Why was it always her?

It had always been her. She was the loved one at home, there was no doubts about that. Jenny wondered what had gone wrong or where she had gone wrong. Daisy was her own sister, and yet mom and dad loved her more. Was it because she was more accomplished than Jenny? “No, that couldn’t be the reason,” Jenny thought. “Mom loves me too, and equally.” But a small voice from inside asked her, “Do you really think so?” And she had no answer to that. Right from when they were kids, Daisy was the more loved one at home. When she was very small, she had certain health complications and mom and dad thought she needed them more. They cared for both of them equally. But in the process of growing up, Jenny was expected to be more mature in her thinking than her age called for. Jenny loved Daisy with all her heart, who would not? And she was very protective and possessive of her but she also wanted her sister to grow up on her own fighting her own battles. That is what Jenny had done. Being the elder one at home, no one was really there to help her out. Mom would only listen to her problems and woes but nothing could be done. She had to face her own problems by herself. This made her quite a fighter. Jenny realised early that things would never be served to you in a silver platter unless you fight, more so being a girl.

But in all these struggle, there was one thing happening unknown both to Jenny and her parents. She was drifting away. There was a huge ridge building up between them. Though she loved her parents a lot, Jenny stopped showing it. She donned a mask of indifference. This soon turned into a habit, and soon her parents stopped trusting her much. To the outer world, she showed as though she didn’t care, but in her heart she was crying, she was miserable. Her own parents never understood her, they always doubted her. They always thought that she was up to no good. “Is this what they feel about me?” Jenny often pondered. ”What can I do to win their trust again? “Why can’t I be their darling daughter?” Questions than ran through her mind, that she had no answers to, try however hard she might; she just couldn’t figure them out.

One mask after the other, Jenny’s sweet nature was soon replaced. She came to the conclusion, no matter how hard she tried, her parents would never love her as much as they loved Daisy, so why bother?

There were small instances that got imprinted in her mind and would never be forgotten. They were always comparing their two daughters. Why couldn’t they understand? Daisy and Jenny were as different as night and day, they both had their own different attributes that made them unique. But no, her parents saw Daisy’s uniqueness but never understood Jenny’s.

As years passed, Jenny grew to be a much admired young lady but she still yearned for her mother’s love and affection and more so for her understanding, things that were never to be. Her love for her parents was still the same but it had grown passive over the time. She learnt not to show any emotion on her face, whether love or hurt and her parents felt that she had lost all emotion. Now she was being accused of being selfish. One day, things having gone beyond her tolerance and patience, Jenny burst out, Mother, you say that I am selfish, but who do you think made me this way?” But even at that time, her mother was overwhelmed and she started crying. Now Jenny had decided, “That’s just about it! There is no way mom will ever understand what I went through or am still going through.” Living at home was becoming unbearable. Jenny could not connect to the people at home, she never felt part of them. She knew only one thing, she had to get out of that place. She really did not call it home so it did not affect her much and moreover no one was going to miss her, except her sister Daisy. But she had to do this for herself. Now was the time to be really selfish. The best thing for her family was her staying away from the family. And this was what Jenny intended to do. But every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining in Jenny’s life was that her sister loved her more than anything else in the world. The two girls were very close and were best of friends. Nothing that happened between her and her parents ever affected her relationship with Daisy. And Jenny was very thankful to the Lord Almighty for that. Every morning she thanked God for her sister whom Jenny loved too. Nothing would ever change that. What happened between her and her parents would never ruin anything. Here was one person who understood Jenny and loved her for who she was and expected nothing in return.