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Father’s Day, 2014. Eulogy, epiphany

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Here’s to all the fathers –
Those who are here, and those who aren’t.
Those who show up every day, and those who were never there.
Those who abandoned us, and those who have died.

They have made us who we are.

It doesn’t take a license to be a father. There is no training for it. Fatherhood can be done by amateurs, and often is. Even having had other children doesn’t prepare you for having more. Every time is a new time, with new challenges.

I had an uneasy relationship with my father. He was emotionally distant. He hadn’t been nurtured by his parents, and he didn’t know how to nurture his children. Is this an excuse? Is this an explanation? Or is it just the way it is?

There are plenty of guys who left when they found out they were going to be fathers. Some stayed, but only half-heartedly. Some initially wanted to be fathers, but found out they weren’t up to the task.

Let us forgive them all. Not excuse them. Forgive them.

The best thing I ever was able to do was to forgive my father. He never knew about that bit of grace that happened that day. Shortly before he unexpectedly died, I finally saw him as just a person, and not my Dad. He didn’t owe me anything. There were no expectations to be unmet. There were no promise to be broken. I saw him as broken and sad and hurting. I finally realized he had done the best he could, with what tools he had.

I’m grateful to have gotten to that point. It took a lot of work.

I’d realized years before that if I wanted to have a relationship with my father, I was going to have to find something we could both do together. He seemed unable to connect with me, so I had to make the effort. Eating out seemed to be the way. We would meet for Sunday brunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, or Bob Evan’s. Every Sunday I would go to church alone, and then come back home and we would go together out to eat.

It was his choice to not go to church, even though he was an ordained minister, even though the church I went to was the one he had gotten married in. It was kind of an awkward routine on Sundays. It would have been easier if we had gone to church together and then to brunch afterwards, but that wasn’t going to happen. I took what I could get.

He didn’t come up with the idea of us eating out together, I did. I saw it as a point of agreement, something we could both enjoy. His other interest was classical music, and that wasn’t really something we could meet on. I didn’t love it like he did, and he would always be the expert on it. We wouldn’t have been on equal ground.

When we ate out, it was our time together, just us. It wasn’t always easy. He was a sloppy eater, a bit greedy. I remember when we would eat at home he would finish his food first and then look at my plate and ask to finish it for me. I ate slowly, carefully. He ate ravenously, like a dog. He was willing to take food from his child. This pattern happened in other areas of my life too.

This is who he was. This is how he was raised. He wasn’t allowed to grow up true and strong. His parents were either overbearing (his dad) or flighty (his mom). There was no healthy role model. It was military precision and perfection, or playtime. He never had a childhood, not really. His dreams were squashed as being unreasonable and unrealistic.

One day, over a mid-day breakfast of pancakes and sausage, it clicked. I stopped seeing him as somebody who owed me a good childhood. I stopped seeing how he had failed me. I stopped expecting anything from him. I started seeing him as just a person.

He died twenty years ago. There was no more time to work on our relationship. There was no more time to rebuild it. I was grateful that I’d had that epiphany while he was still alive. I was grateful that I’d had all those Sunday brunches with him to build up to that point. I wanted more. I wanted to rediscover my Dad as a person, but there wasn’t time. He died unexpectedly, just six weeks after Mom died.

My brother never made the time to get to know Dad as a person. That is his fault. That is his loss. He’d threatened to kill Dad when he was 17, and the relationship had never gotten better. Dad’s will reflected that. My brother blamed Dad for the bad relationship, but it takes two to have a good one. And Dad didn’t threaten to kill his son.

My brother insisted on an etching as part of the estate. It was of “The Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt.

It was worth a lot of money. It was worth nothing. It was a piece of paper.

I had the “returning” in reality, because I’d worked on it. In the story, the son returns, and the father welcomes him. But my brother hadn’t worked on it, hadn’t returned. He had the image, but not what it represents. It is sad, but not tragic. Perhaps he thought he’d have more time. Perhaps he didn’t think about it at all.

When Dad died suddenly, there was no more time to work on the relationship. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. We didn’t know he was that ill. In a way, it wasn’t a surprise – he’d never taken care of himself. He smoked two packs a day. He never exercised. He ate whatever he wanted and it was never fresh.

