-----Original Message-----
From: "Evelyn Millican" <edandevmil@...>
To: <Grief_Group@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:15:40 -0400 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [Grief_Group] Question

I have a question.....I've already made my decision but I really do need to know what your opinion of it is.  So here goes.....   I've spent most of my life being the emotional whipping post for my younger brother...He has been involved with drugs and alcohol almost from the time he hit his teens.   Mom was always there to bail him out of whatever difficulty he got himself into.  (  I'm not criticizing her, she was his mom and no matter what she loved him).   However, as time went on things got worse and worse and again, mom always was there with hand out.  When my dad died in 1994, he left mom very comfortable financially.  She would have had to worry about nothing for the rest of her life but that soon changed.   Before mom came to live with me and my family in Michigan, my brother and his family moved in with her because, once again, they had nowhere to go.   While she was with us, my brother stripped my moms house bare and sold everything she had for drugs. He was using her house to made Meth and probably selling it too. There is so much more to this story but it would take you a hour or two to read it so I won't bore you with the gory details.    As always, mom made excuses for him and put the blame everywhere except on his shoulders.   Because of mom's ill health, I walked a fine line between wanting to scream at her and tell her to wake up or just keeping my mouth shut.    I chose to keep my mouth shut and just avoid talking about it with her as much as possible.  My family went through hell and very high water.   Thank God for my husband and kids.   Ed was more than supportive.  There are those that would have thrown up their hands and walked away.  When mom died, I saw my brother for the first time in almost two years at the funeral.   I'd made my peace with the fact that mom was gone and she had asked me to forgive him for what he had done.  I did and I do but three weeks after mom's funeral, there was a message on my answering machine from my brother.  He wasn't calling to talk about mom or see how I  was doing without her but all he wanted to know was if mom had left him anything.   I didn't return the call.     I hadn't heard from him again till last night.  Almost a year.  He called me last night.  My son talked to him and he told Greg  (my son) to tell me that he loved me and he wanted me to forgive him for everything he'd done.    I talked to him at mom's funeral and told him that I loved him because, after all, he was my brother and I forgave him.    I know, in my heart that this is just a prelude to him wanting to be back in my good graces and back in my life but I just can't do this again.  I have prayed about it more times than I can count.  I don't hate him and I wish him nothing but a good life but I refuse to place my self back in front of that speeding train again.  I Don't think God requires that of us. I can't help him with his problems, I tried all his life but it always turns out the same way.   I've lost a father and a son and now my mom, all since 1994 and I just can't take any more stress in my life.  I can't live his life for him.  It isn't that he doesn't know the bible and the words of the Lord.  He can probably recite a lot of them verbatim but he refuses to live by them unless it suits his need at the moment.   I can give him nothing but my prayers which I do freely but I can't go back to the way it was before or pretend a relationship that doesn't exist anymore.  I pray that he gets his life together and is happy in it but I can't have him as a close part of mine anymore.  I pray that God will give him peace in his life.   I miss my mom.   It is sometimes a physical pain to realize that the things I loved to do and share with her I can no longer do.  The special memories of those times will always live in  my heart.  When I hear from him it only brings back the knowledge that without the things he did, mom might still have had a few more years but I thank God for welcoming her with open arms for she was so very ready to go.   Thanks for letting me unburden myself.   That is what is so good about this list.   Evelyn