I Love You, Big Brother

Ever since I was a young child I could never understand the concept of love or care, the only thing I ever understood was neglect, abuse and confinement. My childhood can best be described as brutal; from a young age I abused both physically and emtionally by my alcoholic mother and my (who I believe to be mentally ill) sister; my first memory of abuse was when I was 6 years old, my mother had gathered a few of my family members (who were intoxicated) and had ordered them to beat the "retard" out of me because I had trouble reading and speaking, I was beaten with beer bottles and burned with cigarettes that night. From then on, my mother would either beat me herself while intoxicated or bring me down emotionally; as for my sister, she followed up my mother in my emotional abuse, I would come home everyday to her telling me how pathetic and worthless I am, she even went as far as to threaten to stab me because i couldn't do something correctly. It wasn't until a month ago when I discovered why I've had to live a life like this...

My estranged father (who I met when I was 8 and was never there in my childhood) had revealed to me that I was a by-product of his affair; when I was conceived he was married to another woman, my mother had been his mistress. This revelation explained my entire childhood, why my father was never there? Why my maternal side of the family seem to hate me? Why I couldn't be loved by anyone I was related too? It was all because I was a bastard child.

When I was 10 years old, I was introduced to my eldest half-brother and my older half-sister from my paternal side of the family; I remember them looking at me with an intense cold glare when we first met, I always questioned why did they stare at me like that? After the revelation, I had no doubt that the reason why they glared at me so was because they resented me. In my mind I had believed that everyone resented me for being a bastard child and that no matter what I will never experience the care and warmth from my family.

Then, someone who I thought hated me the most proved my thoughts wrong; it was my other older brother from my paternal half. I met him when I was 12 years old, and just like the others he also gave me a cold glare when he met me, but his was different, I felt like when I looked into his eyes all I saw was hate and resentment. Back when my father revealed to me the truth of my conception he also told me how the woman he was married too at the time was my older brother's mother and right after I was born they seperated. I believed my older brother had the most reason out of anyone to hate me, it was because of my birth that his parents seperated and it was because of me he couldn't have a functional childhood. Everything changed when he called me a few weeks ago, he wanted to spend some time with me, I accepted believing that I would finally hear out of his own lips how much he hated and resented me, but no.....
something else happened...

We spoke for a while and I revealed to him the truth of my horrific childhood...
He had no idea how much I suffered... Then,
I saw something I had never seen before in anyone, I saw concern...
He was concerned about me, he was worried about me....

I was so confused, I had never seen someone look like that before, to actually show concern for me. He told me how surprised he was that I experienced so much yet I had seem to be so normal, he told me I was strong, those words meant so much to me. Eventually he dropped me off at home but right before he hugged me...
He hugged me and I could feel care and warmth...
Never had I experienced such a thing but yet there I was hugging my older brother.

You were the only one to ever show me care
You were the only one to show that you were concerned
You were the first one to ever put a smile on my face...
Thank you big brother for finally showing me that someone can care about me
Thank you for putting back meaning into my life
Thank you for showing me hope...


I love you, Big brother