Relationships transform after death. I’ve come to see that every time I think about him, he’s thinking about me. People who die don’t leave, so much as change state.

Death is freeing – a person is not limited to the body anymore. Your loved one is always with you.

There is a time of transition, surely. There is grief, and acceptance, and anger. There is a time of growth and deepening after that. It isn’t all pain.

Our society doesn’t teach us how to deal with death and grief. It doesn’t teach us how to transform it. It doesn’t teach us the other side of it.

Here it is –

After death, you can ask your Dad anything and he will answer. He is part of you now, just like you were always part of him. All of your ancestors are with you now – even the ones that you never met, even the ones that you don’t even know the name of. Your presence is the sum result of all their efforts. You are the end of the relay race. The baton has been handed to you. They passed on their genes, their knowledge, their fears and hopes – to you.

They are all with you, now.

Death isn’t an end. It is just a beginning.

My Dad.
Dad

Peacemaker – heal thyself.

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I am feeling very grateful and blessed right now. I’ve just been granted the opportunity to take a class in nonviolent conflict resolution at a price I can afford. Then when I mentioned it to a member of the library administration, he suggested it may be possible to do it for free, with the library paying the difference. And then facilitate such meetings for the library. Basically, get paid to make peace and foster understanding, right where I am.

I feel like a door is opening.

It isn’t opening on its own. I’ve done a lot of work to get here.

Many years ago I was afraid to go anywhere but my neighborhood. I was afraid of driving. My bipolar disorder had scared me into staying close to home. I’d gone a few hours away from home years ago and had enough of a problem with my disorder that all my stuff had to be packed up for me and I had to be driven home. It was embarrassing. It was frightening. It was enough to keep me from traveling by myself for many years.

And then I decided that I could not let this diagnosis define me. I could not let it tell me what to do. So I started pushing myself. I started taking classes, on my own, downtown. Sure, it isn’t another city, but downtown Nashville has always scared me. Well, really it is the drivers and not the destination, but you get the point.

So I took a class called “Diversity in Dialogue” through the Scarritt Bennett center. That introduced me to the circle process, where people learn how to listen to each other openly. I took a second class to try to understand how the process works. I think that this kind of open, honest communication is what the world most needs.

I also took a class on Pastoral Care. That was far more intensive, but added to my training. It too was downtown, and it challenged me even further.

I attended a “Southern Sulha” – based on the Middle Eastern conflict resolution process.

I tutor students with learning disabilities and/or have English. I’ve done this for at least five years, most recently kindergartners.

I’ve read dozens of books to help me understand different perspectives, different cultures, and how to relate to people.

I keep taking classes and going to events that are all leading toward this goal.

It is like I am doing an independent study, and creating my own curriculum. Some of the classes have been paid for by work or my former church.

What is the thing that unites them?

Peace. Peaceful understanding. People actually listening to each other. Not debating. Being OK with having different viewpoints. There’s more, but that is a good start.

The irony? I don’t talk to my brother. Long time readers of this blog know the story. It was more peaceful to sever the relationship than to continue it. Every time we talked there was a huge misunderstanding and fight. No matter what I said he twisted it into something malicious. It seemed healthier to quit than continue.

Sometimes you have to know how not to do something in order to know how to do it. I know what peaceful communication isn’t. I know what pain results from it. And I also know it takes two to communicate.

How do you know when you are an adult?

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How do you know when you are an adult?

Sometimes there are rituals and ceremonies. You’ve graduated college. You’ve gotten married. You get to see a change has happened. It is celebrated.

Or there are other milestones. You’ve gotten your first “real” job. You’ve moved out on your own. You no longer need a cosigner for credit applications.

In some African cultures, women are marked when they reach certain points in their lives. You can tell who is married and who has had a child for instance by looking at the scars on their bodies.

We don’t have such visible markings here. Our changes are internal. You have to let people know you aren’t a child anymore. The only external mark is a wedding ring, and not even that guarantees that you are an adult.

It is good to be childlike, but not childish. You want to be able to be independent. That is a sign of a mature person.

