Keep it in the family.

I know everyone has their burdens, their skeletons, their crosses to carry. Some people come out the other side with minimal injury, some people spend a lifetime living the same cycle over and over because changing doesn't seem possible.

My sisters and I have all struggled to become better mothers than ours was. It doesn't mean we don't love her or appreciate her for what she tried to do, just that she really wasn't equipped. We don't want our sons and daughters to struggle in the same ways we all have and so it's our mission to educate, talk, love, listen, help in whatever ways we are capable of. We support one another and talk about the job we're doing. Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, but I'd say the cycle of silence and ignorance is over. The buck stops with us and I especially will be damned if my girls are ever faced with raising themselves because I can't be bothered.

One person who hasn't grown with us in this way was our brother. Our Michael. The one who got lost in the shuffle. The one who decided that escape was a better choice for him. I imagine one reason was because he's a boy and didn't have the same maternal pull we had to clean up our act and change for our children. That is a powerful emotion that courses through your veins, nothing can sever that bond a mother has with her child. It's powerful, instinctual, the very basis of what makes a woman the nurturer.

When he became a father at the age of 15 he wasn't any where near armed with the grit he needed to be the provider and protector of his son. When he became a father he was a scared little boy in a young man's body but hadn't a clue what was needed or expected of him and he let that role wash away with the tide. It was easier. He knew he couldn't be who he needed, or he thought he couldn't. Which is where I'm really going here.

My brother hasn't had a single person believe in him I don't think. I am just really understanding this now because I've taken such a long time to grow myself. It's been such tedious work that I hadn't really thought much about Michael. I forgot about his heart and how he must feel so beaten down. Our mother tried to do her best by him, he was her baby boy, but our step father was hard as nails on him. I think mirroring his own father perhaps but it really fucked Mike up.

Since I can remember, he's always being the butt of all the jokes. The loser who wouldn't amount to anything. He took cues from the rest of the world and started to use humor as a way to deflect the pain the ridicule must have caused him in his life. He drank, acted stupid, and people laughed. The only time it seemed people liked him was when they could laugh with him, or at him. He could face the world and feel welcomed was when he was partying with them. Which sucks so many different ways from Sunday if you ask me. Once he was picked on at a party so bad that people threw him in the fire. He wasn't badly injured physically that day but what about emotionally? With each incident, each haunting laugh echoing through his mind, what happened to his spirit? It brings tears to my eyes even thinking about it.

When he was real young he had friends, misfits like himself who drank and acted rowdy. Boys will be boys. One night he and two of his friends were tooling the neighborhood, drinking and probably smoking pot. Their car left the road and when it flipped over, one of his friends was thrown from the car. Wwhen the car stopped turning it landed on his friend and was crushing him. Three boys having the night of their life and suddenly the earth stood still. The other friend, Russel, and my brother tried to lift it but couldn't so Russel left to get help. Meanwhile my brother sat there with his friend and watched over him, pleaded with the car to move, lifted and tugged and pulled with all his 13 year old strength and eventually watched his friend die.

Powerless.

Weak.

Utterly destroyed and left to blame himself for the rest of his life.

He couldn't lift the car, he couldn't get help fast enough, he couldn't save his life. He was just one big fuck up who couldn't do anything right.

Our father died the exact same way except it was a tractor that took his last breath away. It took his life and took the father that we all needed away from us. Each of us, voiceless, no say in whether we got to have a dad or not. We didn't get to know if he loved us. Mike needed him as much as we all did and then some.

So ironic for him to be sitting there powerless while his friend died the same way our father we never knew died. I wonder if he thought of him while he sat with David during the last hour of his life. I doubt it but still I wonder. It only occurs to me as I write, the coincidence of it all.

Wow.

And these little pieces of Mike's tragedy are just tiny fragments of the losses he's suffered. The pain that he must feel and always he has picked himself up enough to continue on another day. Maybe to drink another day, maybe to be stoned another day, but always another day.

No one got him counseling for this I don't think. I was only 11 when this took place, but I remember my grandmother coming to me and telling me what happened. I felt sad but I had no idea the gravity it held at the time. Children don't understand those types of difficulties for a reason. Perhaps it is God's way of protecting us from the darkness of life. Either way, I wish that I had visited this again with my brother later down the road, but I didn't.

And now I'm sorry, but I'm making up for it in other ways.

Mike has been given a wonderful opportunity under the worst of circumstances. He's in jail. There's no where to run, there's no booze to hide behind and he's managing to keep away from pot even though it's available to him. He's afraid to lose good time and he just wants out as soon as he can.

That isn't going to happen for another 9 months and two years following his incarceration he will be on probation with two years of prison hovering if he screws up.

Last week his girlfriend, who in my opinion is just a white trash hoe bag slut anyway, with her own set of baggage and problems, kicked him to the curb. I couldn't be happier. I'm taking full advantage of his misfortune and convincing him it's good fortune instead. Full access to free counseling which he'll need to get his license back, GED classes to finish his high school education, all tucked away in confinement where his meals and room and board are provided. I keep convincing him to accept his fate and make the very most of this time to get his shit together. I'm reminding my sisters every day to do the same. It's Mike's turn to change his stars.

He is the kindest, sweetest, , funniest, most generous person I know and I love him so much. I just don't want him to feel that pain in his life anymore. I don't want him to listen to the voice inside that tears him down. I want him to find happiness and a life with someone who will believe in him. I believe wonderful things are in store for him if he lets his light shine. As corny as that sounds, it's true. Everyone has blown it out over and over again for one reason or another but I'm hoping to put a blow torch to that son of a bitch and put a strong fortress of support around him. In this one moment, everything could change if we all work together.

I am my family's beacon. I believe this with all my heart. I think because of my bravery, I will help those willing to change their lives. I have been told twice in the past year that I was a healer. Once by a self proclaimed healer and once by a respected psychic in our area. I believe this now even though others may laugh or mock me. When the healer spoke to me last year I told him that I didn't know what he meant or what I was supposed to heal. I kind of chuckled and chocked it up to being something silly someone told me once. He told me then that when the time was right I would know what I was going to be used for. Well now I think I know.

I think I'm supposed to help people heal their hearts. I'm going to start with Michael's if he'll let me.