When I created the blog I really wanted to engage an audience.  I came up with the tabs at the top of the page to give everyone a chance to express their selves regarding these subjects. I have blogged about my thanks, lost love and the dream. I haven’t done anything under the “I’m sorry” tab. The more I thought about having ignored the subject the more it bothered me that I couldn’t come up with a couple hundred words to express an apology.

First I needed to come up with a name. Who could I apologize to? One name kept coming into my head over and over again. There is only one person that I can think of that I haven’t cleaned things up with.  There is one person who I can look at with all my resentment and still never express how sorry I am that our relationship has suffered for almost forty years.

It is my brother Luis. I made a vow a very long time ago to act as though he didn’t exist. I was twelve and he was thirteen.  The details of this are in my book and so without giving too much of it away I would like to extend a long overdue apology.

My brother and I were close when we thought we were cousins. There is more about that in the book. When I returned home at the age of seven none of us knew how to handle it. My brother and sister where already bonded and I was the outsider. Lola was far more open to being my immediate family, but Luis was not impressed.

As an adult I can say that I did try to get closer to him and our lives were so different that we just didn’t have anything in common. He was a Christian and I was a lesbian. No room for negotiation there. I was going to hell and he would watch from the seat next to Jesus’ throne.

We are fifty years old now and I think it’s time to address this issue. I am sorry Luis Pedron that I have never reached you. I am sorry that the last couple of times that you visited my home have ended in disaster. I always meant to mend our differences, but I couldn’t see past our childhood to show you the love that I really have for you. I have wanted to say this so many times before now and every time I think it’s a good time you do something like fart in my presence. I am stubborn and yes I detest the gases that are excreted from my own body, even more so when it comes from someone else’s body. Why mention the fart? Because it set the stage of how you just do something that everyone in the world finds disgusting. I can see how you think that it could be funny. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that should someone show a dislike for something you do, you fly into a rage and begin defending it to the death.

So why am I apologizing? Because despite all this you are my brother and we have survived so much more than a stupid fart. I think that we just never resolved the old issues that tore us apart. I’m ready to say that while you were defending your actions, I too was letting my buttons get pushed to the point that nothing mattered except that you admit you were wrong and stop farting in front of me.

I love you Luis and I’m sorry that I have allowed a lifetime to slip by without ever expressing how much I care for you. How sorry I am that nothing has been able to bring us back together so we can be a family. I’m sorry that I didn’t get the chance to get to know your kids. I’m sorry that we couldn’t laugh with one another anymore. Most importantly, I’m sorry that I was never the sister that I could have been to you. I have been so busy judging you that I forgot who I was to you.