Dad’s passing or sister’s squabbling? What is the real tragedy?
Ginny and Becky lost their father, and among other things in this chapter, the family came together for his funeral. Perhaps labeling his death a tragedy goes too far for being in the latter stages of senile dementia the parts and parcels of what made him unique dissolved in advance.
In some manner, this father had been the glue holding the sisters together. What would happen with the funeral? Would the sisters be able to find some solace in each other as they make arrangements for his last rites, or would the last vestiges of their connections falter as did his memory?
Well, this family’s loss does not mask the sister’s opinions. They are not even able to get to the funeral before their bickering flares, though Becky is the quick one to light the match. Ginny is better at holding her peace, but success is never thorough.
While accusing Ginny of going off on crusades, Becky wages battles of her own. The way things used to be is her idol, the thing she will go to the mat over. She wants the “old-Ginny” back. The “old-Ginny” had a California newscaster lifestyle, had no homeless boy around, did not travel the world or fight corrupt priests. Becky found that Ginny to be the comfortable one, but perhaps she forgets that even so things were not entirely smooth sailing.
When, oh when, will Becky change?
Part of me yearns for Becky to see things Ginny’s way. As I read through page after page, I expect that tension to dissolve, but that would be incongruous on several levels. Becky and Ginny have long known a fragment of sibling rivalry. Ginny only arrived at the place she occupies through great sorrow. Steel has not painted Becky’s character with empathy. Becky either does not see suffering as relevant or perhaps she does not even see other people in their hard times. That said, how could Steel honestly write a book where Becky flips. That would be unbelievable. I have only completed the first 15 chapters, so how this will resolve, I do not know. Maybe tragedy will hit Becky? Maybe Becky has a past of her own to fight? One which she perhaps has not shared with her sister.
All I can do when I come across the Becky-type in life is bear with them and keep on doing what I know to be right. Alternatively, I want to be sure that I am not the Becky. Perhaps each of us has Blue pieces in our lives?
Other entries in this series
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