Ah.  The holidays.  A time to reflect and renew.  A time to gather what is meaningful and put it all in one place.  A time to gather all the family together and watch as the hours tick by, the great American unraveling. 

While mashing the potatoes and sipping our chardonnay, my sister in law and I began a conversation that started with the latest mishaps of our bad seeded siblings.  The black sheep.  She went first with tales of abnormal misunderstood antics and joblessness and how at 46 her sister still had not managed to get it together.  Then I added my black sheep woes.  We could have switched out the names- her sister to my brother and the stories would have been the same.  The path to nowhere certainly the same-met along the way with the same sort of people wrapped with very, very poor decisions.  We paused for a moment and then, with one last mash of potato, my sister in law said,

“Everybody has one.” 

One family member that seems to be the bane of nonexistence for the rest of the family.  The underdone potato.  The faulty wiring.  The cog in the wheel that kept everyone from going anywhere. The one most scarred by….well, what?

I think on this quite often.  I wonder what went so terribly wrong with my brother to have him end up so lost.  To have connected with people-two of which he married-who only served to take him further down a path of self destruction.  To bring children into this world who have turned out just like him.  What went wrong?

Now, don’t go all “non judgemental” on me.  I tried the nonjudgmental route with him many times-but after 20 or so years of picking up the pieces and watching how his life effected so many-my judgement is a bit skewed.  At one time, he had everything.  A star athlete, a compassionate and sensitive heart, and the adoration and enabling of not one-but both of my parents.  He did little wrong.  Did it all really go kaflooey when, as he claims, that first semester at college,him with a walk on scholarship for football- he did that one single line of cocaine-and there the path of destruction started-and so ended his college and football life.  Or, was it in that one sniff of a moment -all his deep hurt( from what I don’t know) came to the surface.  Or did that one loose wire finally snap.  We might never know.  We know all too well, that one moment led to a lifetime of everything gone wrong.  My brother never bothered to look back.  He has never mustered the courage to look forward.

In and out of rehab-courtesy of my parents or anyone else willing to pay.  In and out of a thick fog of deception and deceit- in and out of whatever con game would be the winning ticket.  Everyone was fair game.  Everyone.   And the great sadness-apart from the fact he had children he was not capable of raising?  Once the con game begins-the people attracted to him were no better.  Unless of course, they had a better con.  He could not and never has broken the cycle.  He tends to attract those most willing to do him the most harm.

About a year ago I saw my brother for the first time in many years.  I did not recognize him.  He was bloated and red-eyed.  He was talking but not making sense.  Here was my brother but I had not a clue as to who he was.  As the meeting progressed, it became clear our relationship had been severed by years of his own behavior. I was not willing anymore to be his sister.   I drew the line in the family sandbox.  There was nothing to be gained anymore by trying.  And more recently, I have drawn more lines in the family sandbox.   Legal lines to serve and protect.  To keep him out of harm’s way.  Harm to others, not himself.  This does not mean I don’t think of him-feel great sadness for him-and wonder what?  What happened along the way-to my brother born a year after me.  Who used to have it all.  What went so terribly wrong?