Big Brother Blues

I find myself missing my brother today. I think of my family often, being that I live near Chicago and the majority of my family live in California, but today I miss my brother the most. I would not say that I am especially close to my big brother, although it has always been a goal, no, more a dream of mine to be as close with him as I am with other members of my family, but I have always desperately tried to be.

My brother and I started out our lives in a turbulent way and have come through with fantastic parents. Our dad is just amazing. When he and our birth mom divorced when we were very young, she received full custody of both of us and I think that it was both the best and the worst thing that could have happened to our family. For my dad, it forced him to evaluate what was the most important thing in his life and to work harder than he had ever worked in his life to achieve the goal he needed to in order to gain full custody of his children. For my brother and I, it was a time that we would use to look back on in reflection whenever we needed strength in our adult lives.

The years that we spent living with our birth mom were nothing short of a nightmare. Drug abuse, neglect and chaos were not uncommon daily events for either of us. Perhaps it was because my brother was a bit older or maybe it was just because he was a boy, but either way, he seemed to find his way out of the house more than I did. I guess we all have a different way of coping with stressful situations. I never resented my brother. I always looked up to him; whatever he did or said, I wanted to do and say. He never wanted his little sister around, though. I was the perpetual thorn in his side, the cause for his nagging discomfort and irritation in life. I never understood why he never wanted me around, it perplexed me for years.

Eventually my dad got full custody of my brother and I, and at the worst possible time. He was just a week or sooner, from getting remarried to my new mom, which neither my brother or I were very happy about. She had two small children of her own- great, now we not only had to move far away, but we had to deal with a new mom and her kids AND had to share rooms with these brats! It was a major adjustment for all of us and I wanted to cling to my big brother more than ever. I needed his strength and guidance, but the more I asked it of him, the more he pushed me away. Eventually he and I became isolated from each other and he formed a strong bond with the youngest child in the new family, the little sister. What the fuck? I am the little sister!

I was raging with jealousy, felt betrayed by my own flesh and blood and completely abandoned, not only by my brother, but by my birth mother and by my dad. Why didn't anyone love me? What made me so defective that I couldn't be loved by my own family? It was around the second year of my dad's new marriage that my brother started to tell me that I was adopted. Now, normally, I would know better than to believe such silly nonsense, but I was only about ten or eleven at the time and my brothers' word was gold. He made a valid argument- why didn't I look like my dad? He was a carbon copy of both my dad and my grandpa. And I looked nothing like my my birth mom either or he side of the family. It had to be true. So eventually I asked my dad about the adoption- he denied everything. But it was probably because I was so young, he didn't want to tell me because it would hurt my feelings, I would get upset, it would cause a lot of emotional issues and so on, so he was most likely going to wait until I was old enough and mature enough to handle the truth.

I didn't want to believe that I was adopted, but my big brother had told me that I was and he had no reason to lie to me. Plus, it explained so much of his distant behavior towards me for the past few years and his new found closeness to our stepsister. He probably felt that he just couldn't be close to someone who was adopted, who knows where I came from afterall. And so I began to accept that I was this adopted child, even though my step-mom, whom I now called mom, and my dad reassured me that I most certainly wasn't and that the mere suggestion of it was absurd. But if I wasn't adopted, why didn't my brother want anything to do with me?

As I got older, we grew even farther apart; my brother stole money from me, he lied to me profusely, he manipulated me and I fell for everything- no matter how completely unbelievable his crap was, I bought it because I just wanted him to love me! I was that desperate! I eventually got over the whole adoption thing, partially because I knew it was completely bullshit and partially because I knew my brother had only made it up to get to me. When We were supposed to go to the same high school together, I remember asking him what he was going to do if he saw me in the halls or if we had the same friends. His response, he would simply go to another school and he would NEVER let his friends be friends with me! WOW! What a shock! I guess I really was such a bad little sister that he would just not even bother to be in the same school with me.

At 18 I left for the Army and left all of the drama and bullshit that I had created for myself back home. All of the poor choices with regards to friends and behavior would be a thing of the past and, hopefully, after boot camp, my big brother would finally be proud of me. Not that I joined the Army for him, but I was hoping that it would at least help our relationship. And he was proud of me and what I accomplished. He even told me so. I think that in the first year or two after I left home, I heard him tell me that he loved me and that he was proud of me more in that time than in my entire life.

I met my husband when I was in Texas and after he and my brother met, they fell in man-love. They had so much in common; fishing, their love for the outdoors, trucks, guns, baseball. But, again, I felt like I did with my little sister- like the second place prize. After several tear filled breakdowns after family gatherings and talking with my husband about my feelings of inadequacy with regards to my brother, I have learned an amazing secret. My husband turned to me after the last get together and asked me if I realized how much my brother loved me. I never really thought he did, so I just sat on those words for a bit. And then my brother talked to me- he told me how proud of me he was, what a great mom I am, how happy he is that I found someone who loves me and treats me so well- that it is rare in life. He loves my children and he is so happy to be their uncle. I felt validated, after so many years of feeling alone and unloved by my only "blood sibling". Now, at twenty-eight and my brother at thirty this year, I realize that he has always loved me, just in his own way. And that I am not second rate, just loved in a different way than my sister, my dad, my husband.