Aaron

Aaron is my brother. He is 5 1/2 years younger than me. As most of you can surmise from past posts, our childhood was not idyllic. No need to go into the details, but let's just say Aaron often thought of me as his mother instead of his sister.

As you can imagine the affect this would have on a girl from age 10 to basically 18, I resented the hell out of him and was too stupid to realize it wasn't his fault he had shitty parents. Often I took it out on him and wasn't very nice. I always made sure he had food, clean clothes, walked him to school and made sure he was safe, but also made it clear that he was to leave me the hell alone after that.

As I got older and realized how messed up the situation was and how it was affecting him too - the guilt set in. The hours I've spent feeling guilty about how I treated that kid, you can't imagine.

Fast forward to today. We couldn't be closer. Over the last 18 years or so, our relationship has solidified. He has lived with us a few times, calls when he needs advice, is always there for me if I need someone to listen and has turned in to one hell of a great guy and awesome brother. His views on life are so level-headed and common sense. He is the first person I think of to call when I need a cool head that will tell me the way it is and not just what I want to hear. We've had many heart-to-hearts and hashed out our childhood. I've apologized for what I saw as bad treatment, only to find out there were no hard feelings, only gratitude for the things I happened to get right.

We don't get to see each other as often as we'd like due to the distance between where we live, but we talk at least 1-2 times every week, if not more.

Now we commiserate as adults about our parents and stand together with our boundaries firmly in place.

He came in town 3 days early for Alyson's graduation which gave us a chance to hang out and do some fun things before all the other family showed up. His favorite baseball team is the Minnesota Twins so I bought tickets to a game to surprise him. We also went kayaking on the Namekagon River, played golf twice and spent hours playing the Wii with the kids and John. We had a great time although it made me realize how much I miss being around him. He is the best uncle to my kids and they love him to death. He and John are great friends and love nothing more than to gang up on me!

Tough times can either bring siblings together or pull them apart. Lucky for me, it bonded my brother and I forever.