Why I cannot be friends with my brother.

Yesterday my cousin J., the one whose daughter is getting married in a little over a week, called to a) invite me and Hubby to a party at her place the evening before for out-of-town guests (we can�t go because we�ll be celebrating his dad�s birthday) and b) inquire if we were bringing our children with us and if they would like to come to the wedding. We were planning on giving them a wad of money and letting them loose in the city while we were celebrating my cousin�s nuptials, but they said they would like to come, so I�ll have to take Buddy Boy shopping to buy him some appropriate (semi-)formal attire.

Then my mother called me later to find out if J. had called regarding the out-of-town-guests� party, since she will have her cousin from Ottawa staying with her, so I told her what had been suggested to me, that she and R. get a ride with their cousin W. from New Jersey. Okay, I realize this is very confusing, them all being cousins and all, but bear with me just a little bit longer.

My mom doesn�t see so well these days, a result of the macular degeneration which is slowly but inexorably destroying her vision. She has several frequently-dialled phone numbers programmed into the speed-dial feature of her phone and when she went to call me, accidently hit the button for my brother--not my brother the painter who lives in Israel and with whom I have a very fine relationship, but my other brother, the one to whom I have not spoken in many years, despite my several attempts to let byegones be byegones.

The phone was answered by my sister-in-law and my mother, already on a roll and unable to put on the brakes as easily as a younger person could, asked to speak to me. My sister-in-law did not even have the courtesy to say, �I�m sorry, you have the wrong number.� She just hung up the phone. -30-

So, rather than risk another uncomfortable wedding dinner where my brother and his wife refuse to acknowledge my existence, I have asked J. that our kids be seated with us, in the hope that we will end up at a different table from my own sibling. This probably means not sitting with my mother, but she understands.

Life is short. Blood is supposed to be thicker than water. Why is my sister-in-law so insecure that she must destroy my relationship with my brother? Why has she estranged herself from my mother, one of the warmest, kindest and most generous people you�ll ever meet? I have been pondering these questions for many, many years now, and nothing I come up with is satisfactory. I love my brother, I miss him, but while he is faithful to his wife�s paranoid view that his relatives hate her and are out to get her, he will not see reason. Blood may be thicker than water, but love is totally and utterly blind.

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