Just a quick letter to my younger brother.

Hey Raymond.

About an hour ago, I was warmly recounting stories of your mechanical ingenuity from our youth. You could make anything with your hands. You had the imagination artists yearn for. Your heart was so big. You felt things so deeply. You loved hard. 

I have only seen fragments of that version of you- the real you-since I left home. 

I miss you. I miss the brother who I share my birthday(three years apart) with. I miss the closeness we were cheated of. I miss the relationship we should have had. 

I mourn our childhoods. 

I lament over the daily suffering you go through. 

I am so sorry I let you down. I am so sorry I contributed to your childhood trauma. I was dealing with similar trauma, but that is not an excuse for inflicting you with corporal punishment. You did not deserve to be struck, beat, and railed on by a scared 10-year-old who missed her daddy and did not understand why her mom suffered from addiction. You deserved safety. You deserved loving compassion. You deserved trauma informed care. 

I am sorry you dealt (are dealing, in the time of me writing this) with Grandma and her alcoholism all by yourself. You are a part of her enmeshed codependency that her trauma led her to. I am sorry I could not help you with Grandma. I cannot drift into that sea. That is where I (we) got sick. You did the best you could with what you were dealing with. We will refer to this period of your life as the “After Papa Time.” 

I am sorry you inherited the blind, clumsy hate and anger Papa was inflicted with. His intergenerational trauma left him with no other option. Men DO have feelings that are often overlooked and repressed. It is okay to get help and cry. You are still a man. Masculinity is emotional resilience, mindfulness, and distress tolerance. 

I have never been ashamed of you, Raymond. I am not ashamed of you, even with the tattoos, the incidents with the police, the handling of the After Papa Time. I am proud to be your sister. I am proud you survived. I am proud of you keeping yourself alive. I am proud of the healing journey you will go on. I am proud of the man you will become. If you chose to have children, I am proud of the father you will be: connected, centered, and peaceful. 

I am going to be ecstatically happy when you find your Self, your Healing, and your Salvation.  You will fight for it. It will be the most difficult thing you will do in your life, but you will find it. 

You will be whole again. 

I cannot wait to meet the man, Raymond, who is the best birthday gift a 3 year old girl could have gotten. 

You are so much better than a Barbie doll. 

xoxo