We begged her for the photos, and she refused

Dear Amy: About five years ago, my mother gave each of her four daughters something from her home in preparation for a move.

I received silver from the family because my surname matches the engraving. My two younger sisters received small trinkets and family heirlooms.

The problem is with our older sister, who received all the photo albums.

There are about eight of them, one dedicated to each of the daughters and the others to members of the extended family, our parents and ancestors.

Amy, this is my past!

Our sister will not share these photos. It will not bring them to family functions. It will not scan them and make copies for us. She doesn’t even want to acknowledge the fact that they exist.

The rest of us have asked her several times. We offer the purchase of new photo albums to replace when the photos fall from the original albums. She says it was given to her and there is nothing we can do about it.

My mom tried to reason with her, but she didn’t move. My father tried to reason with her before he passed away.

Well, now my kids don’t know any of their grandparents, great-grandparents or great-grandparents because of my older sister.

How can I make her see what she did to my family?

Injured in Ohio

Dear Hurt: His question is quite common: when distributing family heirlooms, a brother ends up with the entire collection of family photos; if they don’t share it, it can create a generation – or more – of resentment.

This could be avoided if elders did not treat family photos as an item, like a chifforobe passed down – to be left to a child. The photos must be distributed among the descendants, who can share or exchange them. That way, even if a brother refused to show or share his stock of photos, the other photos would still be in the family’s memory.

I think it’s possible – or likely – that your sister willfully want to hurt you and your other sisters. Could this be about you getting all the silver?

You and your sisters can offer to “exchange” various items they received to access the photos.

Otherwise, these photos were given to her, and I don’t think you have many resources to force her to share them.

Dear Amy: I recently decided to move back in with my mom and younger sister for the rest of the pandemic.

The problem is that I find myself thinking extremely unpleasant things about them, because they are both overweight.

I find myself thinking almost obsessively about how disgusting their bodies are and feeling irritated by the way they eat and their unhealthy lifestyle.

Perhaps part of it comes from the fact that I was nervous about my own weight – even more so during the pandemic.

Do you have any advice on how to be kinder and less critical? How to get space for petty and prejudiced thought patterns? I don’t want to be like that.

I have a therapist, but I actually think I was ashamed to be honest about how ugly my internal monologue is, because I am disgusted with him.

Secret mean girl