All In the Family

I've taken some time out to hang with my brother this week. He and I have had a rollercoaster relationship, but then, my friends expect no less from me. LOL. My brother...where to start? He broke my leg when I was 5, pushing me on my trike, and trying to save me from getting killed by an oncoming vehicle as I swerved into the road. My little ankle got caught between the pedal and the wheel, and crunch, that was it. He didn't mean to do it, and I swear he still has guilt all these years later. LOL, what a great tool that is. Fast Forward to his highschool years, and I was, I dunno, like 9, maybe. He was a big football star for his team, but an injury to his knee put him out. At the hospital, they did some x-rays, and a day later, a doctor was trying to convince my mother that he had a tumor on his knee and they really needed to amputate immediately. Thank goodness my mother had some sense to bring him to Children's Hospital in Boston. You see, there was no tumor. The doctor had read the wrong x-rays for him. Something happened to my brother then....he never really recovered from that, not mentally. He went on to a 2 year college, getting a degree in business admin like most boys his age at the time. He went into restaurant management, quite successfully, and married a real fruit loop of a girl. Ahh, my brother and his girlfriends. He's always liked them pretty and stupid. Pretty stupid? He needs to be the dominant partner, needs to be the intellect, blah blah blah. So of course his marriage was a disaster and he went into a series of other failed relationships. Until he met HER. I've joked unerringly about Mr's bitch, but HER, she who shall not EVER be named puts that low class psycho bitch to psycho bitch and manipulator's shame. SHE played my brother like a sonata, had a couple kids, bought the house of HER dreams, quit working, and shopped and shopped and shopped until my brother, who'd been working in sales and making a pretty good clip of cash was having to buy their groceries on a Visa card. The SHE announced the divorce, one day, out of the blue. SHE'D been planning it for 3 years, had the lawyers already hired, and the plan set out. And my brother lost everything. His house, his kids, his 401K, eventually his mind, and his sanity, and his ability to work.
Anywho, my brother now is morbidly obese, and disabled because of it. So I occasionally do his groceries and help him pick up his place, or just sit and talk or play games with him so that he has some company. His kids are with HER this week, so he's all alone, and I can tell he's lonely. Yesterday and today I spent the afternoon with him, brought him some lunch, watched Jeff Dunham, and played some word game he had on his Satellite TV. I do love my brother, and we are back in a place that we both generally agree and get along, and that is phenomenal because I tell you, when he was in his Rush Limbaugh days, well holy hell, I couldn't stand that motherfucker. My brother can be a judgmental, condescending, ignorant SOB when he so chooses, the kind of guy that will proudly say "I can't stand all those niggers, but I'm not a racist, cuz I have a black friend". So you can only imagine how we've clashed over the hot button issues that he and I differ on. Like gays. Hooray, every man that ever crossed my threshold in my earlier years was gay. I'm the ultimate hag for heaven's sake. I LOVE gay men, can't live without them, and find them wherever I am. My brother? Well of course, he wants to put them all on a boat and blow it up. You get the idea. He can't fathom why I haven't dated inside my race for the past 2 decades. Try to explain that it's kismet, that I meet men, and they happen to be black, that I'd love them should they be white, but NO, he's sure I'm racial profiling. And who the hell knows, maybe subconsciously I am. Whatever. And of course there is the fact that no matter how old I get I am always his little sister, and that is it's own set of pros and cons.
Nowadays however, he's chilled the hell out quite a bit. Things are going his way more and more. His kids are living in HIS custody now, and quite happy and successful. SHE is miserable, and having to pay child support which I'm SURE SHE never planned on having to deal with in her lifetime. So he's found a modicum of happiness, for which I'm thankful....because he's my brother and I love him. And he's a fucking riot. Today, as we played his favorite word game, I insisted on manipulating the remote, and found it challenging. He made me laugh by calling me "sausage fingers" which of course caused me to do even worse. He can be my best friend some days, and other days I have to hang up on him before I say something terrible. But he's generally supported me these last few years, and I'm thankful I have the time to spend with him now, just being there with him. Even my daughter loves spending time with her Uncle because "he's the fun one". He won't hesitate to engage her, play with her as best he's able, or come up with some game he invents out of his own twisted head. He could be a genius. One with ADD for sure, but a genius nevertheless.
So here's to my brother, one of three brothers, and one of 5 siblings. I love ya, rascal, but NO, I'm not playing cribbage with you, because you cheat.