Ramona Alma Joan Sheather nee Burns - my family...my father KEVIN TYLER....mother ..RAMONA TYLER.....step mum... ANN

Started by Private User on Wednesday, March 12, 2014
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Private User
3/12/2014 at 1:25 AM

my name is marie...im the adopted one....you know what, I hardly knew my father Kevin Tyler, but the man I knew was an amazing man. He and Ann loved each other very much , and both dad and mum (ann) excepted me the moment that we meet.
my dad was always a call away and I could talk to him about anything.
I was very hurt to read what my "sibling" Debra wrote... I was very angry at these cruel words on my dad.
I was adopted out due to the circumstances back then. Dad worked very hard to try to look after his family and I wasn't a well baby. No medicare and government payouts, things were very difficult for both my parents.
the adoptions people offered to take me and take care of mums medical expences so that I would survive. Dad told me that they didn't want to give me up, but had no choice at the time. With mum not being well and me quite sick and born at 4 pounds 10 ounces by a cesarian, their choices where made for them.
I remember dad telling me that he knew that he wasn't to see me, and that destroyed him.....soooo... after my birth he snuck into the maternity ward ...with my older sister Jackilyn ( who was 10 mnths older) to introduce us two girls.
He said he crept in to find me in a humitity crib with "up for adoption" tagged on my cot.
He said that there was a pink card on my crib with Tyler on it. I was tiny and had cords on me everywhere. He told Jackillyn that I was her sister and then stayed with me till he was court in the suite.
My mum never seen me, and dad was in trouble for taking a child up to the baby ward ( as children were not allowed back then) and for looking at me.
Dad drove me around Murrwillumbah the first day that we meet, looking at where he was going , so as not to look at me, while he told me of my unknown past and family. It was very hard for him to tell me things, he was very emotional, and I believe that till the day he died, he never forgove himself for giving me away.
before he died, he told me that he was sorry for giving up his "baby girl"..
Dad was loving, gentle and kind to me in the short time that I knew him....even if he had flaws (as we all do) I don't care... he was my dad, and all the ppl effected by this compromising story written by a bitter lady, are MY family.
I love my family and have been excepted with no questions asked... I am loved and respected and they take me as I am, just as dad would have...
I know nothing of my natural mum Ramona ( Topsie) except what family have told me. True it seems that mum was a caring loving mum, but no different to what my dad was , ive been told by all other siblings. I do know that my mother too, regretted giving me up for adoption and had been searching for me yrs before her death. Im told that im very much like my mother to look at, so as Debra quoted that our mother gave her those beautiful looks, then ive apparently scored those looks too...watch out Deb..you got competition lol. Infact mum had 5 girls in total, all very beautiful in our own ways.
Mums granddaughters are also in plenty and are again rare beauties...so lucky us for good genetics..
As for Ann, dads second wife, now deceased... she was a blessing from god. A wonderful mother, Grandmother and one of the funniest and cutiest ladies ive ever known. Her family miss her just as much... again I wasn't around when dad married Ann, but live and let live... its done, its over, let dad enjoy his two beautiful wives in heaven in peace forever...
I love my Dad and my both mums and miss them everyday RIP XXXXXXX

3/13/2014 at 3:31 AM

Dear Marie,
I'm glad your experiences with your father upon meeting him were wonderful, and you have every right to express them, as do i. It seems though, that you have overlooked the fact that you are his blood. My sisters and i am not his blood, only his stepdaughters ,who he resented severely, and we actually lived with him, you did not, so on all counts our experiences are very different.
His first wife and 4 children lived around the corner from us and i went to school with with his daughter Helen, and although i often went to her place, i wasn't allowed to bring her to my place where her father lived, on his instructions, so work that one out! I was also instructed not go to Helen's house. There was Helen, Sue, David and Shirley, who has down syndrome or something similar, and who was so beautiful and funny and i believe his first wife"s name was Ann also.
So what i am saying is that you met a very different man from the one i knew. I swear, his first wife and kids lived no more than 10 mins walk from from our house, and yet he wanted nothing to do with his children. I believe Helen called in to M"bah on one occasion. So perhaps you met the man who had mellowed with age and who had come to a point of regret.
Marie, i remember when you were born, we were living in Woolongong. When mum came home we were told you had gone to heaven, and i believed that until the age of 22 yrs, when one New years eve, after returning from Condong club for a night out, Mum, being Quite drunk, spilled the beans about you. She told me that adoption laws had changed, and that she was expecting a knock on the door from you, which worried her, as she felt so guilty. I assured her that you would understand, due to your illness, a hole in the heart i believe, and our state of poverty.
I remember my time in Woolongong like yesterday, as i had been taken from my Nan to live with them full time. Around this time there was a solemn atmosphere, and i don't know why as i was only around 7 yrs or so, that i asked Mum if i could call "uncle Tim" Dad. She said go ask him, so i did and he replied "you just call me Tim from now on" . I was so crushed, because i just wanted him to accept me. Soon after Nan arrived to take me back to Wagga, so i thought i had done something really bad, as kids do.
As we all grew older, my sisters and i, things only went from bad to worse, as to his despise for us, and i am not prepared to go into details.