I knew I was an adult when my parents died. We had a next door neighbor who was at least 70 years old. I was instructed to call her Mrs. Miles when I was growing up. When my parents died, I started calling her by her first name, Margaret. I didn’t even think twice about it. She didn’t correct me either. To call someone by their first name is to say you are equals. Previous to my parent’s death, we weren’t equals. But now we were. I’d gone through a trial by fire and come through (mostly) intact.

The sad thing is that my brother never got the message that I was an adult. He kept treating me as lesser. I was his little sister and he was determined to “keep me in my place.” It didn’t matter to him that I was 25, and had taken care of our Mom the whole time she was sick, and had handled the entire estate on my own.

To him, I was lesser and would always be. In reality, he was treating me as lesser to make himself feel better. He was pushing me down to raise himself up. He couldn’t accept the reality that his “kid” sister had done all the hard work and he’d run away from any responsibility. I’d proven I was an adult, and he’d proven he was a coward.

I refused to let him treat me as a child, and I still refuse it. I refuse to allow him or anyone to treat me in a disrespectful manner. If it means that the relationship has to be severed because of that, so be it. Life is too short to spend with people who are not kind. Life is too short to let people treat you like dirt.

Part of being an adult is putting a value on yourself and not letting anyone bid any lower than what you are worth. To let someone treat you badly is to tell them that is OK.

Now, to treat anyone as lesser is also a sign of immaturity. Part of being an adult is to know your own worth and to establish it. But it also doesn’t mean that you get to treat anybody else as beneath you.

My brother, the alligator.

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My brother sent me a second letter recently. I’d not written him back after the first one, in part because I didn’t want to ruin his Christmas. I didn’t write back immediately because I wanted to make sure I said things correctly. It is best not to respond to someone when you are angry.

I’d composed a letter, but I’d not sent it. I had put in reminders of all the things he’s accused me of, insane accusations. I’d put in reminders about all the ways he has hurt me over the years, that he has not acknowledged or apologized for. I’d pointed out that there is no relationship of any account.

We aren’t friends. I don’t like him as a human being. I don’t trust him. I certainly don’t want anything to do with him. If he was anybody other than my brother I would have stopped talking to him decades ago. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have talked to him at all. He is very selfish.

He has harmed me in many ways, and has never shown any sign of awareness of the damage he has done to me. It isn’t just me he abuses. This is just who he is. Then he blames the other person for his own problems. He even said that the reason he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt is because I’d “prayed for his downfall.” That is just crazy. He needs professional help. This is part of the reason he’s been divorced four times. I really wonder if his fifth wife knows his backstory. My suggestion that he get therapy and they both get counseling before they got married is what precipitated the last time we quit talking with each other.

So I thought that to be kind, I’d wait until after Christmas to reply. Getting a letter from your sister saying that she’s not your sister in any real way isn’t that great right then. Christmas is hard enough without something like that. I thought I’d be kind by waiting. At least one of us should be, right?

So then there was another letter before I could send it. He didn’t wait for my reply. I’m learning that I shouldn’t open these letters. I gave it to my husband to read it first. It was kind of like giving a bomb to a professional. He read it and it was innocent enough, but clueless, and still unrepentant. There was something about some writer his pastor had mentioned and here’s a blog address for me to read. My guard went up – once again he’s telling me what to do, rather than acknowledging his role or admitting his errors. The last thing he’d said to me before I stopped talking to him a couple of years ago was to tell me to read “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. He said that I should read that and then talk to him again. It was an ultimatum.

I decided that was the last time he was going to tell me what to do. I decided that was the last time I was going to be bossed around by him, or anybody. I decided that he’d made my task easier. If I don’t read that book then I don’t have to talk to him again.

Scott went on with the letter and came across something that sent up a flag. He started reading out loud these words – “The next time you decide to cut someone out of your life…” and I put up my hand and said “Stop!” Done. Right there.

