A Short Story

I never understood what came along with being a second child until I was an adult. Being a second child has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that your parents have already had a child and they have gotten used to caring for it and nurturing it and doing all the things that a new parent has to do when a first child is born! The disadvantages will become apparent shortly.

That newness is something very special to a parent. It is the pure gift of the union of one human with another and the result of that union is now before you in all of its little glory! By the time the second child arrives, it is new for sure but since you have already done this before, the novelty is somewhat gone and it’s more a matter of enjoying the birth and getting down to business!

When I was in my teens, I will never forget words from my Mother that shaped how I viewed my position in the family and my feelings of being a second “other” son and a misfit in my own family. On an occasion one summer day, I can recall chatting with my Mother about an incident or such between my brother and me, highlighting some difference as I remember. The thrust here was that I was feeling ”different” from my brother in treatment and was talking to her about that. Her answer was, “Jim, your first child is always different, special.” Perhaps this was not verbatim but nonetheless it hit me like a lead brick and I never, ever forgot it. What she said to me in no uncertain words, and more importantly, what I heard, was that I was not as special as he was. I was devastated as best as I can remember and going forward to this day, I have not had that special feeling between my Mother and me. Different. Not as special. Second fiddle. What an uncomfortable place to be. And to be wrestling with that in my fifties still was even more uncomfortable and very evident in my relationship with her.

Now, in no way am I saying that I didn’t feel close to my Mother, but for all of these years I have always felt less than a special connection, one that my brother has enjoyed more so than I. There are always pivotal moments in relationships that define you for the rest of your life. Mine came in the late seventies. I was just married and busy having my first child when I was told by my Mother that she and my brother were going on a trip down south to “look for a place to live” on the east coast somewhere. I was really caught off guard because I immediately felt a sense of abandonment and certainly felt out of the loop, since this wasn’t even discussed with me. In my time of hurt, I spoke to my then wife, and we discussed our own plans to move out of state for a better beginning, namely to the west coast (I had relatives out there so it sounded alluring, and anyway, I figured they were moving so we might as well too).

As I remember, my Mother and brother did make that fateful trip down south and loved the mid portion and eastern coastal portion of Florida. I, not to be outdone and to secure my own frustrations and insecurity, decided in late in the seventies, to go down to Florida and check things out myself so there would be no disconnect. However, fate is a funny thing.

On the west coast, my then wife’s best friend had moved down some years earlier and she and her husband had established themselves there and were doing well. So without any fanfare, I took off a week from my fairly new job working for a major insurance company and travelled to mid Florida to find my future and my emotional security.

The week went well….I think? I had done some research and the market looked dreary at that time and remember setting up an interview with prominent employment agency, a talent firm who promised me definite work because of my fine background and education. After that interview, I came out into one of the famous Florida rains of the 70’s and was nearly up to my knees in water. Immediately I wondered what in the world I was doing there and why I wasn’t back home. Undeterred, I then ran a dog over later that evening, which might have been a foreshadowing of my own emotional death there some time later and then came back to New York to present my plan to my wife, lest I lose my family to a strange watery world in Florida. We had the ability to make the move immediately so that is exactly what we did.

The plan was struck; my family was happy and best of all, as the second child out of the loop, I would not be separated from my family as I had feared would happen. My wife went along with this move and we packed up our daughter and our meager belongings along with a decent bank account and chugged off to Florida to move into an apartment complex outside of Tampa, a place where we would spend the next two years and welcome our second child into the world. What would disappear before that time would be all of our money due to an ill advised and mis-thought of purchase of a full service restaurant which sucked us dry of money, time and talent. It was at this time that a major rift came to be between myself and my Mother and brother. It would be what defined this triad relationship going forward for decades. Me against them.

