Question D

[Jonetta]

Belinda Evans was a hoarder and was also sexually promiscuous, drawn to younger men. What do you think drove her behavior? How would you describe her feelings toward sister Veronica?

[Sharon]

Her behavior is because she lost favor with her father. She hoards because she is afraid to part with anything that could reflect back on her negatively. Like what if I toss "x" and it is valuable, will my sister, neighbor, etc. reject me.

I think this is the same reason she is promiscuous. She is looking for a boost to her ego, praise and confirmation that she no longer gets from her family or herself. She likes younger men because they remind her of her youth.

I say she is conflicted about her sister. She wants her approval, but does everything she can to push Veronica away.

[~Teresa]

I believe her hoarding is a by product of her father emotionally abandoning her. It became her way of coping with loss.

And, I agree with Sharon with regards to her promiscuity.

The relationship she had with Veronica began as children and became a habit and the pattern they lived by. The love/hate relationship was a a safety valve. I believe she loved her sister very much, but she had been a perfect child for her father and he hurt her deeply. She didn’t believe she could survive it if her sister did the same thing so she held onto her sister in a loose, casual way.

[Jonetta]

I’m with Sharon on the hoarding, though I don’t pretend to understand the need. Since her maturity was arrested, I think her promiscuity was also tied to her never moving beyond adolescence. She approached sex like a teenager. Great point about it boosting her ego, getting the attention she could never regain from her father.

Teresa, I think you’ve nailed her relationship with Veronica. I also think part of her felt guilt about the family’s neglect of her sister.

[Sharon]

Great insight Teresa on the sisters. I agree Jonetta, she held a lot of guilt.

[Lauren]

I agree that her promiscuity stemmed from her need for attention due to her father's emotional abandonment.

The hoarding was also a defense mechanism against loss. She had already "lost" her father and her mother abandoned her as well when you think about it as she left her daughters to their father's strict instruction. She hoarded so as not to lose anything else.

[Jonetta]

Thanks for that point of view on hoarding, Lauren. I don’t understand the syndrome but that makes lots of sense.

[Lauren]

Jonetta wrote: "Thanks for that point of view on hoarding, Lauren. I don’t understand the syndrome but that makes lots of sense."

It is a difficult syndrome to understand. Personally, I throw out anything that isn't remotely useful. My dad, however, never met a wire he didn't like. After he passed away, I threw out bag after bag of wires that he had collected over the years and strung up in the house or put in drawers or cupboards. I don't get it!

[Jonetta]

I encountered the same when I cleared out my Mom’s house. She was the neatest, tidiest woman…her floors so clean and spotless you could eat off of them. But, when I opened the closets and drawers, they were filled with papers dating back to the 1960s. I was overwhelmed.

[Sharon]

I have a lot of family members who lived through the Depression and the rationing of WW II. They all have a little hording in them. They hold on to things of no value, because they are afraid they won't have what they need at some point. My parents and grandparents were like that.

[Jonetta]

She had Christmas and Mother’s Day cards dating back ten years. In the middle of worthless stuff I’d find something that was a treasure. The very last box I went through, stuffed in the back of and bottom of her bedroom linen closet, were the mementos of when we traveled through Europe when we lived in Italy, ending with the travel documents of our return home on the SS Constitution ocean liner. I have the passenger manifest! I looked up a lot of the names and there were wealthy passengers, some of whom were Holocaust survivors.

Sharon, it was inexplicable. I never even knew that box existed.

[Sharon]

WOW! What a find.

That's what happened when we cleaned my mother's basement after she died. We found things when she worked at Western Electric during WWII. She was a "Rosie the Riveter" keeping the company going while the men were at war. She had USO memorabilia and a lot of family history that my cousin used to fill in blanks on Ancestry. None of us had any idea it was there. Honestly, I'm not sure my mother remembered.

[Jonetta]

That is just amazing. Rosie the Riveter? You must have been blown away.

[Lauren]

Sharon wrote: "I have a lot of family members who lived through the Depression and the rationing of WW II. They all have a little hording in them. They hold on to things of no value, because they are afraid they ..."

That's sad. My grandmother had this thing about wasting food for the same reason.

[Lauren]

Jonetta wrote: "Sharon, it was inexplicable. I never even knew that box existed"

Wow! That's incredible and a definite treasure.

[Sharon]

Lauren wrote: "Sharon wrote: "I have a lot of family members who lived through the Depression and the rationing of WW II. They all have a little hording in them. They hold on to things of no value, because they a..."

It is sad. We don't know how good we have it these days. I often think back and wonder why I complained.

[Lynn]

As mentioned in the book, she was looking for that high that drew attention to her as a child, but she couldn't find any way to duplicate it.

[Lynn]

Lauren wrote: "Jonetta wrote: "Sharon, it was inexplicable. I never even knew that box existed"

Wow! That's incredible and a definite treasure."

After the death of my father, my parents' house was cleaned out and I found several poems and other things my grandmother had written. I never knew she had tried to become a writer.

[Sharon]

Lynn, It is a shame we find out these things when it is too late to talk with the family about them. That is a great find.

[Jonetta]

They’re wonderful discoveries. They also make you wistful about not knowing them as as well as we could have.

[Lynn]

I'm happy, though, that my mother kept these things so that I was able to discover them.

[Jonetta]

Same here. It was like I got another moment with her.