I’m glad that I didn’t fall into that trap. In years past I would have heard those words and gotten stuck there, like a deer in the headlights, waiting to be run over. It is why the phrase “trigger warning” is so useful. It lets you know that something that might trigger a bad response is coming. This is helpful if you’ve been abused in the past. But life doesn’t have any trigger warnings. Sometimes you just have to toughen yourself up to be able to handle them from wherever they come. Sometimes it is like martial arts, but with words. When a person swings a fist at you, you know to duck or to divert their energy by grabbing their wrist. When a person swings a verbal attack at you, it is sometimes harder to see it, and you get flattened.

I’ve met people who are walking trigger warnings. They are so broken that all they can talk about is their brokenness. Being around them is like getting punched in the stomach repeatedly, and with no warning.

This time I stopped it. I didn’t “decide to cut someone out of my life,” I decided to get away from being his punching bag. I decided to stop being abused. I decided to take my life back.

He chose to harm me, again and again. When I told him how I felt from how he treated me he continued acting the same way. It was his choice to act in that manner, both before and after I told him he was harming me. Then, to stay would have been my choice. It would have been me saying that being abused by him was OK.

He chose to abuse me. He chose to not get therapy. He chose to not acknowledge the damage he has done. He has never apologized. He has never made restitution.

I didn’t make an arbitrary decision. I chose to live in a sane way, in a healthy way, by establishing boundaries. He chose to ignore them.

So now I’m really glad I didn’t reply to the first letter. To reply, even in the negative, is still to reply. It is still to further a relationship. Even if it is a bad relationship, it is still a relationship if two people are communicating. It gives it energy.

It is just like a child who constantly misbehaves. If they act in a good way, they get ignored. Their parents take them for granted. But if they misbehave, they get attention – even though it is negative. Negative attention is better than no attention.

A negative relationship is better than no relationship, if you are an unhealthy person.

I choose to only give energy to the good.

Sure, I’m giving energy to it right now. I’m doing this in part to exorcise him out of my psyche. I’m doing it in part to let others know they aren’t alone. I’m doing it in part to show that if someone is harming you, no matter who they are or whatever social obligations are put on that relationship, that it is healthy to walk away to save yourself.

I’m also doing for total disclosure. I’m no saint. I’m not a guru or a counselor. My advice on how to live life is hard-earned. I’d love to foster peace in this world, but I can’t even get along with my brother.

But I’d rather have no relationship than one where I’m being harmed.

After I wrote another piece about my brother recently – after the first letter he recently wrote, members of my family got involved. A cousin wrote another cousin and there was something of a request for me to make peace.

I’m not the one who is to blame. I’m the victim. To insist that I make peace with him is insane, and revictimises me. It says that the fault for the broken relationship lies with me.

A minister told a story once that I identify with. He grew up in Louisiana. When he was a child many years ago, it was common to keep alligators as pets. He had a small one, and he gave it shade and nice food and a place to play. He took good care of it. Then one day, it bit him.

It bit him, not because of how well he’d treated it, but because it is an alligator. That is its nature.

My brother is an alligator. This is just how he is. I’ve done nothing to provoke him. I’ve done nothing to deserve his abuse. I’ve done nothing to deserve him stealing from me, lying to me, harassing me, and falsely accusing me.

I accept that this is the way he is. I wish it wasn’t so, but wishing won’t change things. He has to want to change. He has to understand that he can’t treat people the way he has all of his life. The longer people keep letting him steamroll over them, the longer he’s going to keep doing it.

I, for one, am done. Perhaps this will help him. Perhaps this will be something that makes him see that he cannot abuse people and expect them to take it. I want him to be well, but I can’t do that. All I can do is stop allowing him to harm me. All I can do is stop putting my hand near him enough for him to bite it off.

Even if he changes, even if he turns around and gets it, I cannot trust him. He’s harmed me often enough and deeply enough that I cannot ever allow him into my life again.

I’d rather write only about positive things. The more energy I give to negative things, the more I give them strength. Sometimes I may need to write about Ian, because he has provided such an amazing example of what NOT to do, and how NOT to be a good human being. I really wrestle with this. I don’t want to dwell in the past. But I also sometimes may need to refer to it to illustrate a point.

The answer, to everything? Pray. Give thanks in all situations, and in all times. Balance. Acceptance. And trust that God is working through all of this.

