I've recently exchanged several e-mails with my youngest sister, Norma. The depth of her abstract thought, her intelligence and ability to express her beliefs and describe her questions about the meaning of life are amazing. I believe she's still working through the grief of losing her husband to cancer a year ago. It was very sudden; he died about a month after it was first diagnosed. It seems that it is times like these when our minds are the sharpest, our thoughts the most lucid. I'm looking forward to sharing and comparing thoughts with her during my next project, the essays for my kids/grandkids. Her amazingly high IQ is manifesting itself.

I wish the malice and hatred my older sisters harbor against me could evolve into Norma's kind of reasoning and deep thought about human relationships. It won't happen--they were not allowed abstract thought as children. Only that life is real, life is earnest, and we're lucky to survive, not to wonder why. But why would they want to invent evil stories about me that are untrue, and then keep repeating them until they forget the truth and believe the evil. It seems they have a need to fan the flames of antipathy by fabricating things that refute the apparent reasons (invented by him eons ago) for my being my father's favorite child. They still resent it, even though I did nothing to be cast in that position. It's so sad; they're in their seventies. Why allow him to win, twenty-five years after he became nothing but mouldering bones? It all seems to stem from the way I presented our story in my first two books. Soon the new book will be out, and they'll be angry again at the way I used the information they uncovered during their years of geneological research. I've given them full recognition for their work, but I'm sure that won't be enough.

I'm introspective today--Frances sent her usual Christmas letter. Apparently I'm supposed to behave as if everything is normal.