Why don’t they like me?

Toward the end of his life, my father mellowed enough so that I could ask him some of life’s difficult questions, among which was something to help me understand my siblings, Carla Throckmorton Hertz and Peter Eugene Throckmorton, so I asked him, “Why don’t they like me?” The question probably should have been, why don’t they love me, or even why do they hate me? My father knew that I have always loved my sister and brother, and that I have always wanted what is best for them, without exception. My father’s usually expressionless face looked a little sour, a little sad as he pondered. Then he said softly, “They are like her.” And, he slightly gestured toward the sunroom where my mother was ensconced with ice tea, reading materials, and her two Labrador dogs whom she had trained at an early age to stand alert and bark at me. I did not trouble my father further about it, because clearly he meant what I already knew, that my mother had taught my siblings to despise me and they had been receptive to it. I knew the three of them enjoyed causing me trouble. I will never know the why of it, there are no lights of wisdom bright enough for me to understand.

Caption: Bright Lights Of Wisdom

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2018