“I’m sorry” – on forgiveness.

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There is a difference in saying

“I’m sorry.”
or

“I’d like to apologize for…”
or

“I’m sorry that you felt hurt when I….”

They reflect different degrees of admitting responsibility. They reflect different degrees of accepting how the other person has been hurt by your actions.

There is the true sincere apology statement, and then there is the one where the person understands the social obligation of at least acting sorry. One is real, the other is fake. Don’t be mislead. Even saying “I’d like to apologize for” doesn’t mean anything. The person would like to apologize, but isn’t actually doing so.

And worse, saying sorry doesn’t really even mean anything. If you hammer nails into a tree, and then pull them out, there are still holes there.

Expecting the victim to forgive can actually revictimize her. It puts the burden on her, instead of the abuser. It minimizes her feelings. It glosses over the reality of her pain and loss.

If there has been no apology, no restitution, then there is no closure or healing. Even if there has been an apology or restitution, then is no guarantee that closure or healing has taken place. Once a person has been harmed by another person, sometimes saying “sorry” won’t fix it, and the damage is permanent, especially if the offender has a habit of repeatedly hurting people.

It isn’t fair to the victim to expect her to forgive at all.

Sure, Buddha says that holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. Sometimes you have to forgive so you can go on with your life. But forgiveness comes when it comes, and no sooner.

Saying “Aren’t you over that by now?” isn’t kind, or helpful.

Saying “But have you forgiven him in your heart?” makes no sense. What about the liver? Is it OK to still hold some resentment there?

It is the same as getting frustrated with someone who is grieving. Grief takes time, and there isn’t a fixed amount. It takes as long as it takes.

I think people are nervous around grief, or unforgiveness, or anger, because it frightens them. They want to rush right ahead to the happy bit, where all is good and everybody is loving and kind. That Hollywood ending isn’t real. That’s why it is in the movies.

Movies don’t show reality. Sadly, a lot of us have used movies as our role models. This is why a lot of us are in pain. A lot. Our reality never matches up to that reality, and we feel like we are doing something wrong.

Working through feelings is a long process, and our society doesn’t give a lot of help along the way. You have to process your pain, just like how a cow chews its cud. You have to work on it, and wait, and work on it a little more, and wait. You have to transform it into something else. Cows transform grass into energy for their muscles, and then milk.

There is a sort of alchemy here.

Trying to take shortcuts on the process only results in it not really being processed. It will come out half way, unfinished, lumpy. It will come out sideways, if it comes out at all. Sometimes it will get stuck inside, with little jagged bits poking into your soft parts, just causing more pain.

Take as long as you need.

You don’t have to forgive to the extent that you let the abuser hurt you again. You don’t have to forget.

It helps if you can move on, where this rock of grief and pain doesn’t define you, doesn’t limit you, doesn’t keep you stuck in one place.

Work on it. Chew on it. Draw. Paint. Write. Go for a walk. Take your anger with you.

You aren’t running away from your anger and pain and loss, you’re using it as fuel. You’re transforming it into something useful and necessary. It takes a while. It takes as long as it needs to take.

Victim beads part two – a month later.

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I made a victim bracelet after I went to visit my spiritual director last month. She wanted me to focus on my pain and those people who have harmed me. I’m opposed to this. I want to rush right ahead to the “forgive and forget” part.

Mostly the forget part.

But, she hasn’t steered me wrong yet, so I’m giving it a try. She didn’t recommend making a bracelet to help me remember. That is just something I do. This way, all day long I have a reminder to think about this. Beads are good tools for me.

I made it, with a bead for each person who came to mind. This was a month ago, and I’m discovering that I can’t remember who each bead refers to. A girl I went to high school with. My aunt. The former branch manager of the library I work at. My mom. A lady in a social group I was in. My brother, of course. But I’m having a hard time remembering everybody else. It isn’t easy.

Perhaps Jesus is getting on there and healing the broken bits.

I don’t want to focus on my pain, but I know it is important. You can’t heal what you don’t know is broken. Emotional pain is harder to work on. You can see a cut on your arm. It is easy to spot. Just put a bit of Neosporin on it and a Band-Aid and you are good.

