Today my brother turns 29. A few weeks ago I told my daughter about him. “You have a brother?” she asked, clearly confused. It occurred to me then, that I hadn’t talked about him to anyone outside the family in who knows how long. I have a brother.

I have quite a few siblings, actually, but all over. I have three biological brothers and a sister who I met at 22 and who I haven’t seen since. I have two brothers and a sister from my dad’s third marriage who I see once or twice a year. I have two sisters from my mom’s third marriage who I’m closer to. And I have this brother, the one sibling I’ve known the longest because we were adopted just a couple of years apart, who I haven’t seen in over ten years.

My brother and I somewhere around 1983

Chris was adopted in 1983, two years after me, after I begged my parents to get me a brother, like my friend had a pony. I was six and had no concept of the process of adoption apart from I knew parents could just go pick out a kid like they did with me. He was a funny kid, loved to tell jokes and sing silly songs, but there was also something a little off. It would be years later before we’d really see the brunt of it, but eventually it turned him - and all of us - upside down.

Can a child be evil?

The first time I can remember really being afraid of him was one summer when he swam up beneath me in the pool and pulled me under. I was always afraid of the water as a kid, didn’t even learn to swim till I was 12, and he knew this. Still, he grabbed ahold of my ankles and held me down. As I spent the next 20 minutes lying on the concrete next to the pool trying to get my breath back he laughed. He laughed so long and so loud, it was the laughing that terrified me so much more than the near drowning. He was only 8 years old.

Over the next few years I watched him literally kick down my bedroom door to come after me in a rage, hold a knife to another little boy’s throat, burn down my dad’s office (though no one ever proved it was him), and innumerable other really evil things for a kid to do.

By the time he led a pack of friends into our house and robbed us of some prized possessions, including my brand new UGH boots (they used to be cool), I was genuinely afraid to live under the same roof with him. Still, I felt all kinds of guilt over my relief in his being sent away to a group home. And when he was so bad he was kicked out of the group home I was afraid again, and somehow still feeling guilty about it.

I remember going with my mom once to visit him in juvenile hall. I felt like prisoner just getting into the place to see him. I remember thinking, “I hope he hates it here enough to change because I miss my brother.” He didn’t. Hate it. Or change.

Ten years

That was around 1993. He’s spent the last 15 years bouncing in and out of jail. The last time I saw him was somewhere around 1997 when I lived with my aunt in Anaheim Hills, CA. We had heard he was in Hollywood now and someone had said he was living on the beach in Ventura. Somehow someone got a hold of him and we arranged to see him.

We drove up to some seedy part of Hollywood, the place they never show on E!, where he was sleeping on a stained mattress with a couple of prostitutes. I remember being scared of the place, but still a little more scared of him than the gangs or pimps lining the streets. I held my tongue though, because he was my brother, he was family, I wasn’t supposed to feel this way toward him.

After that I don’t remember what all went on or why I never crossed paths with him again. He was either in jail or living somewhere else. I know he met up with other people in my family at various times and they all say it was “nice”, but won’t say much more than that.

Mom wants him to live here… with me… with my kids

So he’s been in a prison in Arizona for the last couple of years, finally living out a sentence from a couple of warrants he had out for the last ten years. No, he didn’t turn himself in. He got caught and is serving his time, though whether it will be enough time remains to be seen. He’s getting out next year and my mom has been talking to me about him coming to Indiana when he does. She’s been talking with him and visiting him more than anyone over the years and she swears he’s changed.

It’s hard to listen to her talk the way she does though. For years she was ashamed of him, and rightly so, I think, but she didn’t like to talk about him much at all. She’s also always had a thing about Christians, thinks they’re decent people, moral people for the most part, but a little too pushy with all the religion stuff. She’s ragged on “conservative” this and “right-wing” that. It was to my mom that I first said, “I put the fun in fundamentalism,” and it was because she was coming down on Christians again and I was trying to make light of it despite how much it hurt me.

