breast cancer; I was a very immature 19/20 year old.  Life was seemingly full of hippies.  I'd walk up the street, barefoot (hippy style, but without the requisite clothes) telling myself I'd never walk these streets again.  I later became a mod but it didn't stop me thinking hideous deathly thoughts.  Many many years later I went into a book shop in Hampstead and saw a book called "Death".  I had to leave immediately as my nerves had got the better of me and my stomach was telling me to find a toilet urgently.  I can picture that scene too, where the book was on a shelf, how the title seemed more noticeable than any other book.  

So I guess its fair to say I felt I was dying inside as my parents abandonment had affected me so much.  But I had no understanding of it.

I loved my sister, despite my frequent rantings.  

I still grieve for her recent death.  She had a different coping mechanism to me. 

I'm still working through how and why I have continued to feel hurt and angry at how my parents let me down, all these years on, despite doing their best. It's not about blame.  It was, in my mums case, her 'stuff' that was carried forward from her history.  

But for me, it's been long enough.  I am 72 today. Too long to be carrying this.  

It's time to move forward, before its too late. 

       Rest in Peace dear Barbara