Oh Brother where art thou?

September 22, 2008 in Family with 2 Comments

Looks like I have a lot more “family issues” than I care to admit.  I’ve been confronted with this issue recently, and it pains me.  It hurts like that voodoo guy in Indiana Jones has ripped out my heart while it is still beating.  That’s it.  I feel like I am watching my heart beat, knowing it’s not inside my body.

Growing up, my folks had addiction problems.  My older sister, Adrienne was very much a caretaker in teaching me how to be a caretaker.  She would tell me, “Sometimes Mommy and Daddy need to be alone, so that’s why we have to cook for them.”  She would tell me, “Mommy and Daddy are tired, we need to get them ready for school.”  She would tell me, “Mommy had to go to a clinic, she tried to kill herself, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love us.”

That’s how I became Uncle Brother Andy.  I don’t know how much of their childhood my sister and brother remember, but I remember every single second.  I remember their first day of school.  I remember getting beat up on the bus, by the bully Evan Sheffield, because he tried to take my brother’s book bag.  That was the first time my lip ever bled.  I remember him beating me up the next day at school, because he was pushing my brother, and I stopped him.  That was the first black eye I ever had. I remember chasing him down in the woods while he was swarmed by bees, pulling his clothes off of him.  Carrying him inside, and throwing him in the shower, to get the bees off of him. I remember having too much back swing in baseball and hitting his face with a bat.  I remember him almost needing reconstructive surgery.  I remember feeling awful.  I was just trying to teach him how to hit a home run. (A feat I never accomplished)

I remember when he cut his knee, from ankle to knee, to the bone, and sitting in the emergency room with him all night, while my mom sat in the waiting room on the phone.  I remember gathering him, my sisters, and my dog up, when our house was on fire, and dragging them out of the house.  I remember running back in to wake up my parents.  I remember when he was really young, he wouldn’t take a bath unless I was in there with him, making him laugh. I remember stepping in between him and mom several times.  She NEVER laid a hand on him.  I have scars, physically and emotionally from protecting my brother.

I remember running in when my folks were fighting, and telling him, “It’s ok, Mommy and Daddy are just tired.”  I remember telling him, “Mommy had to go to a clinic, but she still loves us.” I remember getting him dressed for school, I remember helping him with homework, I remember teaching him how to play Nintendo, the computer, and how to pick locks. I remember teaching him how to tie his shoes.  I remember getting him his first three jobs, so he could work with someone he knows.  I remember painful things, I don’t think he would appreciate me putting online. I remember when he loved me.  I remember.  I remember like it was yesterday.

When I was an addict, you could say that I was not the “Big Brother” to look up to.  I was not the kind of person that anyone would respect, and frankly he was embarrassed to be related to me.  I would have been to.  When I sobered up, I moved in, and I tried to parent him again.  It’s hard not to.  To me, I helped raise him.  I was too hard on him, but it’s because I care.

I knew he didn’t like me.  I just found out that he will not speak to me.  He won’t come to my Father’s Birthday dinner if I’m there.  He said his life is better when I’m not around.  I wonder.  Can that be entirely true?  Would his life have been better if I had not interfered?  I don’t know what to say to him to make it better.  I don’t know if there is anything to say to make it better.

I can’t say anything else.  I am getting anxious remembering his childhood.  I am getting anxious thinking of how the future will be.  I am sad.  I love my brother.

  • http://www.whatsthislifefor.org Toby

    Another touching story Andy. It’s on my heart to say this:
    Although you spent a lifetime covered in sin, God used you to benefit someone else. God used you to be your brother’s comforter and protector. He used you to protect him, but was calling you all along. Praise God that you have finally answered that call and can now use Him to comfort and protect you!
    Awesome testimony of how it’s not EVER about us, but how God uses us to bring Glory to Him!!

  • Laura

    My dad was up drinking and doing who knows what drug when I was 16. Here we go again, another drunken night, but this time was different. He wanted my sister and he was full of evil at that time. My mother was was tired and weaker than me. I can’t remember how, but I got my sister and my mother out of the house. As the front door was closing with me still inside, I yelled for her to save themselves and that I loved them. It was not the first time was almost beaten out of existence, but it also ended up not being the last. I mothered my sister too, and remember the good times. And I remember my little sister telling me not to come and see her anymore because she was happier, the whole family was happier without me. It was many years after that I spoke to her, got used, lied to and cut loose that part of the family. In January, I saw my sister for the first time in 5 years. “Please don’t go. I miss my sister and I’m sorry.” where the first words she spoke to me as I was turning to walk away. She’s older, kicked in the tail by life and maturing. I will never understand the reasons, nor is it important, God has brought us back together as equals, older and wiser.

    Your brother is too young to understand the figure you where in his life. He, like most teenagers, will despise their parents and that’s what you were to him. You have an amazing life ahead of you and he’s still lost. Pray for him, and someday hopefully, he will say, “Please don’t go. I miss my brother and I’m sorry.”