Many Expressions, but All are of Love

Cierra Isner

This is a narrative I wrote about in which I felt extreme emotions and learned lasting lessons, as well as had a change of opinion on views I had held before.

Many Expressions, but All are of Love

I learned a lot about love last winter. It wasn't a "lesson in love" where a boyfriend broke my heart, or even pieced it back together. It was a deeper understanding of the workings of family, something very difficult to adjust to on my father's side. One of the most insightful things I have, and ever will grasp, is that not all people express their love the same way. My father makes it a verbal statement, he shows it with actions, through the way that he talks, the way that he worries, his concerns, and by reminding me that he's proud of me. His mother on the other hand, was not that way. To this day I'm not sure what ways she let it be known on a general basis. We were never really close until it was too late. What's important is that I know that she did care.

I was at a marching band competition one Saturday afternoon. We had just finished our so called performance, which must have been more like torture for the audience. As I made a bee-line for the concession stand, I hurried to turn my phone on. Cell phones were forbidden during a performance and the time we had to warm up prior to it. My directors, both of whom were die-hard in the band scene, enforced this rule strictly, so I expected a couple of notifications. After sorting through texts from the friends I had been talking to, and a missed call from my mom, I got to a missed call I hadn't been expecting. My estranged half sister had left a trite voice mail.

"Hey Sis, it’s Chelsey. Call me... It's about Grandma."

Chelsey and I had never been the picture perfect example of big and little sister. She grew up living with her mom and step-dad; and me with our dad and my mom. Our dad would pick her up to come visit every weekend when she was young, and when she was 3 I was born. After I was a few months old, I'm told Chelsey wasn’t around much until I turned 3. Then she began coming over a few times now and then, around holidays, her birthday, whenever it was convenient for her.

I remember being a very little girl, curly headed and petite, lying on my bedroom floor with my mom, playing pretend. I lied there staring at the ceiling while telling her that I wished I had a real big sister. My jaw must have dislocated when she told me I did. I looked at her like she had 3 eyes while she told me about Chelsey. Chelsey came and went. She was around sometimes more than others and she liked our family more some visits than others. She was interesting. Being older than me, we would try and play together but she played with the mind of a tween, and myself with the mind of a kid. These visits would leave me confused and feeling like I had done something wrong. My Barbies didn't have boyfriends, they didn't kiss, and they certainly didn't curse, except when Chelsey was visiting.

As she got older she got more difficult to interact with. She had boyfriends much older than her, and she found herself in difficult situations. She played mother to one boyfriend who was a few years older than her, had a baby, a crazy ex-girlfriend, and was handicapped from his last job. He walked with a cane and no longer worked. At 15, Chelsey didn't need that. It was difficult to watch her go from one harmful relationship to the next, but our father, having almost no custody of her, felt like there was little he could do to make a difference.

There were times she would call and leave awful, hateful messages on our answering machine, and eventually my dad stopped calling her back. We began screening our calls regularly, and I started to resent my dad for ignoring his daughter. I would cry and harass him about why he couldn’t just talk to her. It put a major a strain on our relationship. If I accidentally answered her call, I was either told to lie (which was horrid for me because it went against the morals I'd been raised on) or I was scolded and given a nasty look for giving him the phone. He would take it from me like one would take a used tissue, disgusted.

I didn't like this part of my him. I knew him as a loving, family man. A blue collar worker, he's big, weathered, with calloused hands and bags under his eyes. He stands taller in the morning than he does in the evening, and one day I expect his raven hair to become a shocking shade of white in a matter of seconds. He always claims I give him grays, but you can't see them. He has a stern appearance, and talks with authority. As a foreman for an electric company, his men respect him for this. However, they like him for the respect he gives them, his no nonsense way of running a job, and the way that he can laugh with them while he works beside them. I like him because when I do see him smile or hear him laugh, you can feel his emotions. The years of pain and hardship come through his eyes, but the love and pride he has make them burn brighter than the sun. The way that his face blanked and the feeling left his voice when I would tell him she was on the phone crushed me.

So after she left one extremely nasty message, I grew a spine. I got the cell phone number from the caller I.D. and sent her a text. I couldn't call her because I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say, but I had to say something. I reminded her about the other people in the house that she neglected to acknowledge, and told her that I care, even if he doesn’t seem interested. I had no idea what a can of worms I was opening. She began texting me occasionally, feeding my hope that we might finally have a relationship. However, our dad always became the topic.

