Planning a murder!!

I am lucky I have siblings I am close to and it always surprises me that many people, just, well don't experience that closeness! Many friends of mine certainly love their own brothers and sisters, several of them are certainly not close and a few actively dislike their closest relatives, so I do feel (with a risk of sounding like one of the soddin Waltons) pretty lucky.

Watching the play last night, I realised that one of the reasons why there is a bond between us all, was the fact we all received a "shared", sometimes dysfunctional upbringing. David Benson in his play, explained that his family would plot to kill his destructive and aggressive mentally ill mother, but was very quick to reinforce that this "plotting" was only a supportive,fantasy which enabled them all to deal with the oppression and hurt of every day life.

When Benson joked that "even the dog hated her", I caught my sister laughing heartily at the line, and I remembered how we as a family mirrored the play's theme.

My mother was often bitter with her lot , and towards the end of her life could become rather "difficult" to say the least.( In actual fact she could be bloody dreadful) and coping with this erratic and constant drip-drip misery was hard. Like Benson's family, I remember us all sat with wine and nibbles one night, plotting how to get rid of her. Trip wires at the top of the stairs was one unimaginative idea (as was slippy pet toys strategically placed mid step), and although it sounds dreadful when the words are actually written down remembering it , the guilty laughter and silly fantasy of it all was such a vital and important cathartic release at the time.

Sharing such silliness (even if the root of the problem was VERY real) is the cement that binds a family. Those painful times collectively coped with by humour and irritation mean that there are several members frequenting the same club not one person shouldering the burden quite alone. I guess it is a case of swings and roundabouts.....if we as siblings had not had experienced family lows then our strength as brothers and sisters perhaps would not be as close and as supportive as it now is........who knows.

(pic) Agatha Christie circa 1956

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