Maybe we should hold ourselves to higher standards.

If you happened to have read my entry from yesterday you would have seen where I talked about it being my younger brother’s birthday and how it was hard because he passed away three years ago. Also in that post I talked about on the same day my sister’s children’s father was shot and killed.

Now I’m not bringing this all up again to necessarily talk about yesterday again in the same sense. Although the events that took place yesterday caused a very big conversation to take place today with my parents, two sisters and I.

A little background, every year since my brother in-law and brother have passed away there’s been this dark cloud that hangs over our family. Their deaths were two weeks apart from each other so my sister didn’t really get to morn the loss of her children’s father before they were hit with more devastating news.

My sister and him were no longer together when he passed they had been living apart for a while and he had a girlfriend but they were on good terms up until a few weeks before he died. They were however, together for a really long time. They met when they were both 18 and he was a very huge part of all our lives. He wasn’t always the best to my sister but he was a very good dad and he never did anything to my self or my children. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.

Anyways, its been this weird battle of who the day was more about  and which feelings mattered more. This year all of us were trying to just keep the day simple and for me personally I planned to do the same thing again that I had done four years prior. I made a point of doing things to help my sister and her children find at least one reason to smile. I bought my sister and niece flowers and I got both boys chocolate candy.

Later last night my sister had called me all upset saying how she felt like she didn’t matter because neither of our parents checked in on her and our mother was even at her house. She said I was the only one who made a point of making her feel like her feelings were important that the day wasn’t just about our brother.

I talked to her a few times today and she seemed a little better. Well this evening when my husband was taking our children to his mothers she texted in our family group chat asking if someone could watch her kids while she went to clean and office. Our mother was suppose to do it but was being childish because her and my sister fought the night before.

I’m not sure how much time passed but she called me and I could barley understand her she was crying so hard. She was telling me she had spoken to our dad and he said some things that really hurt her. She was telling him she had hurt feelings because he hadn’t reached out to her at all the day before and he shot back with that her and her ex were not together anymore and that he felt bad for the kids but that was it pretty much.

I think emotions were running high and I think it some ways everyone has been so caught up in how they all feel that we’ve forgotten we’ve all been through the same traumatic experiences.

I sent a text out in our group chat because I thought tonight was the right time to call our family out on all our behavior. I feel like we all let our standards faulter and in a lot of ways became selfish. I cannot sit here and say I’m not guilty of doing that as well because I have most defiantly done it. With that being said though I am trying to do better and not allow my feelings to cloud the fact that I am not the only one who has a hard time.

I feel at one point we all had this mask over our faces that blinded us to the things that were really going on. No one was being called out or owning up to the things they were doing wrong. Instead of just admitting what we did wrong and owing our own stuff we all would find some blame in the other person making them the reason we did what we did.

I think we all have things we need to work on and I think everyone has moments where they are so focused on how they feel or what they have going on that they do not have room to take on the thoughts and feelings of another person. I understand a person can only carry so much, but without having to carry the weight of world why can we at least be understanding of other people?

I guess I got caught up tonight thinking about things, I just feel disappointed in our families behavior as a whole because even though I feel its always been this way, after everything we’ve been through something should have changed. At this rate our family ties aren’t going to last unless something gives somewhere.