I sat next to my brother at
my dad’s wedding dinner five years ago.
It was difficult to avoid; my mother wasn’t there—since it was my dad’s
wedding—and there we were, the close relatives of my father, all two of
us. My daughter spent the evening
writing funny notes to my cousin, sitting beside me but in a totally different
world—she is so blessed—while I sat beside my brother listening to his
monologue, which was one third victimhood, one third scarcity and lack, and one
third humorous commentary on current events.
I tried not to wonder if he had showered recently, or if he was high,
and just observed with my best witness consciousness—not the easiest point of
view to attain at a family event, but I had just come from a long and blissful
week of tantra in Northern California. I
had seen dolphins and whales from edge of a cliff. While having sex. The last thing I wanted to
do was turn around and spend—well, money, first of all, and—time in the midst
of my relatives. The Universe was
offering me a buzz kill, and I was declining.
I’d smile through it. I love the
pictures from my dad’s wedding; I look radiant.
Darn glad my dad was marrying a woman 20 years younger who is an elder
care giver. I could not have written a
better plot for myself. So I had managed
to buy tickets for my daughter and myself that let us land in time for the
wedding and leave the following morning, which felt very corporate, and I kind
of liked it.
Somehow my father chose an
excellent Romanian restaurant, and although there was practically nothing I could eat, given my austere Ayurvedic dietary restrictions, it was certainly
a huge step up from what I’d expected when I’d heard the words “Romanian
restaurant.” Plus I got to dance with my
dad, which is always a treat, because he chants the beat in my ear, which, one,
really demystifies the whole dancing thing for me and, two, makes me feel taken
care of. One two three, one two three.
Sitting beside my younger
brother I received knowing glances from our aunts and cousin, who see him
more regularly than I do—which isn’t difficult, since we don’t know each other’s
phone numbers and my brother hasn’t showed up for a family event in several
years. But they know him.
“Dad stole three grand from
me,” my brother mentioned, after his witty and articulate update on the state
of the bumblebees and how it is affecting the future economy.
“He did?” I asked. Maybe someone
with…balls…or a few Landmark Forums would have called him on it immediately,
but I wasn’t there to start a fight. The
last time I had called him on anything—years ago, certainly well before my now 12-year-old
was born—he had thrown a beer at me, from across the room. He had held onto the glass, but just whipped
the beer itself across the kitchen, and as I stood, stunned, wondering if I was
in a past life memory about being cowboys in a saloon, my dad had gotten a dish
towel and started soaking it up. A
pragmatic move I guess, as opposed to holding onto any shred of hope that Nick
would suddenly snap into some level of sanity, or even momentary clarity, let
alone clean it up.
I sat at my dad’s wedding
dinner and looked at the sumptuous, beef-laden platters and listened to the
drama of the three grand, eagerly awaiting the moment when I was alone with my
dad, so I could mention it.
“That’s ridiculous,” my
father said, when we took a walk in the fresh air later in the evening. I of course had known it was ridiculous but
just wanted to have that moment of sharing, bonding, with my dad, more amusement
on my part than his. He said that if
anything, my brother had taken money from him,
mostly in the form of bills that my dad has paid of my brother’s without being
reimbursed.
Once I had returned to
Chicago and friends asked how the wedding was, I said, “My brother is a living
tribute to my family’s deepest ancestral dysfunctions.” Where I am hyperaware of any shred of
victimhood, or feeling of financial lack, and consequently change my attitude
or my energy or my verbiage on the spot, my brother spouts it out,
uncontrolled; ancestral lack is running his life.
Granted, a little medication
would take the edge off for him, if he’d consent to a prescription, but I am
not sure how, even with medication, a person could dig himself out of a hole he
doesn’t know he’s in, and I knew during our conversation and actually ever
since the thrown beer, that to point out to him that he is responsible for his
own life results in conflict. We were
surrounded by food. I was wearing an
absolutely heavenly dress. Not a good combination if he were to get angry. I was
unwilling to be a perpetrator of even the most subtle truth, under those circumstances,
or any, actually, which is why I don’t know my brother’s phone number.
“Do you mind sitting on the
other side of me,” he had requested, “so I can hear you; I can’t hear out of
this ear because of my accident. I’m
just lucky I have any ear at all. Hey, if you sit on the other side of me, you
won’t have to look at the carnage.”
That
was enticing motivation to change seats.
The accident—that would be the DUI, the result
of which in Arizona is an immediate loss of driving privileges. He rides a bike everywhere, or his girlfriend
drives him—his girlfriend, whom he apparently hates, so much he wouldn’t go visit her
after her mastectomy, his girlfriend who is the exact same age as my dad’s
bride, who I am thrilled to say is indeed a happy, nurturing, Romanian eldercare
giver twenty years younger than my dad, which gives me no end of relief, since
my brother is clearly ill-equipped to handle caring for my dad, if ever the
time comes, even though they both live in Phoenix. I suspect my dad will outlive my brother,
though.