But emotional hurts are harder to spot. The longer they aren’t tended to, the deeper they go. The deeper they go, the harder they are to dig up and get out. They tend to erupt in ugly ways. They tend to come up like privet in your yard, unwanted, unsightly, and well entrenched.

I want to forgive them. They didn’t know better. They didn’t know they were hurting me. I didn’t tell them. They didn’t mean to be mean and thoughtless and cruel. I want to let them off the hook and be done with it. I don’t want to wear this bracelet because it seems like I’m advertising my pain.

But I’m not, not really. Nobody knows what this bracelet is about. It is private. It is just a bunch of beads. Nobody knows they have meaning.

And why would I care what others think? When was I taught shame for these feelings? How much of this is the old idea of keeping the family name, the family honor clean, unbesmirched? Stiff upper lip, and all that. Don’t air your dirty laundry.

I always feel a sense of betrayal when I talk about these things. Not that I was betrayed, but that I am betraying them. This is especially true when I mention my parents. Don’t speak ill of the dead, you know.

How bad is it when the victim is the one blaming the victim?

So I wear this bracelet sometimes to work on these feelings, and ask Jesus into them. This is still a foreign idea. I wasn’t raised with the idea of Jesus as being real, and present, and my best friend. Jesus was a guy back then and out there, not somebody right now and right here.

I’m catching glimpses of this Jesus, and I think I like him.
89

I got a letter from my brother.

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My brother wrote me a letter for my birthday. I got it on Tuesday. What is it about Tuesday right now? Last Tuesday is when I got another upsetting letter from a family member. I’m not happy about this chaos all at once. I’d like it to take a number and stand in line.

This is the same person who never remembered my birthday (45 years) and never remembered my address. He was constantly asking for it. I’m his sister. He should know these things. But I was an afterthought. I was always an afterthought.

This is the same person that I stopped talking to two and a half years ago. It was spring of 2011. I’d finally had enough, for the second time in my life, of dealing with him. He was constantly twisting my words, and constantly paranoid. He was constantly pushing me around, and treating me as a thing instead of a person. He called me “Sister” rather than by my name. He isn’t getting treatment for his psychopathic behavior, and he isn’t saying he is sorry now.

This is the same person who has abused me throughout my life. He wants to build a bridge, he says. I don’t trust him. I’ve learned that to trust him is like letting a thief in my house. Against my better judgment I’ve let him back into my life before, only to be hurt worse each time. Every time he steals something. Sometimes it is just material possessions. Sometimes it is my peace of mind.

He included a picture of him and his son, all gangly at 17 and sticking out his tongue, standing with a cousin of ours. From the picture it looks like they were in England. I had a brief moment of terror – he’s gotten to that side of the family and is telling them his version of the truth. I could go for damage control and write them, but it would just be my word against his. This is an echo of last Tuesday’s drama all over again. It is sad to see how people can be swayed to believe the words of someone who has ulterior motives. If people don’t get both sides, it shows they don’t really care about the relationship. Or the truth.

This is the same person who had to declare bankruptcy because he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I haven’t had to declare bankruptcy, yet I don’t have the money to afford a trip to England. It just doesn’t seem fair. His son looks cheeky in this shot, with his tongue sticking out. I’m thinking if this is the best picture Ian could have sent, then that is saying something about the attitude of his child. At least he is letting his attitude show on his face. With Ian you had to get really close to see how crazy he was.

The psychopaths are hard to spot sometimes. Sometimes they look like normal people. That’s the problem. You get lulled into a false sense of safety and then BAM! You are hurt, badly. Blindsided. I’m getting tired of being blindsided. There are too many people recently that I thought I could trust that have suddenly gone batshit crazy on me.

I don’t want him back in my life. I don’t want to deal with him. I feel that there is a slice of guilt cake I’m being served. He’s offering to “build a bridge” and I’m refusing to walk across it. That way I look like the bad guy. I don’t trust my brother’s bridge. I have played this game before and I always fall into the river, and I always drown. The stones get thrown at me. I always get hurt.

