Family Reunion? No Time Soon

I'm back to no photos. I know. I'm tired, weak, and damn if my hands don't hurt more each day.

I've been thinking about my brother a lot, since even before seeing Stop-Loss. I don't know what I want from him, honestly. Somedays I think it would be great to reunite - but he was so far gone last time we talked, I think it's dangerous.

"So what do you think will happen?" my therapist asks.

"I think he might talk to my mom about me."

"And what does that matter? It's not like she has control over you."

"Yeah, but I don't even want her to know how I'm doing, to try and take pride in what I've done."

"But you won't even know."

"But I'll consider it a betrayal, another act of him running and telling mommy on me."

Basically, I want nothing to do with her, and my brother is an extension of her. Just like I'm the reflection of our history, the reason he doesn't want to see me. I'm the keeper of the memory, of the pain of our childhood.

I called my aunt and grandma today. The whole act of reconnecting. Not easy. My aunt said she wanted to come to NYC and see me. I told her I'm not ready. I haven't seen her in over 12 years and I haven't had a family since maybe age 7, maybe age 9, I can't put an exact date on when I realized how emotionally alone I was. Family is foreign to me.

"You know what?" she told me. "After every card you send, every time you call, I immediately call your dad and tell him how you are doing."

It was like the breath was sucked out of me. Betrayal. I don't want him taking any pride in what I've done. The last time I saw him, when I was nine, I climbed up the stairs to a slide, looked down on his head, just starting to bald, and realized I hated him. I spat on him. I can't help but run my finger over the scar from when he punched me and my tooth went through my lip even as I type this.

"He's very proud of you sweetie. He knew you'd be the one to make it. He doesn't care about your brother, but he loves you."

My brother, despite all that my father did, despite the 'alleged' molestation, the pornography, the violence, the horrendous gas that had my brother and I run to our rooms and put towels at the bottom of the doors, always wanted to love my dad. Just like I wanted to be loved by my mother.

"He's been married for 25 years now you know."

He told my brother, in a letter, that he had a new family, a new son, and didn't want him to contact him anymore. That he wasn't his father anymore. Yet my brother didn't learn. He cried and he cried and I could hear his heart crackle like ice on a warm summers day. But goddammit, he still tried.

"I gotta go, my foot's acting up." I said.

"We love you, you know that."

"Yeah, thanks, I think I have to ice it."

"We do, we've always loved you. It's terrible what your mom did. But she kept you from us."

"She kept me from everbody," I replied, "Not just you. Even from herself. I really have to ice it."