It was rather simple. We didn’t open the restaurant with any money in the bank to back us. As I remember it was just about $100 that we deposited, and if it was that, it was a lot. Everything was purchased from our week to week sales and our meager personal bank accounts. After a year of struggle and heartache, I pleaded with my brother and Mother to walk away from the restaurant as we were just about broke. My Mother and brother wanted to put more money into a situation which was a fast downward spiral. The economy under President Jimmy Carter was a disaster, with interest rates running at 21% and a very sluggish economy. I was outvoted about closing the restaurant after calling a family meeting one night. 2 to 1. To boot, our money was just about gone.


I had to think seriously about this situation and told my brother that I would no longer return to work and if he wanted to keep the restaurant open, I would not be there with him working. That would effectively grind things to a halt but in my mind this was the only way to stop the bleeding. I think he and Mom took it hard but realized I was serious. It was a nail in the relationship coffin that never came out.

We closed the doors a week later and put it up for sale after they realized it was fruitless. It took quite a while to sell but by the time it had, I was back in New York establishing myself again. It was clear that a separation was already taking place and our relationships were straining. I had seen once again that my place and ranking in my own family would preclude me from any logical, workable solutions that were not approved by the committee of 2, namely my brother and Mother. It was a lost cause and I left the battleground defeated and withdrawing to a new life again in New York. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, my wife agreed with me and off we went. I don’t think she ever had any love lost for my family anyway! So here I was heading back to New York after several years in an exercise in futility and I wound up being split from my family anyway. Truth be it known, they didn’t really care for my then wife anyway, so there were no tears shed for that loss.

Let’s not miss the irony here as well. Keep in mind I settled the family down south while they were looking at a different coast entirely. At that time, there was and still is a difference between the two coasts of Florida. The west coast was and still is beautiful without doubt but at that time, not nearly as built up as the east coast was and not as “fancy!” We went back to New York with barely anything in tow and I know that from the perspective of those I left behind it was not news well received so much so that everyone was quite upset at me for leaving.

I left with the same wounds and fears I had moved down with, if not even deeper than they were before. It would take twenty years and another woman to come into my life that would allow me to see me for who I was, a valued and worthwhile individual in my own right.

For two decades after I left Florida, my then wife and I raised our children, which by the early eighties, numbered three. I loved my daughters very much and was always keenly aware that my Mother had said the first born was special indeed, but I always made a considered effort throughout the years to view all my daughters as individuals with their respective gifts, talents and weaknesses and not favor one over the other. I was so aware of how devastating that could be to their psyche.


For those many years that we were separated, I visited Florida just about every year and enjoyed my visits with my family. I was a short interloper never disturbing the status quo to any degree so we all enjoyed the visits. I was very in tune with the fact that I had left them to re-start my life in New York, which in retrospect was a good idea, both financially for us and from an education standpoint for our three daughters. Education in Florida was certainly secondary to any education they could have received up North in our opinions back in the early eighties, and we were glad that decision was made to move back home. Throughout my years of living in New York, I was aware of, for lack of a better word, the many mini dramas that were unfolding in Florida with my family.
It seemed that there was more bad news than good at times. Certainly from my standpoint, there was much more drama down south than there was up north. Frankly, we were quite boring and our lives uneventful. It was good, not perfect, but good.

My brother’s children certainly put them through their paces. I cannot recall in the years raising our children some of the dramas that occurred here in Florida occurring in New York with us. If they had, I think our entire experience raising our children would have been a different one then it was. This angst and drama being experienced down in the south was absent from our lives. I cannot recall anything but happiness raising our three daughters and there always seemed to be a high degree of stability and balance that followed us. They always brought a smile to my face and any challenges with them were small. I remember recently, as my oldest daughter and her husband struggle to raise active children, a conversation I had with her. I told her that it was rare for her and her sisters to disobey me. They knew I was serious in what I said and if they didn’t listen, there would be consequences (Super Nanny would have been proud of me!).