As to when he met Ann, i"m not sure, but i do know that on a visit to Mum, when they had moved from the house in M"bah and were living in a little flat, and not long before she died, that on this visit, Mum just wasn't herself. She was "snippy" at my boyfriend, so we left. But my boyfriend suddenly turned the car around and said we should go back, as he knew i was upset. When we returned, Mum was beside herself, crying uncontrollably, and eventually told us that she was positive Tim was having an affair. Mum"s last days were lonely and insecure, and as a woman, you must know of the sixth sense that we have, and being that he remarried so quickly, you can't blame me for thinking the worse. I also believe Mum knew she had leukemia, but kept it to herself.

So you accuse me of being "bitter and twisted", but i am not, I'm just sad and upset, that one person could cause so much anguish to so many, unless they are blood, and even then it's a case of "out of sight out of mind" as was his FIRST family. You should try to contact them and find out for yourself! I believe actions speak louder than words! Shirley went to the movies one day and when we asked her what she had seen, she replied "Diamonds are forever, forever, forever, over and over again, as she had seen the shadow writing on the screen, due to her syndrome.. She too is your sibling, and I'll bet your father never knew that she was actually so intelligent, that she landed herself a top notch job! Even Jacklyn has a short memory, as until Gerrard came along, she was the apple of his eye, and spoilt rotten, but upon his arrival, she was pushed aside like a wet blanket. In fairness though, she may have been too young to remember, however he did leave her out of his will and left what he had to Gerard to buy more drugs with. But hey, just because she was there for him until his dying breath, doesn't mean he should leave her something,. What do you think?
I want you to know that i don't think your father was entirely responsible for my own demise, as i wonder why Mum didn't put her foot down, and tell him to lay off, on many occasions not just where i was concerned, but my sisters also. But then again, back in those days, women had no rights, even congical rights were still in existence, so where could she go for help?, i guess she just had to "tow the line" so to speak. I remember the day we were going to visit Mums sister, Aunty Una, and because she had a black eye that Tim had given her, I was told to tell my aunty that Mum had stepped on a broom, and that the handle had hit her in the eye .
On my visits to Mum, i witnessed so much violence and abuse to MY Mother!! On a w / end visit to Mum, all hell broke loose. Mum had a a friend around and they were perming each others hair. They were drinking Barbarossa pearl wine, and because i didn't make myself "seen and not heard" mum got annoyed. When Tim came home, she told him how annoyed she was with me. On that note , i was belted severely and for further punishment, i was to have my hair lopped off! Now, i had hair down to my thighs. It was thick and luscious, and was commented on constantly. In fact, when i came to visit Mum, Nan would always send a sachet of sunsilk shampoo and conditioner, which "irked" Mum and she would tear up the instructions that Nan had sent, and say "your home now" and you will get what others get, which in summer, was a line up under the garden hose, and washed with sunlight soap. This never bothered me as we would all laugh and giggle as our hair was washed. But Tim was always "out to get me", because he hated my Nan, and consequently booked an appointment for me at HIS BARBER, not a hairdresser. I remember how much i begged to keep my hair, and the anguish and tears that flowed. Nan went to the child welfare, but there was nothing they could do, as Nan didn't have legal custody. I remember overhearing Mrs Raglas having a conversation with Mum, (she was the lady who was having her hair done on that day) and saying Tops "you can't let this happen" and Mum saying "it"s out of my hands now, it's gone too far" and i can't stop it! They sent Roslyn with me to have it lopped off. She cried with me. There was no styling, just cut it as short as you can!. At this time i was only 8-9 yrs old. Would you do this to your own kids? I am now a mother and i would never let this happen to my kids. What i have told you are the "subtle" abuses, you know , mental ones, but my sisters and i suffered much more in years to come. At the age of 14 yrs, i escaped, and went to live at the Iona catholic girls hostel, and have been on my own ever since. I couldn't live with Nan as it put too much pressure on her, and any way she died not long after. You have both sent me nasty messages, but neither of you want to hear the truth, and i don't blame you
. Jackilyn always pushes me to tell her why he and i have never seen eye to eye, but i have just always wanted to leave "sleeping dogs alone" due to the fact that he is her father, and yours, no matter what!
So you see our experiences with your father have been entirely different.

