1011 Matching Photos

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Answer to the photos in entry 1009 Manly Men:
I gave it away when I earlier said that the photo of Jay and me was taken on my sister's boat. Yeah, that's my sister. My youngest sister, not the one I've recently reconnected with, and her husband. At the time of the picture, I was about 52 and she was 44ish, same age as Jay.

I like these pictures a lot. They stand next to each other, and everyone who has ever looked at them has said almost the same thing.
They: "Oh, what a good photo of you. Is that your husband?"
Me: "Yes, that's Jay."
They: (Peering at the other picture and pointing) "This is obviously your sister!"
Me: "Yes. And her husband."
They: (Peering closer, back and forth between the photos, growing frown) "You two married brothers!?"

Pure coincidence that they look similar. Their personalities and everything else about them couldn't have been more different.

Youngest sister (YS) and her husband (SH) were both alcoholics. They met at the meetings. At the time they were married, she had been sober for two years. He had a deep soft southern drawl, and she was the sweetest thing walking. At first they were very good together. They loved each other with every fiber of their being, and for a little while it was good. They bought a little house, acquired some pets, and YS was so proud.

But SH, although a skilled carpenter and talented furniture-maker, having spent a significant portion of his life lying drunk under bridges, didn't have a very solid self-image. He couldn't believe YS would stay with him. After a while, he wouldn't allow her to go to the meetings, because he was afraid she'd meet someone better. But she kept doing scary things like ... getting jobs. And going to work.

He found that the easiest way to keep her all to himself was to keep her drunk.

Pretty soon they were both drinking heavily. Neither of them could hold a job. Then the fights started. Accusations. Beatings. Neighbors calling the cops. One or both of them getting hauled off to jail, or her being involuntarily committed to rehab to dry out. He never let her stay in rehab - he'd convince her to leave as soon as the involuntary period was up. They lost the house they were so proud of.

At the time those photos were taken, the two of them had not been drinking for four days - the length of our visit with them up to that point - and had not yet lost the house. At that time, I didn't know they were drinking at all. They were able to maintain the fiction for a week. We didn't know what was happening.

This is not my outside observation. She told me these things after Jay and I got home. She was frightened. She didn't know how to stop the downward spiral. I offered to pay for rehab at a classy center, but she'd have to agree not to see or speak to him until she was strong again. (Well, strong, finally, perhaps for the first time. She'd been sexually abused as a child, and severely physically and emotionally abused until she got out of the family home - we all were, but she the worst of all - and she really never had a chance. She always felt that everything was always her fault.) He'd have to go to rehab, too, but at a different place. She refused. She knew that telling him she wanted any kind of separation from him, even temporary, would push him over the edge.

Within a year of this photo, they were living in a shack in North Carolina with no heat and no running water, and one Monday, after a weekend drunk, he awoke to find her dead. She had apparently been dead for at least two days, and he hadn't noticed. There was no autopsy, but we assume alcohol poisoning or whatever. He died less than a year later, same cause.

I like these pictures a lot.