42. No Love, II

Fall as well as hurricanes is coming to Florida. Last week, I noticed that green leaves fell to the ground as a rare breeze came through. The young goat has grown horns about a foot long and yesterday evening he was butting the fence post with more spirit than usual. The dogs also have more enthusiasm playing. Several evenings ago, it was so cool that I thought I could feed and water the goats and horses without breaking a sweat. I only got half way through, though, before perspiration was dripping down my forehead. It is time for fall; the horses have doubled what they were drinking at the beginning of summer, and the dogs are insisting on an area of the kitchen that is in my way. The reason for the spot is that there are three air-conditioning outlets and one floor fan there. I figure that the body core of everyone has heated considerably, and it is taking more to cool.
To return to Sarah's problem with our sister, ever since I invented Peter's Template two years ago, I have been using it to see if Sarah could work out a reconciliation with Rebecca. Sarah has liked the concept of the path of love, and about a year ago, Rebecca helped the situation by calling Sarah. They both cried during the conversation, but I don't believe Rebecca apologized for her behavior toward Sarah and her sons. Sarah also told Rebecca that she could not trust her just on the basis of one phone call. There were no others on either part for the next year. This was not a solid reconciliation, but Sarah noticed that she got no pyschosomatic symptoms while talking to Rebecca. Sarah makes her living from tutoring and refinishing antiques and then selling them. Because school budgets have been very tight this year, she has done very little tutoring. Mother, as always, paid for her plane ticket, and Rebecca, agreed to take care of Mother so she wouldn't have to pay anyone to do that while Sarah was there for two weeks. Sarah flew out to Idaho, and it was a week before Rebecca contacted her. Obviously, this was rude, and a strong indication that Rebecca was not on the path of love toward Sarah. I think one of Sarah's daughters took care of Mother for money so it would be she who was getting no money while Sarah was there. But Rebecca is the wife of a millionaire CPA and the principal of a church school (Christianity towards all but her family?)and quite capable of making up any monetary deficit her daughter may have had because of Sarah's visit. Sarah did do several things with Rebecca including seeing her big home and the remodeling Rebecca is having done. But one afternoon, "Rebecca came over in high heels, dressed to the nines," as Sarah related it to me, " and walked into Mom's living room as if she were a very important, busy person. She saw Mom and me playing cards, then looked out at the deck, and then lit into me saying,'Rebecca, those plants are dying. They need watering. You're not supposed to ignore them.' I started to explain that she was right; that I wasn't used to the extreme dryness of Idaho, but she interrupted me by saying very accusingly, 'And Mother looks horrible! You're obviously not taking care of her, and that was your end of the deal in coming here!' At this point I knew it wasn't about the plants or Mother, but me. I told her so and walked away to my room down in the basement. Mom said nothing, and for two days I remained in my room almost all the time, very depressed and having all the psychosomatic problems come back. Mom came down, and I told her she knew what was going on and that she was the leader (she should have said "Mother" here. On the third day, Rebecca called."