All good wishes Deborah

Private User
3/14/2014 at 3:51 PM

WTF, Shirley was deaf, that's all. She is a perfectly intelligent and functioning woman. Why do you keep bringing peoples personal lives into this with misinformation. The thing is, our childhood was shit because BOTH of your parents and mine were pretty broken during periods of their lives. Mum was the disciplinarian, I remember her sitting on top of Roslyn and beating her senseless. I remember her belting me with the jug cord all the way down the hallway and throwing me in a scalding bath. I remember Dad working while mum took the grocery money and put it down the throat of a pocker machine and Coral had to pay her extra board so we could be fed. So what, I'm over it. Your father did horrendous things to mum and you girls. I remember feeling pushed aside when Gerrard was born, but guess what...shit happens. Grow up, get some bloody counselling and build a bloody bridge. Helen moved to be closer to Dad when he was dying and assisted in nursing him. Marie knows Dads kids. They do have reason to resent their father. If he cut them out of his life, that is wrong, but he was dealing with going to jail on three occasions for non-payment of maintainance, so maybe he was feeling some stuff, I don't know. I remember being Daddies little girl. He was the only parent who gave me affection. Helen remembers being Daddies little girl too. The marriage break up and loss of her father broke her heart. I remember the pony tail incident, so, as there is seven years between us, you were a bit older than what you said. I don't remember what happened, I just remember Mum being really angry at you over something. Dad remembered all of his children in his will, we all received something small. Gerrard got a bit more...so what, I'm over it, why do you chose to hang on. It's unhealthy..I think it's time to just realise that you are talking about a man who was much loved by many. You may want to vent, but he has grandchildren by the dozen, who are now adults, he has many great grandchildren. Why cause this kind of pain to all those who DO love him and remember him so differently to you. But oh that's right, Deborah had it tough, poor Deb, don't worry about the people you are effecting, lets just run his memory through the shit because little Deborah see's herself as a victim. Yeah you were, but does it really help to create this shit. No one else see's him this way. Only you. Only you. Only you. Stop. You could find yourself facing legal action with the misinformation you keep spewing.