My father has been to Romania
several times in the last 15 years, representing a bank that never did get off
the ground, leaving him and my mom fairly devoid of savings—between the bank
and my brother’s legal bills. My parents
would rather have no money at all than have their son in jail, where he
deserves to be, where he might actually have the valuable experience of hitting
bottom. So—my inheritance. That’s where it is! Two DUI accidents and a bank that was so
bound for success that even I invested a few thousand. No one in my nuclear family has a single cent. And it’s not our fault.
On one of my dad’s trips to
Romania he went to visit family. Before
his first trip, his business associate had informed him that he had been using
the equivalent of hillbilly Romanian grammar all his life—my dad is quite the
English stickler and would be horrified if I ever said the word “ain’t,” which
he apparently was saying in Romanian.
Who knew? He just spoke the
Romanian his parents had spoken. But
that wasn’t going to cut it in the banking industry. Or even in the city. So he brushed up. And on one of his trips he went out to the
country to visit relatives he’d never met.
He knew a couple of cousins in the city, a professor and a dentist. But the other side of the family was a day
trip. So he arrived, probably nattily
dressed, because my mom had trained him well, and was offered wine, which they
served him in a tin cup. He drank,
politely. After he eventually placed the empty tin cup back on the
table—apparently he was the only one partaking---the head of the household
picked up the cup, refilled it, and took a sip, which is when my father realized
that this family owned only one wine cup.
I have been told that our
ancestors were shepherds—that my father’s father was a shepherd. It is an absolutely stunning realization to
me, that my edge—it is just an edge and not a full-blown acted out fear, not a
shadow that I’d don and act out of at a wedding dinner for example—that my
edge of slight, teeny tiny fear of homelessness stems from these
shepherds. My life made so much more
sense, once I’d learned of the shepherds.
No wonder I dislike and even fear moving.
No wonder I was destined to choose a life partner who would lose all of our
money, plus. --Plus enough more to potentially keep us in debt forever. It would be so much cooler if we were vampires.
I would like to be able to
break in now with a riveting drama.
Something that ties together the one wine cup, with our inheritance.
This is all I have: my brother and I have three alcoholic grandparents, just
short of 100% destiny toward self-destruction.
So we as siblings inherited a wine cup, but only one. And he got it. It could have been a silver spoon, but nooo. If you do the genetics, there is a certain
probability, a likelihood of who will inherit being a victim to alcohol: 50-50.
I win.
Maybe there is something else
at work in the world of families, something else less quantifiable.
I received an unquantifiable
gift sitting next to my brother. I am
still stunned, when I realize what an incredible mirror he is, spouting off the
worst of what our lineage has to offer. Our family can’t do anything! We can’t even hear! Due to circumstances beyond our control! And we couldn’t afford to do anything anyway,
even if we had the freedom, because we’re broke; money’s hard to make, and
there is great unfairness involved.
Thank you, Nick!
My mom told me, a few years
ago--and why she never thought to tell me sooner, I’ll never know; had it just
occurred to her that second?--that three of her father’s three brothers had
committed suicide. Let me rephrase
that. All three of my grandfather’s
brothers killed themselves. What’s up
with that? I’m not going anywhere with
that, I’m just wanting to take the ancestral burden off of my dad’s cup-sharing
relatives. Lest anyone blame my father
for my brother’s carnage, I just needed to mention that my mom’s side of the family
has some undertow as well.
I am sorry that my brother
has turned into such a vivid cartoon of my ancestral dysfunction. He was a brilliant and creative child, very
sensitive, probably too sensitive. Super
cute. It probably didn’t serve him well,
or more likely my parents didn’t know what to do with a sensitive, cute
boy. Neither did they know what to do
with a tomboyish girl. Somehow I
managed. Somehow he didn’t.
I have
invested zero energy in him for so long that I can honestly say I’m near
neutral. He feels more like a second
cousin, sad but true. Sometimes I feel a
tiny bit of guilt—it barely registers. I
love whatever energy of him, whatever Love we share, the energy that We both
Are. I am sad that he seems to be a
shell around that Love, impenetrable.
There has been a part of me over the years that has wondered if it is my
responsibility to pull him up, but I have attempted to resuscitate a few dead
men in my life, and I’ve never been successful, and it’s been, ultimately, draining.
The best I can do is just honor the Light
that he is, and when I think of him, hold him in the Light. Think of him as that Light. And not as a
bottomless pit of wasted money.
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