So when she’s turned me away through the years saying, “that’s nice honey, I’m glad you’ve found religion and it works for you, but it’s not something I can buy into,” I get it and I don’t push. But there’s a line and I’ve tried to gently hint at it when she’s gotten close. I’ve tried to tell her not to generalize and put me in the same boat with all the nut-so Christians out there when she starts talking like she does. But last week she crossed that line so quickly and without shame.

In an email which began innocently talking about getting a refund for a botched shipping job by UPS, she managed to insult me, my brother, and every Christian out there in one tiny phrase:

“It’s hard to believe he’ll be 28 next week on his birthday. Did I tell you we’re going to visit him this weekend? We’re flying to Tucson Friday and we’ll stay with [friends]. They’re loaning us a car so we can go up to see Chris on Saturday. We have a little trip planned with them on Sunday to tour some caverns and we’re coming home on Monday.

“Did you talk to [husband] about Chris? What do you both think about Chris coming to Indiana when he gets out next year? As you well know it is so hard to get started here in San Diego with the cost of housing. We could help him get into an apartment so much more easily there. I’d like to talk to your dad about helping him too. He’s going to need so much — clothes, car, housing, furnishings and of course a job. Natalie, I really think Chris has changed. He really wants to succeed in getting his life together and he acknowledges that he needs help to do that. He also acknowledges that he has messed up his own life with all of his bad choices. He is so alone and I feel so sorry for him. This may be his only chance for his salvation.”

His only chance for salvation? Or your crafty manipulation?

You have to understand something about my mother. Sweet as she is on the outside, there’s this other part of her that, when she wants something, will move heaven and earth without your knowledge to get it. She’ll never fess up to it, but people who know her well will vouch for her tender manipulation. I say tender because it’s not blatant, at least not at first glance. It’s a lot like Marie Barone. If you’ve ever seen Everybody Loves Raymond, you know just what I’m talking about.

It’s the “are you going to wear that?” that makes you want to burn your clothes. It’s the “do whatever you want to do” that makes you want to rethink everything you had planned for the next five years. I’ve dealt with it my whole life, never really feeling like I was allowed to do anything I wanted because even when she said she was okay with it, how could I be sure, for sure?

So now she’s trying to make me feel like taking my brother in after everything he’s done is the “Christian” thing to do and in that one small phrase, she’s managed to make me feel like a bad Christian for saying “no way, no how, not on your life!”

Enough’s enough

My dad and I talked. My husband and I talked. God and I talked. I think a straw had finally broken the camel’s back where my mom is concerned, so I wrote back. I would have called, but…

1. She wrote to me, so it would be customary to reply within the same medium.
2. I knew she’d act hurt and innocent and I didn’t have time to deal with her “who me” routine this time.
3. The kids don’t need to see mom yelling at grandma.

So here’s my lengthy email back to my mom:

Actually, Mom, he’ll be 29.

[Husband] and I HAVE talked, and it’s just too much for us to talk about seriously right now. And honestly, I don’t think it’s fair of you to ask me, with the new babies and all that we have going on here, to take on such a huge responsibility. And I have to say, I was really hurt that you used the term “salvation” - it felt like manipulation on your part, using something like that - which I take very seriously. I’m sure you don’t think that was your intention but that’s what it felt like. My first thought when I read that was, “What about you? And [Stepdad]?” It’s clear you think salvation is reserved for those of us who’ve been bad and need some sort of redemption from our more obvious sins, but frankly, your arrogance in thinking you have no need for salvation is sin itself.

I’m sorry I’m being harsh right now, but I’m tired of trying to be so delicate about your feelings when it means you’ll spend the rest of your life apart from God’s unending mercy and grace. You continue to believe you’re entitled to all good things at the same time rejecting the One who gives it. That I can live with, if it means losing you otherwise, but when you start talking about other people’s needs for salvation, well, that’s an area you have no place talking about and it’s infuriating that you would use it as a way to get me to feel sorry for Chris. It’s totally unnecessary.

