Ready or Not, Here I Come

The holiday visit was not at all what I expected, but to be expected. On the plane ride in, I completed The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I had gotten this book for my brother for his birthday. I really did not know much about the book, but I saw it on the shelf and remembered seeing it listed on several of my fellow Blogger’s reading lists.

My brother loved the book. He was very emotional and enthusiastic. Emotion is something of a rarity for my brother over the past year. This peaked my mother’s curiosity and she too read it and raved. Not wanting to miss out on a chance to catch a glimpse of what might make my brother tick, I borrowed the book.

I was so excited to get home and have a discussion with my brother about what he felt while reading this book and what his personal legend is. My mom picked me up from the airport. She said that she was mad at my brother for choosing the bar and football game over me. She spoke of doom. I dismissed it.

We went home and waited and waited; hearts pounding. Finally the phone rings. We didn’t have to pick it up, we knew.

My brother asked for me. He was sobbing. “Please don’t let Mom ‘help’ me anymore.” “Tell her I need to help myself.” “I have lost everything.”

“What do you want?”, I ask. “What do you want for your life?”

He replies, “I want to get better.”

So we hang up the phone for what begins another part in the journey. It took a lot for me to convince my Mom that we were right in not bailing him out. It took a lot of energy to support her when I too was feeling such despair. It took a lot of nagging of self to stir up the deadened emotions.

Why??????? Why has he done this to himself? Why has he done this to Mom, to me? Why do we believe his lies? Why do we enable? Why are we re-living the story twenty years later? Why does my husband have to be a part of this? Why is this so hard?

My brother is very sick. We have never healed. Like the puss of a wound, he is an indicator of our infection.