Last night I found out that my brother Brian died…in April…but I was not told or allowed to say goodbye. Again. This is the second brother in 18 months that I have lost and not been allowed to know anything about. The obvious question…why? I cut off most of my adopted family over the years for my peace and sanity. If you know me very well, you know I did not have a conventional home life, but it wasn’t all bad…and much of that was thanks to Brian.

For those who don’t know…I was given up for adoption, was a foster child and then adopted. In this adopted family, my parents had 3 biological boys who were all much older than me. Arthur, Brian and Andrew. One would believe that after seeking me out and going thru the process to adopt me, they would have treasured me and loved me for my entire life. Unfortunately, that is NOT what happened.

Cutting family out of your life is not easy but sometimes it is very necessary. Families hurt each other. Families take out the worst times of their lives on one another; but families also forgive each other. Families love and protect each other…most of the time. Protecting your children is a parent’s most important job and mine failed miserably at it. Brian protected me when he could, but he didn’t live at home anymore and he didn’t know everything that was happening to me. He was 11 years older than me but would come around a lot and even took me on dates with him from time to time to get me out of the house. Brian was the most loving and fun brother a little girl could have asked for. I absolutely adored him, everybody did! As a teenager I would spend summers with him in Mississippi where he lived. He took me fishing on his charter boat, we’d go floundering at night and I helped him with paint jobs as well, just to be with him. I didn’t care what we were doing, as long as I was with him. I loved him so much and there are so many fantastic memories with him, so it was really, really hard to cut him out of my life for good 18 mos ago, but I had to do it. He joined the rest of the family outside my inner-circle, and I was devastated that he had turned on me and taken sides with the “bad” brother, Andrew. (That story is for another day.) Having somebody you idolize turn on you hurts the heart so much more than you can imagine.

I grew up a perfectionist people pleaser. One could say it’s because I was adopted and always had to be the “good girl” so my parents would still want me. My little 5 year old brain thought they might give me back if I was bad. It’s a legit thought but who knows what the reality is. The perfection is something that has served me well in my career but not so well in relationships. I’ve allowed people to treat me in ways that you can’t imagine because I didn’t want to upset them out of fear of abandonment. I’ve blamed myself for their actions and I’ve been blamed for a LOT of things that were never my fault, both as a child and an adult.

As a mother, I cry for my inner child who believed she had to be perfect for people to love her. I want to hold her and love her and tell her is worthy of love. Since I cannot do that, I have started loving my adult self the way I would love that scared little girl if she walked into my life now. Unfortunately, that has meant cutting a LOT of people out of my life completely, family included.

There is only me and the “bad” brother, Andrew, remaining alive from my immediate adopted family. Ironically, he is the reason there was a huge wedge in our family. Dad died 20+ years ago, Mom died 8 years ago, Arthur died May of ’23 and Brian April of ’24. Andrew is one of the sickest in the head people you can imagine, thus prison. He is manipulative and mean. He was unbelievably abusive. Imagine going to school with your jaw out of place from being hit in the face because you dared to use the bathroom when he needed it to get ready for work. How would you react to a 2×4 coming at you, but you duck just in the nick of time and the cabinet on the wall splinters into pieces instead of your head. Just sharing a couple of the less damaging instances. Somehow, day after day of this abuse (and a lot more), Mom protected him and condemned me. Again, as a mother, I cannot fathom! If anyone hurt my daughter, they’d better RUN. I have protected my daughter with a fierce passion her entire life and I will do it til the day I die or become unable!

I’m a little all over the place as I write this, I know and my apologies. I am so confused…I don’t know how to feel. I’m trying to just let the feelings come, and honor each of them so I can let go and say goodbye in my heart; although, I already said goodbye to him nearly 2 years ago. I told him he was dead to me when I found out he was supporting Andrew in prison and those words still sting to this day. He was by far the hardest person to cut off, but I deserve to have peace in my life and not deal with imagined drama. So while I know I did the right thing, it doesn’t hurt my heart any less. I loved Brian and will love him always. I will remember all the good and how much he loved and helped me.

I love you Brian.