[Seahawk]

Wonderful, often heart wrenching thread. Thank you all. Very insightful.

I was very fortunate, almost absurdly so, with my parents and extended family.

That said, my oldest sister, brilliant in ways that I could never be, angry in ways I have never been, an emotional lummox in ways I hope I never am, was raised in the exact same environment my other sister and I were and she was never just happy.

It is not always the parents.

When my father died, his wish was to be interned at West Point with my mother, who died and was cremated years before. Her ashes are at my house because my father knew I would make it work. I was the Executor of his Will.

West Points policy is that the oldest surviving child must agree to adding a wife/significant other to the interment site.

Initially, my oldest sister agreed then decided, with malice, that her/our mother and father would remain apart, regardless of the Will. I had not spoken to my oldest sister in over a decade plus.

I tried again a few months ago, eight years after my father's passing. I had not spoken to her since she denied the Will's request...twice in 20 plus years.

She got mad at me.

Sometimes a parents best, I was there, is not enough.