The one thing I did once and only once was spank my eldest. After I saw the strength in my own hands, I never struck any of my children ever again. I remained serious about discipline as did their Mother and they always knew that despite that discipline, there was an incredible amount of love present. Till today, I consider myself close to my daughters. I am sure there are some things they don’t share with me, but since I am older and wiser, I count on my intuition to help me process through conversations with them and help when and where I can! Trust has to flow naturally in communications and I feel that’s an integral part of who we are as a family.

With their Florida cousins, things were certainly different. I can remember problems with ADHD, which I believe were never fully addressed. Aside from that, as they aged into teens, these southern counterparts were going through events I was almost aghast at and certainly could not understand. Car accidents, sexual dramas big and small, and these forced me to wonder why these things were happening down there and not up north. Frankly, I thanked God. Needless to say, these antics involved my parents to an intimate degree, one which they did not share with me with any great detail, at least not in all one chunk. The events that I was hearing about from a distance only served to foster an inseparable link between my family in the south and that link eventually melted into a solid circle of trust that would not be unbound by anyone else including me. I have never been sure if there were emotional issues connected with these misbehaviors or what exactly the situation may have been but suffice it to say, I received this in small doses as not to have too much revealed to me. The secret society was beginning to form. These issues continue till today and the drama has not ended. I am still amazed that after all these years, the same types of dramas are still going on.

The bond my family was forging was not to be broken or disturbed when early in 2000, a decision was made to re-enter the same emotional merry-go-round that I left some twenty some odd years ago. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is what it was to be for the next decade, in more ways than one. After a divorce and meeting a wonderful woman, it was clear that remaining in New York in the 2000’s was going to be a financial burden for us both. With that in mind and since we both were beach lovers, it was a no brainer after a visit to the Florida family to try to relocate here and establish a new life for ourselves, using my family as an anchor. Leaving Florida in my young 20’s and returning as a seasoned mature mid 40’s man meant a whole set of different ideologies and paradigm shifts for me and my new girlfriend.

Arriving in Florida without jobs and a truckload of boxes, the only hint I had at the time of any negativity to my arrival was my brother’s reluctance to discuss with me any brotherly bonding ideas that I mentioned to him when I was in New York. I remember mentioning coaching a little league team and that was met with a resistance that struck me as odd, but I planted that in the back of my head. I wondered why he wasn’t as excited as I was for me to rejoin the family here?

Perhaps I should have thought more about the move. Perhaps I should have thought of history more. I was wrapped up in the positivity of the day and the wonderful changes that happened in my life! I had left them decades ago. I had forced the closing of the restaurant before we all were penniless. The circle of trust had been forged and I never saw myself as an interference in this mechanization, until and only until I came down and started to experience the interactions with the family I had left previously. It was subtle at first. My girlfriend, later to become my wife, was accepted but her degree of positivity, composure and style may have caused a bit of stress to a family who wasn’t used to that at all! They remembered the Me of years ago and didn’t fully appreciate yet the man I had become. And that meant a very different perspective on life without doubt.

Upon rejoining the family, things were fairly good, and to some degree they had to be since my girlfriend and I were living with Mom and Dad for what turned out to be almost a year. That feat was easy for me but for my girlfriend, who was used to a great degree of privacy from living alone for quite some time, it was much harder. Things that she took for granted as being “her business”, were now open to my parent’s eyes and ears. That was quite hard for a very independent woman who was used to dealing with her own affairs and having that exposure was a change of pace. She did not get used to it at all.

Family gatherings or dinner dates with my parents seemed to be providing the most interesting challenge during the time we lived with them for those short months. It seemed that no matter when my girlfriend and I asked to have a dinner date or just go out on the town, my Mother had to check with the entire clan to see who was available for these socialites. That usually meant a brother, his wife and his two children. I find it difficult enough to get together with one daughter today, let alone getting a clan together. That was a consistent roadblock to sanity.