I’ve been really thinking about all this the last 24 hours and here’s where I’m at. My first concern HAS to be for my family. I haven’t seen Chris in more than 10 years and I haven’t had so much as a letter from him since I moved to Indiana. I’ve written to him over the years and had no reply. I see no reason he couldn’t at least once a year made some sort of contact if he wanted to. I have no way of knowing - and forgive me, but I can’t just take your word - that he’s really changed. If there’s ANY chance he could go back to his old ways, I can’t have him here. It’s just too much of a risk to the kids, to [Husband], to everything we’re struggling to keep together right now.

However, I’m not totally against the idea of him someday making his way out here - if that’s what HE wants. It kills me to think there’s a possibility this is you not wanting to deal with him and trying to push him off on me and Dad, particularly because I hope you wouldn’t put the kids in harm’s way if you had any inkling that he could be a danger to us. But there are moments when it looks that way and I hate feeling this way.

What I think should happen is this. If you really believe he’s changed and you really feel for him and want to help him start over, I think you and [Stepdad] should be the ones to take him in. Let him live with you until he gets on his feet. You have the room (two spare rooms) and the resources to help him. It wouldn’t cost you rent and I’m sure Dad would help with clothes and a car if he needed that. And it would be good for him to start out in a loving environment - with a parent who he’s finally developing a relationship with. And any argument against this idea is just an argument against him coming here too.

THEN, when he’s pulled things together, if he can prove himself, show that he’s really on the up and up and begins to make some real change, THEN we can start talking about this. I’m happy to talk to him, visit even if and when we can afford a trip, and I can even set him up in a church family if that’s something that would appeal to him. There are lots of groups for people just like him and I’m sure the church would be more than willing to help him transition back into society.

[Husband] and I are 100% together on this. It’s just too risky to take in someone who on all accounts is a perfect stranger to us with a dangerous past. If he were to relapse and do anything to hurt us or the kids I don’t think any of us could live with that. Again, I apologize if I’ve hurt your feelings, but there are some things that needed to be said, and honestly, this whole thing is just much bigger than our feelings.

I love you, with an eternal kind of love, not the kind that appeases you in the moment, but the kind that longs for an ENDURING joy that can’t be taken away. I hope you can see that through my strong words.

Harsh, I know

So I was really conflicted sending that back to her. I have a personal rule that makes me wait 24 hours, through 24 hours of prayer, before replying in anger. I had prayed, vented to my husband and dad, and it was still eating me up the next day. After years of listening to her belittle Christians and not excluding me from the pack, all I could think about was my kids and what it would mean for them as they begin to pick up on Grandma’s cynicism.

My kids know Jesus is real, there’s just no question about it. They also know grandma is a very smart lady. But… they’re much too young to get that smart people say stupid things. So if I want my kids to have a good relationship with their grandma I have to nip this in the bud, no? [sigh]. I feel like a heel, and yet I don’t regret saying what I felt I had to say. I’m posting here mostly for myself, to remind me a year from now when she starts pushing me again about him coming to Indiana. I’ll remember not to get sucked into her guilt trips and stand firm in the fact that turning away a dangerous stranger is not un-Christian, but is the right thing to do as a responsible mother.

So much for Christian values…

Her response was to my dad in which she emailed him (he tried to call her but she wouldn’t return his calls) to say, “Natalie laid into me, so much for Christian values, so just forget it, we’ll take care of it.” She still hasn’t responded to me and I’m over it now that I’ve said my peace, but I find it fascinating that after all that, she’s still manipulating the situation (”just forget it”) and judging me on how she thinks a Christian is supposed to act (submissive and door-mat-like). And you know, he’s 29! It’s not her responsibility any more than it is ours!

I still love my brother

Back to the heart of this post, I love my brother. Today is his birthday and I’m hoping he’s reading the card I sent him. I’m hoping he’ll write back this time and we can start over. I want him to have changed. I want to have a relationship with him again. I want that bowl-headed blond kid back from the 80s, to tell me jokes, and cook for me. He loved to cook when we were kids. I want my kids to know their uncle the way I never knew mine (my mom also had a brother in prison, he’s there for life).

So I’m not against taking him in… someday. But I also don’t think it’s un-Christian of me not to want him here right now either and I won’t let anyone, not even my mother, try to make me feel guilty about it.