Private User
3/14/2014 at 6:18 PM

Deb, im sorry for you bad memories and wish it could have been different, but as you said..leave dead dogs lay... im very much aware of a lot of those stories and they have been told to me by both Jackie and Helen.
As Helen said , when I read abit out to her all but 5 munutes ago, all was very true, and that she remembers lots of it....
but Deb, plz leave it alone.. as jack said, go get some councilling or something. You are very hurt and still grieve for our mother. I understand grief very much and sometimes it just gets easier after time , but you never forget..
ive lost my darling husband in tragic circumstances and I grieve every day, so you see, I do understand how hurt the heart can feel, but you must push to heal your wounds.
Deb...I agree that I never knew the father that you knew, and I have no right to condemn you for your memories, but to shatter the desendents of dad is really cruel. all his grandchildren are mostly adults now and they adored their granddad. in saying this, the desendents of dad must realize that he and mum where human, and both made many mistakes..
im not perfect and never claim to be, but I have learnt after many years of wondering why ive always been different to all my adoptive family, you forgive and move on.
I never endured what the rest of the tyler clan had but I had my bad and questionable times growing up away from my siblings.
I was privlidge in my growing up yrs compapred to you guys, and had the best education for that time... and pony club, and a pure country life without violence or clubs or alcohol. it was against my adoptive families beliefs to even mix with those sustances.
but I was never happy and my gratitude for my upbringing isn't revelant till you are a grownup and a parent yourself.
im very sensitive in my personality and used to take everything to heart. a raised voice around me as I grow up would make me cower. I was never given the chance of independence, and in saying that, don't think I would have taken it, due to my nervous nature.
life has toughened me up, and now im a women to be reconned with. im no sooky lala , and if I cant do something I ask for advice, not help.
ive experienced forms of abuse in my life (mainly mental abuse) and that frightened me enough, but will never tolerate that ever again.
ive done extreme councilling through my life and have forced myself out of my safety net.i wont go back to those bad days. im over the angry times and I allow shit to wash off my back. im a better person for fighting my demons Deb...plz try to do the same...
im happy now and its an amazing experience when one day, you walk in the sun, and you know that all the bad times are just memories..and that's all.
the day will come when you don't cry anymore at a memory, or get anguish at the thought of someone. you will open your eyes and count the blessing that your children are healthy and that THEY love you in the most unconditional way.
you have lots and lots of reasons to be angry with dad, and I understand that... but by all records mum wasn't a saint either.. I respect your feelings now Deb and only wish you happiness in whatever life holds for you now.
im 51 yrs old...born on the 11th july 1962. im no child. life is learning to me.
loving and living and moving on each day to make your own memories for your children. your girls can write beautiful things about you on this same site...not horrid memories.
like it or not, im your sister, and sadly never met.
and worst of all is that we have corresponded for the first time in a horrible way.. sad don't you think?
and your nearly 60 yrs old... and I don't know you... one of my sisters that ive wanted and searched for most of my life since I was 16... and we meet on a family tree site with opposing oppions. (shit speller arnt I lol )
anyways , mum would want this to stop if she is anything like me... leave it to the past and allow our children to have some nice memories as well.
you are the lucky one..you knew our mother..i didn't and would loved to have known her.. yes your right...I never felt anger towards anyone over my adoption, just needed to fit in, as I never fitted in with my adoptive family.
I was always the way-ward child and always rebellious..never knew why my personality clashed with my adoptive parents, and they never really liked ME. when I met jackilyn, all my questions were answered.. im a tyler/ burns. Dad told me im a real Tyler to look at, but Coral says im the image of Mum. Jack says I have a lot of mums mannerisums and ....you know what....I like that... identity of someone, ..my mum
I don't have any pictures to see what she looked like, and jack has none either...so I have to look in the mirrior and guess what she looked like. ive meet my cousins in wagga on the burns side, and they say im a burns..so who knows, only god, cos I don't have any proof of anything..
I don't know much about the childhood that you have endured, but some of the things that you have said, jacky has already told me... that's why we want to hold good memories of my dad and my mum...
if you think about it...im your baby sister and that sounds funny really, but for the sake of status Deb, please just keep talking positive stuff for our childrens sake, enough is enough ... nice to meet you ...marie xoxoxo

3/15/2014 at 5:13 AM

To Jackilyn Right back at ya sis! I did say down syndrome OR something similar, talk about making mountains from mole hills! And what a hypocrite you are! You've bad mouthed our mother so viciously and much more disturbingly than my comments re your father, so how will her descendants feel about your comments of her? I agree neither of them were perfect and i too copped the ironing cord from her occasionally, and more often than not, under pressure from your father. And who hasn't been physically attacked by Ros, even the day of mum's funeral, she bashed me up in your flat and even put holes in your wall, just because i wouldn't tell her i loved her, but i had tactfully kissed her and said "let's give our relationship another go" but that wasn't good enough for her and consequently, went berserk She was ill, i believe, and never diagnosed with what i believe was manic depression, not to mention that she had all the signs of narcissism, and mum was always nervous around her. We all were! As a small child though, i have only the fondest memories of Ros, but over time something went terribly wrong with her.
About the poker machines you are spot on, BUT that wasn't until later in life, only when they moved to Urunga so this had nothing to do with my own circumstances, but I'm sure it did impact on your life.
About the will, well dear girl, the only info i have on that is what YOU told me. I only know about Gerard's severe drug use, from you, and my daughter Stephanie was sitting listening to you as you told the story, saying if that was his wish, so be it, but to give it ti Gerard, without a trustee IE yourself, it would all go on drugs, and besides, you said it was you who was with him constantly at that time, and by the way, you never mentioned Helen being there until now. Mum wasn't the kissy cuddly type, but nor was your father, however he did "ooh and ahh" over babies and toddlers, but i do remember how mum would just sometimes, out of the blue, do something very caring and thoughtful. As i said, actions speak louder than words.
By the way Jackilyn, if anyone needs help, it's you! What scars are you still carrying to make you do, what i consider to be disgusting things. IE the incident with your own child's friend, my ex, George, my ex, Patrick, and what about your website? Let alone, telling all my friends, who i had just moments before, introduced you to, about one particular abhorrent incident in your life in particular. I was so embarrassed, i wanted the floor to open and swallow me. Admittedly, you were extremely drunk, but i had to live with the consequences. When you drink, you go into your "annalistic mode" and you tell every man in the vicinity, including my friends, that they hate women. I am proud of you for putting yourself through uni, but for Gods' sake, stop acting as though your opinion is the only one that counts! We all suffer life's scars, i moved on by creating a family of my own, and i don't have an enemy in the world, except, it seems, you! You used to be sweet and funny and cute, but now your a smart arse. We used to get along, and it was me you would phone for help, when you needed money for somewhere to live, not only did i pay for it, but i came to M'bah to drive you around to look for somewhere, as you and Daryl didn't have a car. When you developed a nappy, you asked for help, and with out computers, as they didn't exist, i wrote letter after letter to all the nappy companies, until Dri Glow offered to "Shelve it" and give you $20.000.00 which back then could have done so much for you, but the only reply from you or rather Daryl, was "tell em to get fucked" and not once, to this day, have i ever received a thank you for my efforts, and you ended up with nothing! So how come we are enemies? I doubt its' just because i mentioned what a prick Tim was to me.
Also, i never responded to your first message, because i was confused as to who was writing it, as it as it began "my grandfather"
So bring it on sis, i"m not scared of your threat of legal action...Do your best or cut the crap! Deborah

