As a kid, I always idolized my older brother, Kevin. Some of my favourite childhood memories are spending time with him.
I remember playing baseball outside in our front yard. We didn't have a bat, so we used a large stick with a massive spike on it. We didn't have a baseball either, just a gross partially-decomposed nerf ball that let off a cloud of noxious dust when we hit it. We didn't have clear bases too, just vaguely defined areas that were "safe." It was so much fun, even though he always won.
Kevin also got me into hockey. I remember lying downstairs across opposite sides of the couch, and he'd explain what an offside meant and why the Montreal Canadians were the best team, and during intermissions we'd have "foot-wars" and try to push each other off the couch with our feet. Again, I didn't mind that he always won.
My brother was also the first person to get me into video games. He had a SNES, NES and an Xbox, and we played Killer Instinct, Mario 3, and Halo together. Once dad let me play on the big computer downstairs, we played Starcraft, Age of Empires, Master of Orion and Diablo as well, yelling strategies at each other across the basement. He always won.
Kevin and I were always really close. Closer than Sarah and I were, and she knew it.
It's not that we didn't try to include her in our gaming sessions, but I can only remember a handful of times she would join us. And when she did, the chemistry was different. I didn't have as much fun as when it was just Kevin and I playing, and she must have recognised that.
I remember sitting in on one of her therapy sessions one day, and she admitted to me that she was jealous of my close relationship with our older brother. This came as a complete shock to me.
"Why don't you just join us?" I remember asking.
Her response? "It's not that easy."
Looking back on it now, I realize she wasn't jealous she couldn't join in with our gaming sessions - she was jealous that I had such a close connection to someone in our family.
Even my mother agrees that's all Sarah ever wanted, was someone to think she was special. She says that maybe if Nanny, my grandmother, hadn't passed away when Sarah was 4, maybe Sarah would have been happier. Nanny had such a close connection to Sarah, maybe things would have been different if that connection were still alive.
While there's no way to know for certain, I honestly doubt it would have been different.
It wasn't just my relationship with Kevin she was jealous of, but my relationships with my school mates. This was most obvious when I entered high school, and I went into the small-town school she had to leave because she was being relentlessly bullied. Everyone knew her and she knew everyone, which meant everyone I met had some connection back to her and she hated it.
She wanted full control over my friends, and would unleash her fury on anyone she didn't think I should be hanging around with. I met one of my best friends in high school, a fun outgoing girl named Steph. Steph has an older sister who used to be friends with Sarah, until the two of them had a falling out years before. When I told Sarah I was hanging around with Steph, she flipped out and threatened to drive her away violently. An argument ensued, and I gave up trying to tell her about the people I met. Sarah couldn't understand that Steph was a different person than her sister, just as I was a different person to her.
So I learnt to hide my friends from her, and I'm sure she would have torn her hair out if she knew my friend group expanded to some of the very people she used to hang out with back in her younger days. Whenever she asked about my friends, I only mentioned the people she approved of, and when I did slip up and mention someone she didn't want me hanging around with, I would make up a fake last name and background for them so I wouldn't incur her wrath.
In fact, it was so difficult to make new friends for me then that some people I went through grade school with recognized I was having a hard time. Back in the days when Facebook was fairly new, they created a group for me: the Heather Bazil Fan Club. It sounds ridiculous now, but a bunch of girls I'd known since I was younger created this group and flooded it with compliments about my hair and about how kind I was to them. I have no doubt it was meant to be a confidence boost for me and a way for them to show me that they thought I was cool, and that I had their support. It was a lovely gesture.
But I didn't have Facebook, so I heard about it through the grapevine. I wanted to see it for myself, but to do so I had to turn to the only member of my family who had Facebook: Sarah. And she was having none of it.
I told her about it and asked to read the posts, but she wouldn't let me read it. Instead, she found the creators of the group and sent them threatening messages, telling them to take the Facebook group down or she would hunt them down and make them wish they did.
I begged her to stop. I bargained and pleaded and screamed for her to not alienate this group of girls who were being so kind to me. But my words never reached her.
The next day at school was so awkward, and I kept getting pitying looks from everyone who had undoubtedly heard about what had happened. I felt so alone, even my friends couldn't comfort me any. I was so angry at Sarah for repaying their kind words with cruelty and fury and upset that she wouldn't let me read their comments myself.
Hindsight is 20/20, my mother used to say, and it's never been truer than when I look back on this memory. I can now understand Sarah's desire to protect me from the cruelty of the internet, but I always questioned her decision to not let me read their comments. I'm sure she thought that they were being sarcastic or ridiculing my appearance or personality, and didn't want me to grow self-conscious.
In fact, the opposite happened: I gained so much more confidence from the experience. Some of them were so frightened by Sarah's reaction that they avoided me completely, and although they never said another word I recognized that they still felt the way they did. They still thought my hair was nice, even if they didn't say it. They still thought I was really nice, even if they didn't tell me. I didn't have to hear reassurances that I was a good person or that I looked nice, I felt it.
So in a strange way, I'm thankful Sarah inadvertently helped me by cutting ties to these compliments. At such a formative time in our lives when we're so concerned with what other people are saying about us, she cut off my contact with those other people. I learnt to rely on my own confidence and self-worth. I knew I was pretty. I knew I was kind. I didn't need anyone to tell me that.617Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYVlPZJ5wHN
And despite all of this, I knew that my classmates were still watching out for me, because the truest friends you make will support you through all of the crap in your life.617Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwdiZHA8tV
And this wasn't even the worst of it all.
That came later.
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