It was at times, the most frustrating thing we were experiencing. We were not totally aware of this society which we were not part of. Even my sister-in-law mentioned to my girlfriend that she was tired of hearing about her, in a tongue to cheek way of speaking but serious indeed. I am not sure my Mother was aware of it or not, but she was causing some strain between us all when trying to figure these plans out. It became a literal fiasco. Mom always had a habit of pushing too hard, of trying to be inclusive at every step of the way, in every way, especially when it came to my brother and his family. It definitely pushed the boundaries of patience and understanding. It seemed to us that there would be a major insult if they were not included in absolutely everything we did.

By the time my girlfriend and I moved out of their home, we were starting to feel a strain in our relationships, what could be called a mini smothering of family at each and every turn. Keep in mind that for all of these past years, I had grown into my own man, and with the advent of meeting my girlfriend, I had blossomed fully into the man I wanted to be and knew I always was. Along with that, came a high degree of confidence and assuredness in myself that I never experienced before. I had become ME and was so happy about it!

That change was not something that anyone in the south was prepared for. I had left as an insecure twenty some-odd year old and returned a confident forty some-odd year old complete with a new life and a new outlook. That rebirth certainly collided with a family who had not undergone any major “structural” changes in their lives in the last two decades from a relational standpoint in the circle of trust. Here I was in the midst of an insider’s club becoming slowly but surely, in the next decade, a total outsider. The only one who perhaps might have understood the same thing was my nephew’s first wife, and she was smart enough to leave out of that situation after a year of marriage and living with my brother and his family. She apparently didn’t like merry-go-rounds.


I could never understand the relationship between my Mother and my brother. I had for years considered my relationship with my parents as a very close one. Coming back to Florida, I realized the symbiotic relationship shared by these two was something I didn’t have nor would I ever have. Independence was a key word in my life and looking at the dynamics of my family, I realized that interdependency was the keyword there. That didn’t quite fit with my lifestyle as I had been used to being on my own for too long to be dependent on just about anyone, as was my girlfriend. Even as a married man, I was very independent.
Family gatherings were always interesting. No matter what the occasion, there was always a need for a quick, secretive “huddle” between either my Mom and brother or him and my parents.

We could not help but wonder what all of these clandestine meetings were about and they left us stumped and curious for sure. After they broke up, there was always some heavy emotion attached to them. It was amazing to watch. I had rarely if ever requested a private audience with neither my Mother, nor my parents and if I had one, it was to discuss a small matter, not any matter of utmost urgency, which all of these seemed to be. The differences were beginning to mount up for us. My brother is the type of fellow who takes up a lot of space and his physical presence is appreciative. You notice him immediately and can’t help but be drawn in by his being there. Our differences as human beings and brothers could not be further apart.

How do I explain that difference? Well, Tony Soprano versus Tom Hanks, in a very loose sense of the word. My four years in college, a stint in the seminary along with my disposition as an easy going, humorous, non-competitive guy could not be further from the image of a guy who was wound tight, was a ranking law enforcement officer, was competitive and who ruled with an iron fist. I spoke with emotional intelligence; he spoke with his physical presence and might and commanding voice. He quite often chided me that he was thought of as unintelligent and opinionated because of his large presence and diction but in my years of experience with other law enforcement personnel, his personality was all his own and was not to be linked necessarily to his occupation. That would have meant that he let his job define him, which I do believe was the case. It was the perfect job for a guy like him. Forceful, determined, a strong leader, a presence to be dealt with if you had him on his wrong side and rewarding if you obeyed. That was him both professionally and personally. He took charge of EVERYTHING in his life.

For years all I had heard was what a terrible hard job my brother had. He told me he was a prisoner to his job even in a literal sense of the word and my parents were quick to remind me what a tough career he had. “Jim, your poor brother works so hard and has it tough.” I had often wondered if a choice of any other job or occupation in his life had been ripped from him and left him without any other direction other than the one he had? It was as if he reveled in his inability to have a career change and loved to remind everyone what a tough unforgiving career he had. I am quite certain that for a multitude of years my own father did not know what the title of my job was at the time or what I even did because my own brothers’ occupation was so omnipresent. I congratulate him and any other person who remained at a job for more than 20 years. That was neither my forte nor my direction. I stayed in industries for many years but felt free to pursue better opportunities as they came up to enhance my families’ position as best I could, which sometimes worked and at other times didn’t!

