WHy bother?

I have a birthday coming up. I usually don't say anything about it. There is a computer list that I'm on, but I've never signed up for the birthday list because I am terrible at getting cards made and sent. It's not right to ask for cards if you don't send cards. But I really appreciate the cards I've received and I think I will settle myself down and make a pile of cards so I can make someone else happy. I also got a magazine that I've been drooling over. So it was a good mail day. But then I opened the third card.
The handwriting on the envelope looks familiar. There is no return address and I can't read the whole postmark , only the first 3 numbers of the zip code cancellation so I know the card was sent locally. No one on my list lives locally and if they did, they would never did what the annymous sender did. Yep. Annonymous. No return address, no signature inside the card. The card is so underwhelming, it leaves no doubt as to what the sender thinks of me. There's a simply ice cream cone on the front with really teeny letters reading Treat yourself. Inside the even smaller printed letters Happy birthday. No signature. This has really upset me because I know the card is from my sister who hates me for reasons I don't know or understand. It started when my mother died and she didn't tell me about it until two days later after she called all the relatives and told them NOT to tell me about it. Ever since then, she's acted as if I don't exist and when I did get in touch with her, I got the crap that my mother used to give me, telling me exactly how long it's been since the last time I called.
OK so I suck at phone calls. I never think to call someone, though when someone calls me I'm more than happy to talk. I just don't think to pick up the phone and call. My mother used to do that it's been (insert number here ) days since you called. She finally stopped that when I told her it was more than a year since she (my mother) called me. Funy I thought phones worked both ways.
Not only did my sister NOT tell me about my mother's death but since then we have lost other relatives that she never called to tell me about. The relative that called her assumed she would call me. It's a big family so there's an informal kind of phone tree going on. Who ever gets called in a family, calls their brothers and sisters etc. My sister was the one who was called only she never passed on the information to me. We lost three relatives that I never knew about until an Aunt called to tell me that one of my cousins had died and during the conversation she discovered that I knew nothing about the recently passed and that my sister had never called me.
As nasty as this is, I am trying to be the bigger person and not back stab her or gossip with the relatives. In fact, I keep telling them not to get so het up over it all. It's not worth their aggrivation. I don't want the relatives to take sides. We're sort of a closish family. Not the kinds to give gifts or send birthday cards but we all get together when it really counts. At the cousin's grave side services, the relatives were in an uproar. The aunt who had called me, made a point of telling them all that my sister had never bothered to let me know when the relatives died. Even more, that Aunt and her husband, had a big anniversary party that I knew nothing about BECAUSE MY SISTER DIDN'T TELL ME. I'm trying to down play it with the relatives but the mother of the dead cousin even pulled me aside to tell me that my anniversary Uncle had taken my sister aside at the part and gave her hell for not talking to me.
You don't understand how important that was. This aunt, my very favorite one, loves her children in a way I was never loved. In fact, I used this Aunt as a guide for the way I raised my sons. I love them as fiercely and devotedly as favorite aunt loves her kids and grandkids and favorite aunt was devastated at her daughter's death. And yet, my sister's crap bothered her so that she had to pull me into her arms, tell me about the party and my uncle's anger and tell me I don't deserve it.
My sister did show for this graveside service but late so she didn't have to talk to anyonw and when we went for the eats later, she sat next to me, said help and turned her back on me. OPh lordy, that pissed off cousins and aunts and uncles but they said nothing because it wasn't the time and the place to start a fuss.
I've sent my sister birthday cards and Christmas cards all along and I got a Christmas card from her this year and now this unsigned card that screams screw you in its mediocrity. Why bother?
And what the hell did I ever do to her to get this type of treatment? The men don't understand why this upsets me so and I don't know how to explain it to them. I endured this kind of treatment with my mother. Nothing I ever did was good enough and I am ashamed to admit that when my mother died, what I felt was relief. But as far as I knew there was nothing wrong between my sister and I until this whole dead mother, won't call you thing.
I really do not deserve this kind of treatment and while I try to shake it off, it sticks and my heart breaks just a little more. I try to be a good person, I really do. I'm not always succesful but I try to not be mean or hurtful or hateful. I don't deserve this. I don't. I don't.