3/15/2014 at 6:54 AM

Dear Marie,
God this has blown way out of proportion. I thought i had started a personal family tree, but apparently it's not to immediate family. I wanted my own daughters to have some record of their ancestors on my side, as they have never met anyone but Jacky and kids and Coral, and even then only briefly. Our family is so fragmented and so unlike their fathers side. They Know their grandparents, unties, uncles, cousins etc, and it's a tight family, so complete and normal so to speak, so even when their dad and i split, i made every effort to keep those ties to his family, as i felt i had little or no other family to offer them and i wanted so much for their them to feel "normal" It's a curious thing when your kids start to ask you, the parent, where your mummy and daddy are, but then as they get older, they want the "nitty gritty"
I am a very deep person, and if i say i love you it's because i mean it. I can't stand those people you meet, who after 5 mins of knowing you, give you a big bear hug and say i love you. Also, i can't lie about important things, cancelling the odd doctors appointment is one thing, but where my feelings are concerned, i cannot. Besides, my girls have a right to know. In what i wrote about your dad WHERE I WAS CONCERNED, was so minimal to me, as i had so much more info to tell, but rather than lie, and tell a fairy tale, as i have been accused of, i kept it, to what i thought was minimal.
Marie, what you have said about not really fitting in with your adoptive family, well i relate to that completely. On the one hand, i had my Nan who warmed every item of clothing in winter before it touched my body, only to visit to Mum, where pampering was not a word in her dictionary. I never Knew where i belonged. I would cry when i left my Nan, and then i would cry when leaving Mum.
I am so sorry to hear of the tragic loss of your husband, and do believe you re suffering grief, but Marie, my grief over losing Mum was over long ago. I am so contented these days, and i don't feel that my contentment came because i worked at it... for some reason it just came, like a gift from God. I always have this overwhelming sense of peace, which happened from nowhere, but shortly after my ovarian cancer treatments stopped. So you see I'm not struggling with anger or anything. All i did was write a minimal piece of info that affected my life. Deborah xoxo