So when she called me that Saturday I just had to call her back. I had no idea what it could be about. A problem arose though, when I soon found out that it was too noisy to talk. Between the sounds of the current band, the fans, a chilly wind blowing, and general disruptions, I ended up having to have this very important conversation in the girl's bathroom. The first thing she told me after giving me grief for the ruckus was that they found a tumor on Grandma's liver the size of baseball. Knowing her habit of exaggerating, I questioned it, but let her go on. She then explained that they would have found it sooner but Grandma’s arthritis medicine was masking the pain. When she started turning yellow though, they assumed she was jaundice and took her to the hospital. The doctors assumed either pancreatic or liver cancer, maybe both. Chelsey then proceeded to turn the conversation from Grandma, to Dad, just like always.

“Someone needs to tell Dad. Why hasn't anyone told you yet?" she asks, almost accusingly.

"Well, he's not home," again I was stretching the truth for him. He had been running a job site doing the electrical wiring for a hospital in Wyoming and was coming back that day, but wasn't home yet. "But I'll let Mom know, I'll call her now. I’m not sure if anyone else has tried to call though, I'm not home, remember?"

"Whatever," she says. "What's Dad's number?" Just like that she's back to him.

"I don't have it." Lie. "You know the way they change it when he's gone. Just try whatever number you have."

"He never answers." True. "But I gotta go, I'll talk to you later," and she hangs up. I mumble goodbye as I close my phone.

She didn't text me for a while. I did call my mom though, and she said she'd try and get a hold of my elusive father. Later that night, as we were boarding the bus, Chelsey called back. She began to then try and guilt trip me into connecting her to our father. I just tried to avoid it. I lied and told her I didn’t know exactly when he was coming home. I told her mom was trying to get a hold of him though. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. I got off the phone with her and called my mom, who proceeded to tell me that if I'd have listened in the first place, I wouldn't be in this mess. To top it off, I was sharing a seat with my insensitive then boyfriend who asked me, "Why are you crying?"

I spent a long bus ride home watching trees and painted lines blur past out the window. My life was slowly beginning to tumble in around me.

When I got home I cried and argued with my dad (who had ironically made it home at this point), yet again, over my sister. Welcome home, Daddy. The next night Chelsey called me again. The conversation quickly followed it's usual path, straight to Dad.

"Why didn't you tell me he was home?" she demanded.

"I didn't know he would be!" I Lied.

"I bet you never tell him when I call. Some sister you are!"

"I do too tell him, every time!" and it was the truth. "I don't know why he doesn't call!" that was a lie.

"You're supposed to be my sister. He's my dad too; can't you bear to share him? You live with him!"

"Why don't you believe me? He'll do what he wants; I can't force him to call!" For once, I was telling the whole truth. My head was spinning. Why doesn’t she believe me? Why don't I matter to her? Isn't it enough that I call her? "Why don't I matter to you Chelsey?"

"You do matter, it just hurts! You know, you have other family. Why don't you ever call Grandma? She's dying and you don't care!" She was trying to make it my fault. "I care! How can you say I don't care? Why is this my fault?"

She went on and on. It was my fault I didn't call Grandma. Well why didn't Grandma call me? I was barely 15; she was the adult, not me. It's a two way street, Chelsey told me. Yes, it was a two way street, and Grandma wasn’t doing anything either. She didn’t even call on my birthday! She asked me if I call on her birthday. She asks me if I LOVE her. Do I love Grandma? I stop to think about this. Well of course I do, but if that's how Chelsey thinks love works, does Grandma love me? Why was this suddenly my fault? I didn't do anything!

"All I do is ask you to tell him I call! Is that too much? You're my sister!" She won't, and can't, let this go, as she makes it about Dad again.

"I tell him! I can't help that he doesn't call back! I'm sorry! I can't do anything! It's not my fault!" I’m on the verge of tears. My mom stops me. She warns me not to apologize. Chelsey is resentful, and that night the only thing I an imagine is that she wanted me to feel pain along with her. The years of her not having her father, made it difficult for her to see that it I did what I could. She didn't, and still doesn't, know all the times I've fought her battle. All she knows is that she feels cheated out of something. She'd been hurt and wanted me to hurt so the playing field would be evened out. It'd become a game, a twisted game, and I struggled to grasp the rules.

"Chelsey, I can't help it, I just can't." I tell her, meaning every word.

