She saw a different perspective

As I have taught with Linda over the past several weeks I've told her about various things going on in my life. If I hadn't shared my mom would wonder why I didn't tell her something and so I told her. Among those things were my sister's car accident where she became totally incapable of handling the accident. Linda was shocked.

On Tuesday night Linda was over near our house for a conference and she was shocked to see my sister's attitude at dinner. My sister was putting down Halladay or some player on the Giants, she was touting her new title at school. I guess my sister is abandoning her chemistry major and graduating with her Communications degree and graduating in May. I guess she has been accepted for the masters program at her college. She was bragging that she was going to be a professor. Linda said you are not going to be a professor. The title would be a GI, grad student, TA, or fellow depending on the college. My sister shouted back "no, they call you a professor." Linda said they may, but that was not the correct title. I confirmed it was not.

Linda was telling me Wednesday that in knowing my family 11 years this was one of the worst times she has ever had with us. You have to remember Linda goes out with us all the time- usually at least once a month. She tends to spend weekends with my mom. That may mean she'll show up at our house at 8a.m. Saturday morning with breakfast, will hang around for a few hours, then do some shopping or something. Linda is always here with us.

Then on Thursday night there was a lot of tension. I was scolding my mom over my sister's lies and for her allowing it. My sister said she didn't have class until 2, therefore could not take a 7am train to school. My mom told me as I was picking her up from work to take her to dinner where we were meeting Linda that my sister had just got to the restaurant, and it was only 2:50pm. I asked my mom how that was possible when her college was 30 minutes away, and I had just driven to there the day before since the car dealer was down there, down the street. My mom said she wasn't having it as she was fed up with the car issues.

At dinner my sister was in an awful mood. She was in shorts and complained how cold it was, could my mom keep her warm with her sweater. It was rainy and 65 degrees Thursday. Then my sister was again touting her title at school. Then my sister was telling Linda how we all suck because we teach dumb kids. I pointed out that our kids aren't dumb. Our kids just need teachers to make the information accessible to them. The college kids she will teach are dumb to until someone makes the information accessible and teaches them too. My sister said that wasn't the case and basically that she looks down on my mom, dad, Linda, and myself. It goes only downhill as I left to go to school, Linda stayed behind. She said that my sister got worse. She said that she wanted to go, she had homework, and she had school. My mom pointed out she didn't have school Friday. Linda said she didn't work and that my mom and Linda were going to sit and talk for at least an hour more like they usually do. My sister said that she wasn't going to and basically threw a fit until my mom left.

Linda told me on Friday that she was so sad and that she sees my sister as lacking compassion. She said she sees my sister getting a real wakeup call in the future for her bad behavior. Linda told me how bad and sad she felt leaving the restaurant. She said she felt so distant from my mom and sister. She is hoping that next week with my mom they have a fun time without my sister. She also sees now how she is going to ask my mom what my sister does- she pointed out how she knows how I do everything- and sees it now.

And we're not sure how it will work this week. I am now at the high school I graduated from for student teaching. I am no longer going to have the 30 mile commute that my mom has to another school nearby. We still don't have another car. I told my mom and dad that I can put my sister on the train for her to get to school. She used to take the train. She used to take the train before even though her classes weren't until 11 or 12 because we couldn't take her to the train at that time. Last Thursday my sister drove my mom to school, drove the car 30 minutes/miles back home, then drove 40 miles/45 minutes to school, and then 30 minutes/25 miles to get my mom, then 30 minutes/miles home. THAT WAS SO RIDICULOUS. I will be so upset if my mom puts up with that next week. We shall see...