Private User
3/15/2014 at 11:46 PM

hey there deb...so glad you are at peace...im getting there...still like you said, I will get my gift from god the day he releases me from grief.
I guess my reaction over this site was one of protection to one of the only ppl I knew as my family..
im sorry if I upset you deb, and I don't ever mean harm to anyone..mostly my family, and this is what you are to me... your one of my sisters
its important to me to have contact with my family and you are no different.
I spoke to Helen, and as she said, everything was true and as you have said, a lot more to the story... honestly I don't care anymore deb, its in the past and I want to have nice memories, not bad ones (yet I do know the truth)
ive never been one to claim that im a strong person but since Micheal has died, ive shown myself how strong I can be.
battling betrayal from all the ppl that you thought loved you and your little daughter being treated like a leeper ( she now 11) because shes mine. all her aunties and uncles and grandparents just abbandaning her cos shes mine.
mmm I never thought it was true my whole life, but blood is thicker than water Deb..
and not by my choice... as soon as the chips are down, blood does turn to water it seems.
never having felt the real touch of my own mother and never experiencing the paternal love of a "real mum", ive struggled most of my life with the want of that.
you know...when I was pregnant with my first child, my adoptive mother told me to keep my swollen belly away from her and she never called into see me or advise or help me with anything...
the day she was born, this wacko "mother" showed up at the hospital proud as a peacock, stutting around showing off her new granddaughter..WTF...
she has never been there for me and I never had any of my sisters there for advice as I progressed in my life.
Jackie has been there for me as soon as she found me...she is afterall 10 months older than me lol.
my girls are my life and im proudly a grandmother myself now... but I was always there for them, cos that's what mums do...
so I just want to let you know im more interested in family and the ones that are alive right now.
I know Helen and love her to bits..and flick adores her Aunty Helen. shes met her Aunty Jackie. Aunty Coral, and adores them all...maybe she will be lucky enough to know Aunty Debra... that's up to you..
sue, and Shirley I hardly know, but I don't blame them after their childhood and David and I have meet but don't see each other at all. Gerard and I keep in contact regularly and im often touching base with the west side as well.
flick needs family and your part of ti if you wish to keep in contact deb...id love that..
my email is venture7mum@yahoo.com.au, or you can look me up on facebook under marie king (Corbett) if you want to see flick...oh by the way her real name is Felicity..Michael called her that after a nice girl he went to school with, that always stopped him from being bullied...
im hoping that you are picking up from your ovarian cancer Deb, and im sorry that you suffered...
I have lupas or SLE. its quite annoying but one just soldiers on and lives through it...I have my days as im sure you would be aware.
got to cook tea now, but I wish you the best Debra if you choose not to contact me again....I would love you too, but the ball is in your court now
take care and keep shinning deb......... Marie your little sis xoxoxoxoxox

Private User
3/16/2014 at 3:30 PM

Deb, you are right, I did tell you about what Dad wanted to do with his will, and about everything being left to Gerrard and how he wanted me to be his power of attorney and yep, I was pissed about it. I also told you about Gerrard and his drug addiction. Yep, that's where things stood in 1996, before I ended my marriage of 22 years. Then I came to see you and spent the night there one time, still the 90's as I recall. Yep, I was going wild, had been with the same man since age 14, here I was now 38 and yep, had an affair with a 19 year old. Boo, hiss me. I had several flings, as many as I wanted cause, I was single and I was experiencing life and sex and men for the first time in my life. I HAD THE BEST TIME. #sorry#notsorry#lol#besttimeeva.

And, since this is a public forum that anyone can see. People of Australia and the world, loving descendents of mine, two drinks and I am anybodies hahahaha. Not really, but I am a horrendous flirt and man hating tendencies seep out of my pores, I will scare you or eat you for breakfast, true, true. Mostly, it's in fun, apparently I'm extremely entertaining.

BUT< I did nothing with George or Patrick. I don't fancy your men Deb. I usually like them, you've had some great men over the years Deb. As a kid I had a huge crush on Steven. But I kind of feel like I've made the ranks. Haven't all your sisters, slept with all your men. Wow, I believed that, now because I am somehow put in that club, and I know I never did, so wow, it makes me question it all.

Things changed in a decade Deb. Dads will changed a dozen times, Gerrard battled his demons, sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. I grew a brain and realised I had no right to have any feelings about what Dad and Anne did with their money. In fact, I encouraged them to spend or mortgage the home for anything they needed and to basically squander the kids inheritance (which they didn't) but we had a good laugh.

I was 17 when Mum died, Gerrard was 8. I can count on my hands how many times I have seen you over the years. I know you have always tried to do your best for me. I have always had somewhere to live, except once after my divorce when me and two of my children were homeless for ten months. I had good friends who seen me through that.I am sorry if you thought I wasn't grateful. I remember you wanted to buy me a car once and my husband wouldn't let you. But that says it all. I went from parents to husband and no time in between. I was a rebellious child in my late thirties, a bit sexually retarded, but I'm a quick learner. I don't regret those times, I celebrate them.

