Irrepairable Damage

I probably spelled that title wrong, but it’s too late at night to look it up and I’m exhausted. I thought of so many things to write in you tonight and was really looking forward to my time with my diary, but one thing led to another and I never got my moments.

The thing that took up most of my free time this afternoon was a call from my ex-sister-in-law’s lawyer. She was aware that I was willing to make a declaration about my brother’s drug use and about the money he had gone through that I knew of. There was so much to say because I became so involved with him and the situation.

Now, here’s the extremely painful and ironic part. While my brother was in the midst of all this drug stuff, I was the one who cried to my mom and my other brother that they should fly out to California with me to find him and intervene. I spoke out angrily that I didn’t think they cared enough and I couldn’t understand their actions. I have much much less money than either of them yet I put out the money for the trip and I took off the time and I went out there. They were both glad I did and very appreciative, but neither of them came. I was also the one who my brother ended up being with when he came out to the midwest to be with the crack addict lover he had found. I was the one who picked him up and tried to get him back into rehab. I was the one whose heart was being wrenched every which way.

And now, because I was the one who cared and did the most with my addict-brother, I’m now the one who has to turn against him and sign an affidavit affirming all these things.

I’m going to do it, there’s no question about it. It’s the right thing to do. He’s put his ex-wife and children through unimaginable misery. But I’ve got to say it is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. I feel so guilty, so disloyal. All my life family has meant the most to me and now I’m the one who is making a legal declaration that will hamper his efforts to ruin his ex-wife financially.

I don’t mean to make it sound like my mom and other brother don’t care or are cold about the whole thing. They definately are not. There were times over the past year when I was of that opinion, but I was wrong. They care immensely. Now that I’ve seen my mother since she came to the wedding, I realize that she really wasn’t strong enough to have made the trip and to have actively done an intervention on my brother. I guess I still see her as the energetic and enthusiastic adventurous woman she used to be. Instead, she is an older woman with legs that don’t work right. My oldest (non addict) brother also cares, but he’s less emotional than I am and that’s good. Someone needs to keep their head. They both care, it’s just that I ended up in the middle of the whole thing and now I end up being the traitor. At least that’s how it feels.

On the other hand, I think about what that woman and those children have been through and I get so angry that my brother could have done all the things he did. I keep saying I’ll have the link up to his story any time now, and I will, because I’ve pretty much got everything documented in my affidavit. But I think anyone who reads it will realize that my brother’s story goes beyond the norm when it comes to cocaine damage to someone’s life. My brother has always done everything in a big way. He made a vast amount of money and was a respected entrepreneur, then he wasted vast amounts of money and has become a con-man, cheat, and liar. How could this have ever happened to him… to anyone in MY family?

You know how you always feel like your family is exempt.. well, at least, I always felt like that. I never could understand families where the brother’s and sisters were at odds. I thought they were weird, or immature, or just didn’t try to get along. Now here I am, ready to cause irrepairable damage to my relationship with my brother, but I guess he did it first. I guess he did it by not being my brother anymore and by becoming the addict he was and I suspect still is. How many different ways can my heart break?