Hearing as often as I did about his poor career made me wonder on occasion if life was too easy for me? I suffered through countless white collar shenanigans and non union follies in my career but took them all with the right measure of angst and appreciation. When the time came to move on, I did so. With three children to feed, our family of five struggled for years to make ends meet. A small vacation was enough to get us all excited. I always forged ahead and never stopped thinking about how I could make my life better. Despair rarely took hold of me though I did have some dark moments as we all do at jobs that weren’t a great fit for my strengths and personality.

By the mid 2000’s, things really came to a boiling point when one spring Florida evening my wife suggested we call my brother for an outing on the town. After a week of traveling, which I did a lot of on my job, I suggested to my brother that we meet at a midpoint so it would save me some time from traveling an additional 15-20 minutes to pick him up then head back in the opposite direction for dinner, then head back to drop him off and go home. I was a bit tired and this made all the sense to me. Is there anyone who doesn’t do that for convenience sake or just common sense on occasion when meeting friends or family? This infuriated my brother.

What followed was a rant and rave about how I made him meet me half way and how ridiculous that was and then this verbal tirade continued on with how horribly I treated my parents too by making them do the same! I was stunned. This really came out of left field and didn’t relate at all to the conversation, but he allowed himself the opportunity to rip me apart about my shabby treatment of my parents and how I was causing him the discomfort of meeting half way and not picking him up. As anger flowed all over my once calm, tired body, I became infuriated with him and hung the phone up after cursing him. Later we spoke to clear the air but the topics that came up were not necessarily timely; they were twenty years old and had to do with relationships and events of times gone by. A therapist would have had a field day with it and it was at that time that I realized that what my brother held against me wasn’t just from this reunion move back here but from decades ago and more perceived slights to his gigantic chest of armor.


We tried once again after another year of poor communication to reunite for “Mom’s sake”, which I thought was a poor reason to be brothers again, but on this occasion I had to let go of any hopes of reconciliation because of what was on his mind. With his usual largesse, he said to me he would forgive my wife and me for everything and we could start over. I had to muster all my patience and diplomacy to not get up and scream from the top of my lungs. “Forgive us for what?” What in the world had we done, except to not give him the extraordinary attention he needed as a human being, or to puff up his neediness to be the center of the world, especially with my Mother? All I could do was shake my head; I don’t know if it went up and down or sideways, but I shook it and said, “OK”. It was over in every sense of the word and when I had seen my Mother again I told her that her son wanted to forgive my wife and me for all we did. In no uncertain words to her, I told her what he could do to himself. My Mother, of course, could not understand my thoughts on the matter, as my brother always played to her as the victim, an immature and irresponsible stand to take as a fifty some odd year old man. I had taken responsibility in my part in all of this but it was never enough. I always felt like I was the initiator of any and all the trouble, but that was far from the truth.

There was rarely an occasion when my parents and I got together over the last five years that my brother was NOT the central part of our conversation. It was downright unbearable and the more I asked that this stop, the more it went on. It went so far beyond obsession that my own therapist later on had suggested I write it down and publish it. It astounded him as well. The more we tried, the worse it became until finally all relations with my brother were cut and that drove him to the edge as he could not command the situation anymore because no situation would exist again. His attacks became more verbal and abusive to me when he did see me and he began to do childish things behind my parents back, like make faces and give me the finger, all while I ignored him and laughed it off. It was extraordinarily worrisome to me and very sad to see.

