Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Sibling Love

Over the weekend, my mum and I had a short conversation that stayed glued to my mind even as I was lying down to sleep yesterday night. She was actually asking me about Gerrie. To give you a background on why she asked, I had to tell mum about Gerrie to get her off my back about Lilian, my aunt's niece whom my mum seem to think is bethrothed to me...so out came Gerrie to assure her that "Hey, I am looking and working on it, so don't worry about me."

Somehow the conversation then strayed to my brother and his financial indiscretions. Ok, basically he accumulated thousands of dollars of debt on his credit cards and needed my mum to bail him out...and now, my sis-in-law is the one who's returning my mum's credit back to her. The lucky man...

I do not want to talk much about this since my brother's imprudence is nothing more than history repeating itself...again, again and again. What's of interest is a topic which I've always hated my mum for bringing up: A future when both my father and her have passed on...

Basically she tells me that the house will be mine as would her savings. All I'm required to do is pass to my brother 30 grand. Whatever I want to do with the house is my prerogative. Sell it, live in it, rent it out, whatsoever.

I simply shrank away from the conversation because it was something I didn't really to hear or know. It's awful when you are listening to someone close to you talking about him/her not being around. But it stuck in my mind.

Yesterday night, even as I was preparing to sleep, the conversation came drifting back into my mind. I finally though to myself: What would happen when my parents do pass on? All that's left in this world for me would be my brother, friends and my future spouse (God doesn't count because I prefer to think of him as my destination in my next life, this life is just a passage. This is why I've never worried much about my own death.)

I am not going to talk about friends nor my future spouse (whoever that is) in this post. I will talk about my brother instead.

My brother and I, we do not talk much. It is something I recognise that's more of my own making because I despise his flaws with a fervour. Flaws that needed rescuing by the people who loves him most...again, again and again. I could never do what my mum and pop do by loving him wholeheartedly despite the repeated disappointments that he springs on them. And that, I guess is my undoing.

When my parents are gone, like it or not, he'd be all that's left of family. He'd be the one person in the world of direct kinship to me. Can I look beyond my spite for his personal flaws to love him as a brother? Fact is, I have done him injustice. He has loved me despite my indifference and intolerance towards him. Unselfish love is probably above all else when it comes to virtues and of this, I am the lesser of the two.

Sometimes, my behaviour makes me anguished. I tell myself that because he is like that, I have no choice but to be nasty...but everything is a choice. If someone puts a gun to your head and threatens to kill you unless you kill someone else, you can choose not to kill. Simple. But we are chicken. So we say we have no choice. The right thing to do/choice to make usually isn't the easiest.