"Estrangement" is a Family Affair

My sister and I haven’t talked to our brother in nearly six years. Nor, to his wife or his three, grown kids. Like us, he lives in a suburb of Chicago. A more affluent suburb of Chicago.

But, that’s about to change as a call from a cousin yesterday alerted me to the fact that our brother, or “the guy who used to be our brother,” is moving to Dallas.

“Goodbye and don’t let the door hit you in your Trump-loving ass.”

Harsh, yes, but I say that because, even though we’ve had no contact, I’m fairly sure that bro is a Trump fan. The few times we touched upon politics in a conversation, my takeaway was that yeah, he supports the Orange Turd.

And, it makes perfect sense that he would as my brother’s always been one to hang on to his dough with an iron grip. Money that he wouldn’t part with many years ago when my husband and I were in a tight spot. A small amount, mind you, that would have helped us a great deal.

But, that’s irrelevant as all families argue about money. This rift goes deeper. It’s personal in a way that makes forgiveness nearly impossible, as well as unnecessary. I no longer feel the need nor desire to “patch things up.”

Shit like this happens in families all the time. In some, the passage of several years blurs the actual or perceived slight. In others, time only worsens the wound, until it becomes like a cancer, eating away at whatever good “tissue” remains.

My brother has always been a bit of a strange ranger. I know because we share the same demons. So I suppose I, too, could be perceived as “strange.” But, selfish, I’m not, and he is, for as long as I can remember.

The middle child, born between two sisters, as a kid, my brother displayed a flair for drawing. He was quite good, in fact. Somewhere along the way, he abandoned that to chase the money dragon, of which he also was quite good.

Please know that I don’t resent him for something as petty as making and holding onto his money. What I do resent: His abandonment of me, and my younger sister at a time when we needed him the most.

When my parents and I were diagnosed with cancer, lung for them and breast for me, he kept his distance and very willingly allowed my sister to pick up the slack, which she and her family did, by giving up their lives to care for our parents in her home.

To the best of my recollection, my brother never picked up the phone to call me after I was dealt the most world-shattering blow of my life. He was afraid. I believe he stayed away so as to distance himself from cancer as if it was catching.

Perhaps I’m cutting him too much slack by attributing fear to his seeming lack of concern. But, much like myself, he harbors many secrets and has become increasingly closed-off as he’s aged.

At the end of the day, it was dough that was the catalyst for the shit hitting the fan and sticking like Gorilla Glue. Isn’t it always?

My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they managed to save some for us kids. My brother was the original executor of their estate, but, after some careful thought, my father decided, and rightly so, that my sister should be the one to handle their affairs. And she did, brilliantly.

This is what put my brother’s nose out of joint: My sister received a modest amount more than he and I did. And, our dad left her his car. I was more than good with that, as she deserved it. She took care of them, day and night! Unless you’ve been there, done that, you have no idea what it takes to look after two people in their 80s who are both suffering from stage 4 lung cancer. It’s a 24/7 undertaking.

The doctors' visits. The frequent trips to and from the hospital. The oxygen tank that my mother was a slave to. The pills and more pills. Not to mention my parents’ frequent vodka-fueled battles. Yes, they were allowed to drink. At that stage in the game, booze didn’t matter. When you’re going through chemo and know you’re going to die, anyway, it’s “fuck all” time.

Speaking of hospitals, my sister had two hospital beds installed in the living room for our folks. I can only imagine how that would go over in my brother’s palatial manor.

I would never have been up to the task of caring for them as she did. My brother definitely wasn’t, yet, as much money as he already had, along with a near-million-dollar home, when the estate was parceled out, it wasn’t enough. It never is for people like him.

So, we’re done. My sister and I have talked about him in the sense that we worry we’ll run into him at the next funeral, as we have an aged aunt and uncle who are still kicking. It makes for a rather macabre conversation, but the concern is real.

Except, now it isn’t. He’s not the type to fly back to Chicago to pay his “respects” to a family member. So, my sister and I are free of that particular worry.

Every now and then, I wonder what he thinks about us, or if he thinks about us. I wonder if he’s sorry that, at the recent birthday barbeque bash he hosted according to my cousin, his two sisters weren’t in attendance.

As for me, do I wish him well in this new adventure? This big move 967 miles away from his hometown?

I don’t know. Maybe. I suppose I don’t particularly care.

It’s odd, to feel next to nothing about someone who is part of you, who shares the same blood and genes and memories. Yet now, when I think about my brother, the emotion that trumps all others is “detachment.” Like conjuring up someone you once knew, but whose recollection of, dims by the day.

Six years is a long time. It feels like a lifetime.

© Sherry McGuinn, 2021. All Rights Reserved.