Here is the thing, time and time again a parent will tell you that they love their children equally, yet, that parent is not cognizant and oblivious to his or her perceived actions that’s construed differently in the eyes of each affected sibling. Needless to say, I could rattle off many a circumstances, if time permitted, but to illustrate my point, I will recall two contrasting cases.
First, this young Jamaican women, whom I will call Hope. I met her a few years ago. Hope had three sisters that hated each other, but in the company of the mother, everything was a walk in the park, sisters rock kind of thing. Anyway, Hope was the apple of the mother’s eyes and the near do well of the four sisters, not to trivialize her grandiose ambitions but every scheme she tried flopped, of course, the mother would ride and chide the others for not helping Hope.
Long story short, the eldest sister and of most financial means begrudged having to pay for her sister’s loser tendencies. So, this one particular time, Hope was badly in need of transportation and asked this sister for assistance to buy a second hand car. Nonetheless, fed up with Hope’s burdensome nature, she suggested that Hope tries a foot mobile, that’s walking to her destinations, and when that did not faze Hope, she sent her a drawing of an automobile with Hope as a stick woman behind the wheels with a caption that said, “This is you in your car, happy ride”
Second, the shades of sibling enmity is tested when a supposedly favored child suddenly dies, a most unfortunate and devastating situation to say the least. Sometimes ago, this family friend had two lovely daughters, the mother doted on the elder, whilst, the father adored the younger one. As expected, the older daughter worked very at getting her father’s attention, she excelled at everything, but still failed to gain the coveted recognition from him.
I remember the summer like it was yesterday, both girls went to New York to spend the holidays with an Aunt, a nurse. During their stay, the aunt noticed a lump on the younger girl’s knee, concerned, she took the girl to the doctor.
In short, this young twelve year old girl was diagnosed with cancer and in six months she was dead and so was the father. He never recovered from his daughter's death. He visited her grave every single solitary day while he was alive. As far as he was concerned life was not worth living; he lost his job; he divorced; he did not care that he had another daughter amongst the living. In a matter of years, he gave up the will to live and died of a broken heart. Some years later, the elder daughter told me that she wished she was the one that died because she felt that in her father's eyes she never really existed or mattered.
Listen, all this BFF is nothing but a pot of crock and highly overrated. At the end of the day, friends will eventually sabotage and grass each other, and besides, are expensive dependencies that most of us cannot afford. Straight up when it comes to my man, I have no BFF, period! In essence, my man and supposedly BFF should not be on the same continent, much less, live in the same state, seriously! This rooty situation manifests its own overwhelming undercurrent of intense jealousy and uncontrollable desire.
Imagine this human infirmity, A while back, this friend of mine was having an extra marital affair, the thing with biting the forbidden fruit is that you cannot help the compulsion to tell someone, and I was the one she chose to give a daily dose of blow by blow, as well as, chapter and verse of the lance of love. Here’s the catch 22, one has to be ever so careful to strike a balance in knowing when not to cross that line between accessing a listening ear and lauding one’s good fortunes over the not so lucky.
Thus, if one is experiencing a moment of bliss and the other person’s life is sheer misery, then there will be spikes of spite. To be quite honest, my morals were in jeopardy and teething on the edge of being severely compromised, as I could visualize myself playing the organ with this guy. After all, I had his digits, that's another thing, my man goes by a pseudo name such as Romero, Sweet Boy or Marathon Man, but never his real name. I have got to tell you, many a times, the devil was strong, for every stroke that he pummeled into her mound, I took a turn in the stubble too. Get thee behind me Satan!
Behold, amongst this fear and insecurity, the underlying lesson, whether it’s to combat sibling rivalry or the pursuit unrequited love; if you have to work too hard for another’s affection, it’s a zero sum gain in trying to win over a parents love at best, and at worst, a negative payoff of a lover’s concerto.