I gave him up the same way I gave up fried foods and pot. I gave them up because I needed to get healthy. I needed to be strong. I knew those things were pulling me down. But every now and then I feel like I want to try those things again. I forget how bad they really make me feel. It has been so long that I’ve felt well that I forget what it feels like to feel bad. I forget that once I start down that path again it takes a lot of energy to get off of it again. I’m reminding myself of this now to steel myself. I don’t want to get hurt again.

We have no good memories together, he and I. I look askance at people when they talk about how lovely their brothers are to them. It seems like a Disney story, a fairy tale. I can’t match it up with my reality. I think he wants a relationship with me only because I’m the only sister he’ll ever have. I think that he is in love with the IDEA of a sister, while he is not even “in like” with his actual sister. He doesn’t know anything about me. He never has cared enough to see me as a person. I was always a pawn in his games, and he was always winning.

He hasn’t come to realize that “family” isn’t just a word or an idea. It requires both people working together. It requires kindness and compassion. It isn’t about one person manipulating another person. It isn’t about debate but dialogue. He hasn’t come to realize that “family” means nothing – it is artificial. You don’t choose your family. It is all an accident. And like most accidents, it is very messy and there is a lot of pain. Worse, sometimes you don’t heal right and you walk with a limp for the rest of your life.

In my face.

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I was at a buffet a few months ago and saw a brother playing with his baby sister. She was in a baby carrier, sitting on a chair. The brother kept leaning in, right up in her face. He would grab the sides of the carrier with his hands and pull in, speaking loudly to his sister, getting nose to nose with her.

I felt great anxiety at this. I guess it is triggering a memory. I felt for the little girl, unable to say that she didn’t like this, unable to get away from him. Again and again he was putting his face right up into hers. Again and again I felt that I should say something. He was so forceful that he was pushing her carrier further back each time.

The parents were there. I’m sure they thought he was just playing with her. I’m sure they didn’t think of the psychological trauma this might be causing. They were chatting with their friends and ignoring their children. They didn’t notice how forceful he was.

Perhaps the daughter enjoyed this. Perhaps I was overreacting. But every time I felt breathless and anxious. Every time I felt that someone should get him to think about how this would look from her perspective. She can’t back away – she’s trapped in her carrier. She can’t tell him no – she is an infant and cannot speak. Sure, she could make a noise to show her disapproval. But my concern is that she was being “taught” that being attacked is normal, that being pushed up against a wall is how she should be treated.

I’d also be concerned if this was a sister doing this to a baby brother. But I feel I’m more sensitive to this particular situation because I feel that I was treated like this. I feel that I was treated as a thing, an object, and not a person.

My brother was not my friend. He was my tormentor. He was my enemy. I don’t understand when people say how wonderful and protective their brothers are, how they can always call them for help and always count on them. It just sounds like a fairy tale.

I’m starting to understand that it isn’t my fault that I had a terrible relationship with my brother. I was taught by my culture and my religion that it was my responsibility to try harder to have a better relationship with him. Codependency comes free with a church membership. I’m starting to understand that he is just a narcissistic jerk, and I had the misfortune of having him as a big brother. I’m grateful that I severed all ties with him.

I wonder what our childhood would have been like if I had been born first?

After a while, I did say something to the boy. I felt like I had to. I asked him to be gentle with his sister. His father whipped around and stared at me. I’m sure he was thinking how dare this stranger tell his children what to do. I just smiled sweetly back. He turned back around to his plateful of food and his ball cap wearing friends.

So much for “It takes a village.”

Poem – kin/kind

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Just because someone is kin to you
doesn’t mean anything.

Kinship without kindness
requires no fealty.

If your brother, mother, father
show you “love” couched in
threats, shame, or guilt
then walk away.

Love that hurts isn’t love.

There is nothing
about the accident of birth
that guarantees
kindness.

There is nothing about
being a sister
that fosters
protection.

If kin are not kind
then “family” is an empty word.

Walk away.

You owe them nothing.

If they treat you
as an accident,
an embarrassment

then that is their loss.
It is not a reflection
of your worth
but of their blindness.

Set a high price for yourself.
even if your “family”
says you are worthless.

Or perhaps even because of it.

