An Open Letter to My Brother and Sister

It’s been a long time since we connected. Sis and I do occasionally during the year with email letters and focus our attention on Mom and her needs as she approaches 102 years of age. Not so brother to brother. Our lives seem to be apart and busy in their different orbits.

Such is life at times like these. And such is life at our respective ages, too. Bro is 77; Sis is 74 and I’m 72. Our trajectories are not only different but probably on different maps, too. One is in New York, one is in Arizona, and I’m in Illinois. Three distinct regions and cultures of America. We are caught in the vortex of context quite different from each other. That is the way of life. That is as it is supposed to be.

Odd that we are all married/partnered with people with large extended families when our own nuclear family was so small. The five of us – parents and three kids – each partnered. I had two kids, sis had none and bro had three. Even the kids don’t connect among cousins. In our day that was unthinkable but today it is the norm. Facebook and internet networking keeps some of us in touch but not in person. No face to face meet ups, or trips, even.

There were times in the past when we visited each other with some frequency although many miles separated us. That is not the case these days. Health and age, and finances keep distances great. But our thoughts connect at least in our own minds. We are still family as tenuous as that may seem at times.

Lives do grow apart. We each have our struggles with meaning, faith, ideology and understanding of life. And purpose: what are our lives to mean in the future, what have they meant in the past? Do we even care to know this? Is it assumed? Is it an automatic fact of life that needs no attention? Most likely that is so.

I write this blog every day. Have done so for over four years now. Along the way I’ve collected over 74,000 visits to the blog. I wonder who they are? I do know they are from all over the globe and many visit daily while others catch up intermittently. Russia, China, France, England, Africa, South America and the Maldives and Indonesia are some of the homelands of the readers. And India, too! Such a polyglot of cultures and peoples. It is somehow comforting that so many people are interested in what an American thinks about anything. Evidently they do.

I think it is especially interesting that they are interested in an opinion – mine – on so many topics. This may be an opinion blog to some, but it is a search journey for me, making sense of whatever pops to mind after all these years of experiencing life. It is a good thing for me, a mental health outlet to be sure! Hopefully it contains interest for them. But to my siblings? Somehow I doubt we give each other credit for having an informed opinion! How sibling-esque is that!?

Well, maybe this posting will explore that a little more fully. One can only hope. In the meantime it is a good life. Not without its struggles, but a good life just the same. May this be true for brother and sister and their families as well. And to all of you readers, too!

Many happy wishes to you all in this special time of year.

December 18, 2015