Broken Brothers

I have several friends with challenging brothers.  These strong, funny, intelligent women have brothers whose lives are remarkably different from theirs.  The women's lives involve children and homework and mortgages.  The brothers' are marked with addiction and/or mental illness.  My own brother has a similar set of challenges, and his life has gone in the opposite direction of mine.  I also know people with sisters with demons, and this could apply to them, too.

When I was in seventh grade, my social studies teacher, Mr. Philips, told us that siblings are the most important people in our lives.  They will know you longer than a spouse, and they will likely outlive your parents.  I believed him, and in spite of my brother's mental illness, I still think it is true.  Yet, it is hard to watch the people who were primary witnesses to your childhood and beyond fade away, implode, explode or otherwise self-destruct.  A friend of mine wrote me the other day:

I'm sorry for both of us, and our broken brothers.

We remember the little boy he once was.  Before there were cracks, when he was whole.  Before there were signs that he would be different.  I remember my brother when he was blond.  The white locks only lasted for the first few years of his life, and he had light brown hair before kindergarten.  We remember trains and legos and running races in the backyard.  One summer, my brother and I collected grasshoppers and put them in shampoo bottles for the day.  We made a "Grasshopper Circus" for these angular creatures with our Playskool toys, and let them free at dusk.

Guilt is a big theme with me and my friends, and for a variety of reasons.  Some wish we could have done more to stop the self-destruction.  Some wish we could have intervened before the crash.  Others are tired, exhausted and afraid.  With that comes a different kind of guilt: I wish I could do more, but I can't.  I need to protect myself and my family from getting caught in the downward spiral.   

To my dear friends, I wish you peace.  We can look for solutions, we have have our regrets and guilt, and we can try to hide.  We don't know where those roads will lead.  Sometimes they lead to tragedy and all we can do is grieve.  Each of these brothers are different, but the suffering, frustration and powerlessness we feel is similar.  Sometimes, the best comfort we find is knowing you aren't alone, that we aren't the only one with a broken brother.