Siblings

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Today is my big brother’s birthday.

My brother and I have a complicated relationship. Okay, understatement of the century. We were not raised together. My brother is three years older than I am. He was born when our collective womb was 19. She got pregnant just out of high school to a man who, from what I understand, is a POS. Being the absolutely train wreck she is, she lost custody of him to her parents when he was just a toddler. She was placed in a guardianship with her older brother, and moved to California where he was stationed while in the Air Force… the same unit as my dad. Technically, she was married to my brother’s father when she moved. And she remained married to him until I was around 5, even though she hadn’t seen him in a LONG time. Eventually, my brother was officially adopted by our grandparents. Legally, making him my uncle, and his mother’s brother. Which is weird.

I saw my brother here and there when I was young. He’d come out for summers, or a short vacation. Sometimes I’d miss his visit as I’d be visiting my dad at the same time. I used to pretend we were He-Man and She-Ra. Brother and sister in different dimensions. Then, when I was 10, we moved to Pennsylvania and in with my grandparents. It was hell. Being the only girl, I was tortured and picked on constantly. It’s like he took the prior 10 years of brotherly torture and compressed it into one. When we (the womb and I) moved out a year later, he stayed with our grandparents.

We didn’t go to the same school We didn’t have the same type of friends. He had no idea the pure hell that I lived through with the womb. He didn’t understand, or appreciate, how lucky he had been to be raised with our grandparents. I admit, I was resentful. I did see more of him, of course. But, we never really got super close. We never really formed that sibling bond. I was closer with our cousin than I ever was with my brother.

Even though we didn’t grow up together, he turned out more like our collective womb than I did. He’s never, that I know of, been to a doctor, but I’d put money up that he’s also bi-polar. He also inherited her addiction tendencies. He spent years addicted to heroin and only decided to get clean when he died in an ambulance and was resuscitated. He spent time in rehab and a half way house. My daughter and I visited him while he was there. He looked absolutely awful. The drugs have taken their toll. There may only be three years between us, but he looked at least 15 years older.

Moving back to California only served to further our divide. It didn’t help that at the time of my move, we were not speaking. He was married to his first wife, and things got bad between us. It was only after my daughter was born, did we really reconnect. Both of us are crap at keeping in touch, though. I’ve been out a couple times, and made sure to visit him each occasion, but it was always cordial and more for my daughter than for me.

Shortly after our Gram died in 2019, we had our final fight. A fight that I really don’t think we’ll ever recover from. We’re both too stubborn and not close enough to make-up. It was stupid, really. We were messaging, and he started going on about how alone he was without Gram. But the way he said it, triggered me. It was like speaking to our womb. It was something that she would say. Making it seem that she was the only one affected and she was the victim, and woe is here… yadda, yadda. When I called him out on it, he snapped. Which happens more than it should (again, I think he’s bi-polar). He accused me of being cold, a bitch, unsupportive, and stuck-up. I told him that he wasn’t the only one that lost her. His last message to me was, “Have a nice life.” That was four years ago.

I tried. Kind of. I sent him a few Christmas cards. I messaged him “Happy Birthday”. But I’m done trying. The sad part is, I don’t feel the loss. I’ve always felt like an only child. How sad is that?

I guess I’ll say it here… Happy Birthday, big brother.