"I'm not asking too much of you. It’s the least you can do.” As she persists, I tell myself not to fall for it.

"Chelsey, I can't help that he doesn't care, but I do." I gasped, then exhaled slowly. I had acknowledged the elephant in the room. Standing in my kitchen, I said it. Then, I lost reception. I ran out of the kitchen and called her back.

"I'm sorry, I lost service."

"Whatever." I could tell she wasn’t happy about the turn of events.

"I really can't help it. I'm so sorry, but I'd love to have a relationship with you. Why is he all that you're interested in? You invited me to your son's birthday party but never told me when or where it was. You say we'll hang out but don't. You're all talk but no action."

"I do care. It's just so difficult to think that my dad doesn't care."

"Well, we can't have anything unless you can put him aside. If you can't leave him out of us, then I can't do this. I'm not a middle man." I'm realizing that all the pain I've gone through to have something with her, all the times I've brushed off my parents cynical comments, it was all in vain. It got me nowhere with her.

"I can't. I'm sorry, I'm just bitter." and with that she closes the case.

"Well, call me when you can. I love you."

Our phone rang off the hook that night. Chelsey called, her mom called, her step-dad called, all for my father who refused to answer. My best guess is that they wannted to talk about why he couldn't have told her himself. My mother and I got tired of it. We changed our answering machine, and for 3 weeks it said, "Hi. You've reached the Isner's. If you're calling for Cecilia, Cierra, or Isabella, please leave a message after the tone. If you're calling for Karl, he doesn't return calls, so please stop trying." They eventually got the hint.

I felt awful that I had told my own sister that our father didn't care. It made me feel so dirty, betraying. If she was too much for him to deal with, and couldn't handle her downer mood, he needed to tell her, not me. Along with that I realized that his choices were not mine to make. He will be the one that lives with the outcome, not me.

I also felt lost, alone. Was it really my fault that my Grandmother was dying and we had no relationship? Did she love me? She loved my uncle's family. She was always there for them, but not us. It wasn't bad that my parents left Dayton, where my father's family is centered. They didn’t want to raise a family there and I'm grateful. As I thought about it I realized that we didn't associate with his family much because they weren’t good influences and didn't live in a pleasant environment. Many of them were wrapped up in drugs, they drank like fish. There's a prison record, and tons of stories that I've been kept from. We didn't leave because Dad didn't care about them, but because he cared about his new family. So if those were his reasons in leaving, what were their reasons for not calling or visiting us?

I found myself alone in our hot tub, holding back tears one night, contemplating it all as I hit a low point in my life. All this time I had thought that it was his fault. He neglected them, he didn't care. I never took a lot of time to see why he might do what he did. I just couldn't see why Grandma didn't care. When he came outside and talked to me the flood gates broke. Between sobs I managed to ask him, "Why doesn't Grandma love me Daddy? It's not fair!" I was 15 years old, and suddenly, after never having stooped to that level, I was playing the fair card.

"It's not, baby. I know." His hard shell was cracking. I felt a pain, softness in his voice. "I talked to her a couple days ago. She had a lot to say. She does love you baby. She has never, not loved you. She feels absolutely awful for not having been there for us, and she knows she's wrong for this, but we didn't need her. Uncle Willy and his family need her, so she focuses her energy on them. We don't live up in that area; I left and have tried to give you what you need. Your mom and I have raised you just fine, and we're doing okay. She's always loved you."

"It's too late Daddy! What good does it do now? She's dying!"

Slowly, though, I came out of the funk I’d been trapped in. We went to visit her a lot over the next few months, and she did love me. I could tell she was proud of me, and nothing else mattered. We made the best of the time we had, and when she passed in July, I didn't feel like there was a void I'd never filled. It's upsetting that we could have been closer, but I cherish the time we had.

I don't know that I've ever formally apologized to my father for all of the arguments, but I know I should never jump to conclusions about things again. His failure to make contact didn't mean he didn't care. My grandmother's lack of concern wasn't her way of expressing no interest. You can love someone and express it in many ways. As far as Chelsey is concerned, we don't talk much now. I realized that my parents weren't kidding when they said that she lies, and was desperate for attention.
Some things would be better if you took people's word for things. However, you learn more from experience than hear say, and experience has taught me a lot. Not everyone shows their love the same way, it doesn't mean that they don't care. Sometimes you just have to look beyond the surface, and understand their motives.