One Big Happy Family... Not!

I look at photo's of my mom and dad and can't help wonder how it all got so messed up?!

People start out with the best of intentions, but somehow, it all gets messed up. We hurt the ones we love the most, say the most vicious things to them. Things we would never say to people we call friends, or work acquaintances. I find it all quite baffling.

We are supposed to forgive 70 X 7, endless, and yet it is so hard when you get crushed by doing the best you know how...
I wish I could wave my magic wand and make it all better for everyone.
My family is soooo messed up. It boggles my mind sometimes, I feel very fortunate to have escaped most of the mess.... I am not perfect, far from it. But I am tired of being dragged back down into it, like a crab trying to escape the cook pot, all the other crabs drag him back in just as he is about to get out!
I have a wonderful life, why me? A super wife, great upstanding, morally conscious children. A decent job, a nice home etc. Is it simply the choices we make? Or don't make?

I wonder where the vitriol comes from that is spewed by my sister towards me? Is it self hatred, self loathing? Jealousy, envy? Or perhaps she feels that I am pompous, self promoting in all my endeavors to help her and others?
I am at a loss to understand why my brother is so angry towards me. All our lives I have stood in the gap for him. At every turn, at every challenge in his life I have been there for him. I have joined with him in many of his endeavors and adventures.

This blow out of our family happens to many families. Especially at times of high stress like these, where family members may die. I remember when I was about 14 my mom had a similar event in her life. Her husband Ray died, at a family gathering of her brothers and sisters, she lost it and her family called the medics, they came and took her away in a straight jacket! That effectively split the family apart. Seems history is repeating itself.

I love him a lot, my brother Ted. He and I had a wonderful childhood, often mistaken as twins. Playing baseball and football together. I look forward to the future with him. We have a lot of golfing to do yet!