And so the descent into Hell began. The second child versus the first. The inner circle versus the interloper. It didn’t get better and the deep mistrust of his motives for his unhappiness with us and uneasiness especially with my wife eventually would lead to an entire fracturing of our family. My youngest daughter was already chastened for a breach in faith with my brother, which in turn fractured her relationship with my parents. Connected at every turn as always. Through it all was my Mother, the lynchpin to this train that was getting more and more out of control, making excuses for my brother at every turn and chiding my wife more and more for not being friendlier to a guy who was already hostile to her. The question was why? I have no doubt the answer was jealousy. The green monster reared its head and was systematically crushing the other son, the second child.


Therapy, for me, has always been a wonderful thing. It is a meeting of minds between you and a professional that helps forge an understanding of a situation and/ or the dynamics of a relationship that you would possibly not have understood previously and once understood, clarified often to the point of major ah-ha moments. Since my personality profiles have “Communicator” as one of my strengths, this was a perfect fit for me to understand life through a pair of disconnected ears and eyes.

I had sought out therapy several times before in my life. It occurred twice as I was processing through a divorce, both with and without my ex, and then afterwards as a single to try to understand the many unanswered questions that plagued me up to that time in my life. The first two therapists were women who did a fine job but the third was a Vietnam vet, a helicopter pilot, who I developed a great bond with. Man to man, we were able to discern the many insecurities I had in my life, including being a second child and my feelings about my relationships especially with my Mother. I came to a great conclusion then which literally reshaped how I thought of myself and how I viewed my Mother. The conclusion was I was a person who had much to offer, who was a good person with strong character traits and that no matter what happened, there were some things that I could not change, namely other people! I fell in love with myself and in turn, was able to give it freely. The ah-ha moments started flowing freely.

This was an acceptance of my very being that I hadn’t had before. My Mother was her own package, with her own strengths and faults, and I was ME, and that was a good thing. However, my Mother didn’t need to protect me or keep secrets about me since I was out of the circle of trust. That necessity didn’t exist.
This was a mid-forties revelation and it could not have come any sooner and was expanded quite a lot later on when, while I was in the depths of processing through this emotional Florida merry-go-round with my family once again and trying to figure out why so much hostility existed towards us. I sought out a therapist again and it was another revelation that helped me understand the onion-like layers of insecurities and secrets that permeated my family. Intertwined with all of these never ending unfolding dramas which I was more a spectator to rather than a participant to, was a gambling component. I did not know that aside from being a family therapist, my therapist was also a gambling counselor. That was a consistent undercurrent in the relationships of the southern family here and one that was very destructive to that inner circle. It ruled in many ways, their psyche and actions.

Not only was it destructive but it helped insulate them from the rest of the world by cementing secrets. Secrets and lies that came back to me in the way of, “Oh you don’t understand”or“It’s so terrible that I can’t even begin to tell you.” I was blown away by how closed lipped and secretive the inner circle had become and how I had penetrated it enough to see the enormous dysfunctionality of it firsthand. Gambling was a hobby shared between both my parents and my brother and his wife. It drove how they celebrated vacations and how they spent their spare time. At times, it was even to the detriment of my Father’s precarious health, which amazed me entirely. The more I commented on it, the more excuses were given to me.
Therapy opened my eyes to this unbelievable dynamic and helped me understand further that I was just an outside observer looking into an inner circle who was keeping the veil of secrecy up. I was one who was able to view only so much and that in order for the inner circle to stay closed; the secrets had to be maintained. What secrets could be so horrible that I could not be privy to them fully?

Addictions, failed relationships, iron-fisted leadership, money problems, stealing, lies and sexual choices. I thought only these things existed in soap operas, not in my family. But there they were and with each and every revelation, I was more and more amazed. I was dumbfounded that my very intelligent, very together parents had become virtual strangers to me by virtue of keeping secrets. On occasion the only way I could get the truth was for my Father to pick up the phone and call me to chat about the family dramas while my Mother was out doing chores. It gave him an outlet he didn’t enjoy with my brother, obviously!