You are not my enemy Deb, I love you desperately. But I was a quiet child surrounded by personalities beyond my control. Personalities that in hindsight were perhaps not well, as you have mentioned. I know you copped it. I remember one Christmas Roslyn attacked you, you were about 14, because you accepted a lift from her husband to get to the house. The unnerving atmostphere in my childhood home that I recall, the reason I was so sweet and cute and stood in the shadows fearful of being seen or making myself stand out in any way, was because I had seen what standing out caused, I hate seen you beaten, ripped apart, abused, screamed at, yelled at, just for being beautiful and too noticeable. I was terrified of ever stepping out into the sun, and it because of the angry feminine energy where violence would often erupt, where someones man smiled at, looked at, spoke to, someone who was shining and by Christ, that wasn't on.

I found being the sweet, cute little fatty kept me safe. I tried not to make waves and if I was lucky, I got through. I was scared of my mother, I was scared of Roslyn, I was scared of Corals frailness and how she acted when she became unwell. I was scared when you visited, scared of what might happen next, who might take offence that you still shone, without even trying and the heavens were about to fall on your head. You were my closest sibling Deb, I loved you and looked up to you. But I was scared for you.

Every celebration ended with feminine anger. So yeah, I have my scars. And one of them is that perhaps I blame men, transfer that anger on to them, blame them for all the cat fighting. I'm a strong believer in the strength of women, I seen mum as strong, but I seen men as the reason for women losing that common sense, sister against sister, mother against daughter. Not just in our family, but in society as a whole. That's why I would never go there with your men. Men aren't worth losing a sister or friend over.

And finally, I am sorry that it wasn't your experience, but in my life, the one consistent thing that was unchanging, predictable and readable, for a child who spent so much of her life walking on egg shells trying to read the environment, was my father. I could read which way the cards were about to fall, I could see when he was feeling happy, I could see if he was building up to a bad mood, I could see when he was feeling hurt, loving, funny and when he needed to be left alone. I could not read mum, Roslyn, Coral and later in life, I could not read you. Every nice time I spent with these people went south at some time, just, hey aren't we having fun, to raaaaarrrggghhh in less than sixty seconds, and that is why I prefer to keep my distance. Yet, I have tears in my eyes thinking about the beautiful little girl, just refusing not to shine and paying such a price and the little fat girl keeping her light under a bushel so as not to step on anyones toes ever.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I discounted your truth, your story, but just as your grandmother, in all this chaos, remained your rock, my father was mine. I can bitch and moan about inconsistencies and failures till the cows come home, but anyone else try to say anything and my hackles come up. We are broken children from a broken world and each of us has chosen a hero, the person who made it all bearable. I am not your enemy, I am your sister and I may not understand you very well, and you may not know the me I am today, but I still love you.

3/17/2014 at 9:10 PM

Jacky, I didn't know this was such a public forum, At first i thought it was totally private, and then all this started, so i assumed, only people in my tree could read it, and now you tell me ANYONE can read it! I am horrified and will get someone to show me how to fix it. I did wonder, how Bradley jumped on the bandwagon, but i thought it was via you, that's why i don't do Facebook, because I'm scared i"ll stuff that up too, and obviously, rightly so, it would appear.
So for now, a little decorum, please! Email me in future ... deborah.allan@hotmail.com However, this would read as a best seller, so we all should write our own biography"s and put it altogether, without naming who we are, and do it before someone else "snavels it up" lol. We'd have to careful not to confuse the reader"s, as even I'm confused right now! Like, how did the will issue become so prevalent?, because nothing about it bothered me in the least. Even when my own selfish bastard of a father died, i kept getting calls from a man and women, telling me to contest his will, and i told them to stop calling as i wanted nothing from him.
You know Jacky, i never understood why Mum and Tim allowed you to get married so young, as surely, they knew of the hard road ahead for you, or did you insist, just to escape? The latter most likely,
I can't imagine how difficult it was for you to live with Coral, she was an absolute time bomb just waiting to explode, and from what i saw, in the little time i spent there after arriving from Wagga with mum, she was treated with kid gloves, by both Mum and Tim, due to the much needed income provided by her. You wouldn't have had a leg to stand on, no matter what she did to you. Jacky, i want to say much more and work this out with my little sister who i love, but i have to do other things right now, and i don't know how to save this, so pls send me your email. Mine is deborah.alla@hotmail.com oxoxoxox

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