No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing. (Lear 3.2.37)

So….. guess who called me the other night….

My younger brother—yeah, the one who kicked our mom out of the house she bought. [read about that here]

Now, Mom has been here since January 16th and this is the first we’ve heard from him. I was totally taken off guard. Very awkward—he’s my baby brother and I love him, but I want to choke him for what he’s done.

And he’s all la-de-da, life is beautiful….

Yeah—really.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I am even more convinced he’s bipolar or something. He's basically a good person, but something has gotten screwed up along the way. He genuinely doesn't see that what he did was horrible and wrong. Everyone else does, but not him. It’s sad—and takes some of the bite out of my anger. I’ve already lost one person in my life to mental illness; I don’t want to lose another.

We were very close as kids. We're 14 months apart in age, so we played together constantly. Those memories kept coming back to me.

I was very cordial, chatted with him for a bit. But seriously, I was really uncomfortable—all of the things I wanted to say jumbling around in my head….. For a change, my editing equipment was on. It probably wasn’t the time to get into it. Mom is still trying to settle some legal stuff with him and I don’t want to complicate matters for her.

But—and this is a kicker!!—he talked about maybe coming East for a visit soon. Like he’s gonna be greeted with open arms by the family here…

I’ll keep you posted…..