George

Mom called me the other day to tell me she had received a nice handwritten card from someone at my church. She had used the prayer request card at our Christmas Eve service to ask for prayers for her son, George, who she hasn't seen is nearly 10 years. I didn't tell her that it was the ministry that John and I co-lead that was responsible; that I saw her request had been targeted to receive an handwritten card and that I had disclosed it was from my mother and that it would be nice if someone sent her a card. Sharing the details of my life with her has never been part of our dance. She wouldn't get it anyway.

When I stopped by later that day after she called, she showed me the card. It had clearly brightened her day and, once again, brother George became the topic of conversation. "I don't know if he's even still alive. Maybe I'll call Joyce and see if she'll tell me if he is at least all right. Probably she won't. She told me one time that she wasn't allowed to speak of Georgie to me and so I shouldn't even ask questions about him."

All I could do was take a deep breath and let my anger toward my oldest sibling go.

Gazing into my mother's eyes, I sensed her depth of despair over her firstborn's absence from her life for more than 30 years. And now, she had a new worry: what if Georgie has died? She wouldn't know. Neither would I.

My spiritual director, Sarah, has broached the subject of reconciliation with brother George. It's odd because he and I never had words, nor any kind of misunderstanding. He was mad at Mom & Dad and turned his back on all of his siblings. But, he did stay in touch with Aunt Joyce, my dad's sister.

"He'll always, always be MY son," Mom said as she vigorously rocked back and forth in her platform rocker. "I told Joyce that once, you know. I said, 'he's still my son, no matter what.'"

Brother George deeply challenges my core values because I continue to harbor angry unforgiveness toward him on behalf of my mother. She never deserved his desertion from our family. She is not an evil person. She may have had poor judgment and said unkind things in the heat of a moment, but nothing deserves this total rejection of his parents and his whole family. He robbed his children of family who would have loved them; robbed my children of knowing their aunt and uncle and cousins. The saddest piece of all is I can't even imagine how I could forgive him for abandoning us; for not being here now to help me with our mother. He lives 20 minutes away. I just shake my head in hopeless disbelief.




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Location:Gile Rd,Nottingham,United States