Sunday morning...

day of rest. I woke up early today, as i usually do on my days off... a little time to be alone and search the web for meaning of some sort. Looking for something unfiltered... something real. With the amount of content on the web, much is just rehashing; following a similar template to what has come before.

This morning I received a phone call... I said the socially-required greeting to the anonymous caller, known only as "Unavailable."

me: "hello?"
unknown person: "Hello, is this XXXXX?"
me: "yes.. who are you?"
UP: "This is [person's name inconsequential--and unremembered], I am calling from Lakeside"
me: "Who? from where?"
UP: "I am calling from Lakeside, about XXXX"
me: "Where are you calling from? What about my brother?"
UP: "I am calling from Lakeside--you did know your brother was here, didn't you?"

At this point, this unnamed person told me that my brother had left a rehabilitation center and could return by midnight without repercussions. Somehow, I had become his primary point of contact. Recently I have thought of the line from the bible (as well as innumerable action movies), "am i my brother's keeper." I realized that somehow I had become this, unbeknownst to me.

My brother has always created dual emotions of love and contempt. I feel deeply at his fate, yet I have no trust in his ability to do anything about it or to truthfully represent the world, so i cannot become emotionally vested in his life. I have always hated the idea of biological relations to people--I do not take that this random, simultaneous rearing and similar genes makes him a part of my life without my consent... but this phone call puts this connection into a form that i can touch.

"Am i my brother's keeper?" perhaps I am.