Siblingenlied...

The various relationship between siblings fascinate me. I've always envied folks who have great loyal relationship with their brothers and sisters. Yet from the small sample I know about, that is less common than I might have expected. I am somewhat estranged from my three years younger sister and eight years younger brother. Not that we had a lot going for us. We were split up to the four winds when I was 16 and reared in diffrent circumstances, none of which were particularly wonderful.

I was apparently seen as the one who "escaped" first and somewhat resented for it. In later years I became a surrogate for my alcoholic father and that certainly didn't help much. You want evidence? Consider the Father's Day call where my sister came out to me even putting her partner at the time on the phone to me without much by way of introduction. That was pretty classic, as she often did things when we were growing up designed to provoke a reaction. I suspect that this time she was disappointed in the lack of disapproval. For a while she and my brother were close but some kind of meltdown occurred when he and his third wife were staying with her and now they don't speak. I don't know much more than that, except that since my brother became a christian he has decided that his sister "really isn't gay because she's not in a relationship." This is a smart man, believe it or not.

For his part my brother and I have an off again on again relationship which seems to flower between his marriages. The second wife actively interceded in my efforts to stay in touch with him, keeping my letters away from him and intercepting phone calls and not putting him on the phone even when I could hear him in the background. "Blood doesn't count," was her line. Best time I had with him during that relationship was at my younger son's wedding when they arrived late and a few sheets to the wind. My wife kept her busy while I had a chance to talk to my brother. New wife has some struggles of her own and he has been hammered by successive bouts of unemployment and underemployment that have left him pretty resentful in general. Hard to figure out how to relate.

My own sons seem to be beginning to get along. They certainly have little reason to. Unknown to both parents the older one spent much of his school years being bullied and rather than asking for help decided that that entitled him to abuse his younger brother and threaten worse if parents were told. Maybe they will get to a place where they can depend on each other in need.

My wife's sons struggle as well, though there is an issue with alcohol for one of them that tends to introduce a kind of bipolarity in the relationship. Her relationship with her siblings is mixed, also the oldest, she was born in a family where sons counted more than daughters and had paid a heavy price as a result. Could be ethnic culture, but we have a daughter-in-law of the same ethnicity who has brothers who would die for her and are intensely loyal and protective.

I guess families are really a mixed bag, a spin of the roulette wheel with extra double zeroes. We have friends with children who are close and fun together and all round decent kids. My mother's siblings did a lot to help each other out throughout their lives, while my father's were a toxic alcoholic brew of antipathy and resentment.

Just musing on this. It has been on my mind for some reason.