Do I send this letter to my sister and risk--what??

I really appreciate your reply, Irishtea, and you've given me a lot to think about, but I probably should have been clearer in my letter about our history. Like you, I have always been the one to communicate and make peace in my family. For years my sister came to my house for Christmas and I listened to her stories of her problems with her work, her problems with men, I cheered with her when her daughter did well in school, I cooked and cleaned (she never offered to help), I was sympathetic and the endless shoulder to cry on. She criticized my children, my husband, ordered everyone around and generally made my kids want her to leave after she'd been in the house for an hour. She insisted we limit the number of gifts we gave our children at Christmas so her daughter wouldn't feel "left out," presumably since she had only one parent present, and then we waited for ages while her daughter unwrapped gift after gift after gift from my sister, from her father and her father's wife, from her cousins back home, etc. When my own first marriage broke up, she called to tell me she believed I had never loved my husband, as she and her husband truly loved each other and she couldn't ever imagine them breaking up (they broke up two years later--and I was the one who listened to her endless phone calls, sympathized, went up to her house to babysit. After seventeen years of this there came a Christmas when I had had it, and when she started badmouthing my other sister, saying that S was jealous of her because she and her daughter had gone on a trip to the Bahamas (she was making good money by then; my other sister has always just scraped by), I stopped pussyfooting around and just told her, "S isn't jealous of you; she's far too busy with her kids to care where you and L go on vacation." From that point on she gave me the cold shoulder, and that was the last Christmas she came to spend with us.

The ONLY time any of us were judgmental of her, or criticized her directly, in my entire memory (other than that one statement on my part) was when my mother was dying in Ireland and we were trying to bring her home so she could be with us, and A's email comment was "I see no problem with letting her die in Ireland. Any medical issues can be handled remotely." Yes, we all did get angry for that, but we ALL subsequently sent apologetic emails, cards, and apologized in person. But after that incident, we were all persona non grata.

Other than that, we have all always been supportive, encouraging, and praiseworthy of her accomplishments and her daughter's.

In the letter I want to send to her, I thank her for the two emails she has sent me int he past five years - one a condolence to my husband on his mother's death and the one to me about my daughter's diagnosis. Both emails were under 2 full lines long. I have sent her birthday cards, Christmas cards, and the occasional gift all along. I have also said in the letter,"Whatever path of life you have chosen, I cannot forget somehow that you are my sister. I am one of the few people left in your world who has known you for your entire life. If this means to you what it means to me, I would hope that we could support each other through the remaining years of our lives. If, on the other hand, this new route you have chosen is the one you wish to pursue, there's nothing I can do about it, but grieve yet another loss."

We don't live in the same country, and I haven't seen her since my mother died. (She did come to Ireland to see her before she died and was polite to us for the most part but refused our invitation to come to dinner and refused quite nastily to tell us where she was staying). We've never except for that one disagreement about my mum treated her like a black sheep, though she refers to herself as "not like the family." From the time she was a small child, she has been volatile and temperamental. Not a dinnertime went by that she did not throw a tantrum and flee to her room, and my mum would always follow to placate her.

I know that in alcoholic families, there is often one child who is the conduit of the bad "energy" and that would be my sister, and my heart goes out to her for that. But our parents are dead, and the poison continues.

I am so sorry you have had such difficulties with your own children. You sound like a very committed and devoted mother, and your children are lucky to have you. In many ways I think my own life parallels yours rather than my sister's does. And when you wrote about those two incidents leading you to put some distance between you and your family, well that decision presages what I think I will be inclined to do with my sister if I do send this letter and I get a cool response or no response at all. I just hate this phony limbo, where she is putting on the act for others, and her daughter, that she is perfectly nice to us and we are sulking for no reason. And then she'll make a parting comment that is really vitriolic. It's very difficult. I do love her, and I do hurt for her own hurt. For her fiftieth birthday, I got her a little statue of an elephant (she loves elephants) and presented it to her on the occasion of my Dad's memorial service, which she was at first not inclined to come to, as she wasn't speaking to any of us. I took her aside and opened my heart to her, apologized profusely for any hurt that I had caused her, asked if we could put it behind us and remember our history and by close again. I made myself very vulnerable and I was near tears, and when I opened my arms to offer her a hug she gave me a really vicious look and said, "I'm here, aren't I??" in a very angry tone. I just stood there. I felt like I had been slapped hard. I didn't know what to say. Then she put on her "smiley face" and said in a saccharine tone, "Thank you for the gift. It's just lovely. I'll put it on my mantel at home." And swept out of the room.

So that is what I am dealing with. Sorry for the lengthy reply. :-(