The eventual decade decline of my relationship with my Mother and also the death of my relationship with my brother had everything to do with hiding the truth, of keeping the circle closed, of protecting themselves from outside eyes, of not accepting us for who we were. I was such an intrusion that it created too many problems for them. We had too many opportunities to see their reality and it collided completely with our sane, sensible, balanced lives. Rather than deal with me, it was easier to systematically eliminate us through complaints of mistreatment, missteps, slights and exaggerations that really didn’t amount to much at all, if anything, except for the fact that we saw through all the smoke, which lead to further disintegration and estrangement. We were more honest about these situations than they were and that was a threat to them. The truth was quite destructive and I am sure, embarrassing.

Eventually Mom had to make a choice. The inner circle or me. Accept my world as the truth or continue to hide in the circle. What relationship was easier to maintain? The answer was obvious and didn’t take much thought. The eventuality was a separation caused by all of these horrific misdeeds by myself and my wife, but also widened a separation that had already existed for many years and culminated here. My brother’s behavior also gave my children the opportunity to let him know that his treatment of us was unfair and unacceptable and that they should not communicate anymore until this passed. He had lost control of his relationship with his nieces as well and that must have been devastating for him as a control expert. As far as my entire family was concerned, including my ex, his behavior was not welcome.

I can’t say I was jealous of the relationship my brother and Mother share. If anything, it is a relationship I do not understand nor one that I can fathom from its depth of connectivity. It goes beyond being close. It might even be that Italian curse that so many men share for their Mothers, being tied to their apron strings. A symbolic tie together of the child’s umbilical cord to Mom’s very being. I never had that feeling as I didn’t ever consider myself needy of that type of relationship. I was certain I was close to my parents. I had for years enjoyed a warm close relationship with them. Loving, caring, participative. Perhaps though that isn’t enough. Too many emotions come into play and one of the worse I have seen here is dependency. I don’t think I had spent more than a few hours alone with my Mother in the decade I have lived here or rarely went on an outing with her alone. It was always and still is my brother and her. Whenever I am told about family decisions from my Father, he makes sure to tell me that, “Your Mother and brother think… (whatever it might be)”. I am always an afterthought. The other son. Always the outsider.

And what of Dad? He is barely mentioned here but suffered from being outvoted and overridden in just about every instance in his later years and has become a footnote in the family. His voice is only considered when his once active roar gets loud enough or serious enough. He was a man of fortitude and backbone who in his later years had given up all authority to my Mother and he caved in to the whims of my brother. The circle of trust in essence, choked him out as well. His weakened health and the resignation of controlling his own destiny became his trademark. He is literally threw the towel in. Gave up. Resigned. That was not something I could look up to and I felt sad that he gave much control of his life.

What have I learned? From MY perspective, as far as being the second child, I am equal. I am valued. I am a good person. Maybe not in the eyes of my family but in the eyes of others. My wife. My children. My friends. My colleagues. Even though at every step of the way in this flowering crescendo, a concerted effort existed by my Mother and brother to destroy that confidence, that plan, whether consciously or subconsciously, it never worked on me. I may have lost out but they lost more. They lost everyone who lived outside the inner circle. Trust destroyed. Love diminished. Hope lost. Sad, so sad. I remain standing and independent.

The dysfunctionality of the inner circle remains intact and I am more than happy to have checked out of the show and focused again on my health and other more important things in my life, like my new grandchildren, travelling with my wife and enjoying life to the fullest. I respect my parents as best as I can while recognizing that our relationship is not what it once was. Dad will pass on one day and when he gets called back home to the Lord, he will understand the truth. Mom, for her part, will be totally dependent on my brother for everything and that will mean an entire loss of control for her own life, something which I don’t think she has ever given thought to or even wants to. It is written. It is done. It is the way it was meant to be and will never be any different.

I remain the other son, the seccond child,and am content to be so.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.07.2011

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Dedicated to all of those who struggle in relationships. There is hope.