My Brother's Keeper

I am my brother's keeper. Or rather, we are, as the rest of my family luckily shares this responsibility.

My brother is a good, honest and decent guy. But he has problems with habits and emotional issues. And he has a long history of disconnecting completely from the rest of the family for good periods of time. The one blessing is that he has never once missed being with us all at Christmas. And that's wonderful, although there was one year when Christmas was the only time we saw him. But the past is history...

Because my brother's phone has been disconnected for two weeks now, I decided to call his work, at which time I found out through his co-worker that he had been off of work for three weeks because of a broken clavicle. So after work, I drove to his apartment and found him in decent shape, considering the broken bone and huge bruise from his bicycle accident.

He told me the tale of his injury, and that he took the bus to the hospital. He told me that it occurred to him while sitting in the examining room that had he picked up the phone, he could have had four rides to the hospital gratis. Him telling me this told me two things: first, that we are getting into his heart finally. At least it occurred to him at some point that his family would be there for him, which is an improvement from the past where we wouldn't cross his mind at all. Second, that we still have a ways to go with my brother in getting him deeply connected with the rest of the family. I want him to always keep in mind that his family will help him with anything and should be the first place to turn for help.

The problem is that he obviously doesn't have our love and concern for him in mind. He feels like he is facing this world alone, which is heart-breakingly sad, because it is far from true. But because he does feel that way, we must continue reaching out to him and share with him our love and concern as as often as possible. My brother feels alone in this world, so it is our responsibility as his family to be there for him. Is it hard to continue to reach out to someone who does nothing but pull away? Sure. But it is both our responsibility and our privilege. He's a great guy, beneath it all.