If the family you were born into
does not treat you as a friend
but ignores, belittles, embarrasses you

Walk away.

You owe them nothing.

Bullies can be brothers.
Rapists can be relatives.
Murderers can be mothers.

There is no “normal”.
There is no “average”.

There is only you, right now.
If your “normal”
feels wrong
feels unhealthy
feels strange

Walk away.

You can create
a new family
from friends
who know how
to love
the beautiful person
that you are.

“The Prodigal Son”

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There is nothing like a will to bring out the true side of people. My brother was left out of our Dad’s will because he tried to kill Dad when he was 17. They never reconciled. There was nothing but mistrust and animosity after that.

It wasn’t great before that. They’d never had a good relationship. Ian blamed Dad for the fact that he didn’t have money to go to college. Dad’s story was that Ian begged him for the money so he could buy a car. Because of Ian’s lifelong habit of lying to benefit himself, I believe Dad’s side of the story.

Ian felt slighted most of his life. He probably feels this way now, but I no longer talk to him. He felt that everything bad happened to him, that everyone, (especially me) conspired against him. He felt that I was the wanted child and he was the accident. He didn’t realize that we both had a pretty unhealthy childhood, so neither one of us got the silver spoon. We both got the shaft instead.

He blamed me for his fourth wife leaving him. He blamed me for him getting a quarter of a million dollars in debt. He was always a victim, a bystander, a passive observer. Perhaps that is the reason for all of his failures – he never took the blame for anything.

We were still talking when our parents died. He’d been very abusive to me during that time, but I still wanted to have some sort of relationship with him. I suspect a lot of it has to do with Christian guilt, saying that I was supposed to love my brother. I didn’t understand yet that there has to be a measure of reciprocity. Love has to go both ways. It can’t all be take-take-take.

During that time he managed to guilt-trip me out of a Rembrandt etching we had of “The Prodigal Son” saying that it symbolized the relationship that he and Dad had. The irony did not escape me. They didn’t have a relationship.

Our grandmother had given the etching to the family. It sat over the mantle. The story was that Rembrandt created the etching, printed a limited number of prints, and then destroyed the plate with acid. So it was worth a lot of money. It wasn’t listed in the will, specifically, so I could do with it whatever I wanted. I was the executrix of the estate because I was the only person named in the will who was still alive. I was 25, handling a will on my own, getting pressured by my brother. He wanted me to sell the house (my home at that point) and give him half the money. He wanted me to give him half the insurance money too. He’d done nothing to earn it. He hadn’t visited and he hadn’t helped Mom and I while we were struggling with bills when she was sick. He hadn’t done anything at all except harass me to tell me that I wasn’t doing enough. Meanwhile he was doing nothing. So how did he think he was entitled to any of the estate, especially an etching of “The Prodigal Son”?

I gave the etching to him anyway, out of spite. I figured that eventually he’d wake up to the fact that the son has to return for the story to work, and he never returned. It was easier to give him that picture once I realized that. If I’d kept it I would be constantly reminded of him. If he had it, he would be constantly reminded of himself. That specific etching just bolsters his lies. It is right up there with the certificates he has framed of the classes he took when he was in the Air Force. He was only in for one year, then he got kicked out. But he still proudly displays those certificates. There is something deeply wrong going on with him, where his reality doesn’t mesh up with actual reality.

I wanted my brother to become a real human being. I still want him to. I finally realized that I couldn’t be part of that process though. It was like he wanted me to be an accessory to his insanity. I couldn’t participate in it. Talking to him was making me crazy because he was crazy. Getting into conversations with him was like getting in the car with a drunk behind the wheel. Everywhere we went in our conversations was wrong. I knew I had to get out for my own safety.

There aren’t any easy instructions on how to deal with an abusive family. All the Hallmark movies make us think that families are loving and brothers look out for their little sisters. All the mythology of family in American society tells us that everything is wonderful and everybody is happy. This is great when it is true, and it is harmful when it isn’t. All too often our reality doesn’t mesh up with what we are told we should be experiencing, and we feel pain. We feel like we are wrong, and not that the prepackaged image of “happy family” is wrong.