Episode 40 – The General and His Ghostwriter.

There’s a strange kind of theatre playing out in our family. Picture it: Bully, stomping around center stage in his well-worn boots, barking orders like he’s head of a small country no one asked to visit. The audience? Mostly cows. Occasionally confused neighbors. And somewhere offstage, dimly lit, is my sister – headset on, clipboard in hand – directing traffic like she’s stage manager of the Dysfunctional Family Pantomime.

Ah yes, the ‘silent one’. The one who says, ‘I’m not getting involved’, right before planting seeds of division with surgical precision. She’s on the back burner all right – just hot enough to simmer resentment while Bully serves it up. A perfect recipe: one part ego, two parts manipulation, a dash of inherited spite.

Meanwhile, Bully parades around pretending to be the moral compass, when he’s more like a rusted weather vane, spinning whichever way the family wind blows, so long as it doesn’t mean taking actual responsibility. Integrity? That boat sailed long ago, probably torched mid-voyage with all the life jackets.

And what’s it all for? Control? A patch of land? A headstone that reads: ‘He Won the Argument, Lost the Plot’?

It’s funny in a tragic kind of way. He could’ve been remembered as someone who kept the family together. Instead, he’ll be remembered as the one who turned the family WhatsApp into a war zone and taught his kids to distrust anyone not on the Approved Loyalty List.

As for my sister- still behind the curtain, still pulling the strings – she gets to keep her hands clean, her voice soft and her legacy as ‘the reasonable one’, despite doing just enough damage to keep the whole circus spinning.

The thing is, I see it now. All of it. And while they might think they’ve written me out of the script, I’ve got the pen now.

And my version is honest.

Lesson of the Day:

‘Silence can be as loud as shouting, especially when it’s used to harm.’ Sometimes, the ones who say the least do the most damage. Passive complicity, quiet manipulation or the refusal to stand up for truth can shape outcomes just as forcefully as open aggression.

Recognizing that is not bitterness, it’s clarity. And clarity is power.