I am going to share this

November 9, 1960 letter

that I transcribed today. It is one my mother wrote to her mother, and is placed in the section on My Childhood Stories, and referred to as “The Troubles of John.”

(It will also be filed in the collection of other 1960 letters my mother wrote, which will include the February 2, 1960 letter that I also transcribed today.)

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While I have nearly 30 years’ of experience in coming to terms with what my mother did to me, I am almost ashamed to say that it is only now, right now, in the process of pulling all the various writings together that have to do with my family of origin, that I am beginning to develop enough of a tolerance for what my mother ALSO did to my siblings to actually be able to FEEL my feelings about what my mother did to THEM.

I cannot possibly tell my siblings’ stories.  Yet in the instance of this particular November 9, 1960 letter, mostly about my brother John nearly 50 years ago, my mother is writing his story for him when he is 10 years old.  I am reading her words and reacting to them as I feel my own terrible sorrow and tender sadness for the pain she had already caused my brother by that age.

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As far as I am concerned whomever it was that coined the phrase, “Read ‘em and weep,” could have been talking about this

November 9, 1960 letter.

I am experiencing a whole new level to my own healing —  being able to expand my emotional awareness of the harm that was done to me by the harm that was done to my siblings.  I cannot heal them.  But I can publish this letter and my comments to it today in honor of my dearly beloved Big Brother John. I love you!  Linda

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