I do feel blessed to have been raised an only child. I had a wonderful childhood.

Vicki: Good question–you should ask Becki! I’ve thought of that, too–we both have half-brothers who have been varying degrees of involved in our lives. I’ve talked to Jesse about his relationship to his brother as well, and I think we had two very different experiences, even though from the outside the situations seemed similar. I wonder how many of my friends have similar experiences too. I think it’s not all that uncommon.

Correct me if I’m wrong…but I always get a feeling like you feel as if the absence of your brother in your life is caused by something you did, or something of that nature. It isn’t, you know. Maybe the divorce of your Dad and his Mom hurt him deeply, and he just never wanted to associate with your family that much anymore due to the pain that the divorce caused him. You (me and Jesse too) are blessed to have parents that didn’t divorce, and that makes us abnormal in this day and age. Your brother obviously has issues, because you would have been an amazing sister to him, and I’m sure if he gets his head out of unknown regions one day, he’ll realize that. Being the forgiving person that you are, I’m sure that you would have no problem welcoming him into your life. Or maybe you’ll never have that connection to him, who’s to say? You should feel very blessed to have been raised as an only child. Just think of how close you are with your parents, or think of all of the opportunities that you had because they focused all of their attention on you.

It’s great to think about the past and reminisce, but it’s important at other points in time to realize that you are who you are today thanks to all of the circumstances that occurred during your lifetime thus far, and that you are an intelligent, beautiful person. Who would want to change that?