Manda,

My Brother and I are very close. I am six years older but we have always been extremely close due to our parent's expectations that we were to never fight and the overall closeness that M&D grew in their family.

A few years after we both married our spouses (his first marriage, my second)he was having some challenges with differences in life and parenting perspective with my S-I-L and they hit a rough period in their marriage.

He and I were commuting to work together in those days so we had a lot of time to talk. At some point he got frustrated with me for what he refers to as my "kick-em in the ass" speech. I tend to be a address the problem head on kind of guy and I was less than sensitive in my opinion on a specific issue he was struggling with. I do not recall the specific issue but apparently my opinion really pissed him off. Instantly our interface together went from a significant amount of interface between us and our families to ZERO. We lived on the same street about 1/4 of a mile away from each other and went a year without getting together and another couple of years of only getting together when M&D where in town.

For me the situation culminated in a really terrifying nightmare that sat me bold upright in bed in the middle of the night sobbing. The specifics of the dream are not important, what is important is that I did not wait another minute and picked up the telephone, got him out of bed and we went to Denny's for a late night breakfast talk. We have made it a point to not allow anything to interfere with out relationship and have not for more than 10yrs. Our relationship is our own and is not dependent on either of our marital, work or family status and activities.

Call him, take him for a StarBucks or a beer and synch. If he is resistant, you be even more persistent. If he has offended you, get past it and get face to face where you can both work things out.

A close sib is a treasure and is the only person in your life that you share exactly the same gene pool with, parents with, and life and family history with.

In fact, I fly out Fri AM to spend a long W/E with him before he takes his family back to Asia for another year.

Just my thoughts of course.

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)