I have one brother; he’s almost 3 years younger than me. We’re very, very different people–he’s a lawyer, is married, has a big house, all that. I love him, he loves me, I love his wife dearly too, but we almost never talk outside of get togethers. If he were to call me, I’d think something was wrong, except that I’d be the one to get the phonecall first. To be fair, we see each other at least once or twice a month as we all live within 15 min of each other and our parents/grandmothers. We just don’t keep in touch via phone/email other than that.
My sister is six years older than I. We never spoke in a friendly manner until after she moved out for college. We didn’t actually become close until after I graduated from college as well. We live in different states now, but we speak weekly and visit nearly every other month or so.
Now my husband has four siblings, all less than two years apart from one another, who all live in-state. They talk when they run into each other at their mother’s house once or twice a year.
My brother and I are close, and we see each other at least every other week, usually more often than that. Our parents were never close to their siblings, and we’ve always thought that it was sad.
I absolutely adore my big brother (5 years apart). If I thought I wasn’t bugging him I’d probably call him every other day. I save it all up instead and we have marathon phone conversations every few weeks. He is just the coolest person to talk to. He’s a history teacher and I’m just about the only person in his life who isn’t bored to tears hearing him talk about his students or some important bit of trivia that sets him off on an hour long tangent. I love it.
Our family was always close. Regular Sunday dinners, everyone watching out for one another. Family always came before friends. My brother never bullied me or picked on me like other big brothers did with my friends. I’ve always kind of been the family screw-up but he’s always treated me with nothing but respect. Now that we’re older we live very, * very * different lives but it doesn’t make any difference. Talking to him is home for me.
I speak with my sister nearly every day via email. She and I live about 3500 miles apart. I do not speak to my step-brothers unless they call me, same with my step-sister. I have nothing in common with them aside from their dad being my step-dad.
Anyone who loves a sibling and hasn’t said it lately? Do it. My sister died on Friday, and I will regret forever that I didn’t call her at Christmas. We usually spoke about once a month and this year, for some reason, we didn’t talk at Christmas. I could have called her, and I didn’t. Her death was completely unexpected and sudden, and now I can never tell her another joke, or hear one of hers. Nor tell her that I loved her.
It is very painful, and I wish no one else ever has to experience that pain.
I’m 26, Sis is 22 and my little brother is 21. I make it a point to call the least every other week. We don’t really have much in common, but we do talk. Whether it’s about the family things or what they’re up to, which I may not care about, I still like to know what’s going on.
It may be the older brother thing, but I just imagine not talking to them. Then again, I might be the weird one in this.
Could not care less?
I have a younger sister and older brother. Those two talk to each other. But I don’t talk to either of them. It’s not that I don’t like them… it’s that they’re both so much different than me. My brother is a drunk, chronic liar, and hopelessly lazy, while my sister has lived in the fast lane for many years and has been married more times than I can recall. Neither are college educated and both have menial jobs. I just don’t have anything to say them, I guess.
vision, I’m very sorry to hear about your sister. You must be having a hard time. Take care.
Oh, no, I am quite the bitch and could care less, except that it would take too much work – and she is not worth my time.
vison – I am very sorry for your loss. A similar thing happened with my Dad, except that I actually wanted to speak to him, but something had happened that had me really upset and I didn’t want him to be worried about me. He died suddenly that day. I had the chance to talk to him, I wanted to talk to him, and I didn’t because I didn’t want him upset. I will forever regret that I didn’t talk to him. I know how hard it is. I am sorry.
I have a sister and I don’t think we usually go more than a week or so without talking. Even when we lived far away (1,500 miles) we flew out to see each other at least once a year.
The duties of the family matriarch include keeping people informed of what’s going on in other people’s lives, so when I’m out of town I know what my brothers are up to through the phone calls to Mom. We drop occasional emails; some are personal, some from the youngest sib are “mass mails” (along the lines of “tell everybody in my address book I have a new job, yoohoo”).
When I’m at Mom’s I see the youngest 5-14 times a week (when he comes over to be fed); the married one… we can go weeks without seeing hide nor hair of him. Mom’s happy that The Nephew is now undergoing potty-training and being taken to Children’s Mass (the only one in town is in her parish, the church is the building next door to her house) because that means she gets to see both her middleborn and her only grandchild at least once a week, when they come to have the kid pee after Mass. When he still wore diapers, there were times she didn’t see or hear from Bro unless and until she went to pick him up from his job.
The situation with Middlebro is not normal, most people here see their parents at least once a week if they live within one hour of each other or less; my brothers and Mom live in the same town. Lilbro’s situation is normal for a guy who’s single. Mom feeds him, he does the heavy lifting.