So I grew up with the constant fear that my brother would kill my mother. Until his most recent incarceration, it always gave me the effect of being in a cage on fire.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
For many, I am the example of resilience. I managed to get by despite this difficult childhood. But anxiety, depression, eating disorders and domestic violence loomed over me for a long time. For a long time I felt like I had little control over my life.
When I expressed this fear, those around me would tell me: “Your mother is an adult, don’t worry about her, she makes her choices. »
What do we do when a parent has the emotional maturity of a child, yet fails to make appropriate choices to keep themselves and their children safe?
The goal is not to excuse the actions for which my brother is accused nor to say that all parents are responsible for the actions of their children. But it’s too easy to see a criminal as a pariah of society rather than part of a failing ecosystem. If someone had done something to understand in the last 20 years, we wouldn’t be here today.
He would not have turned to prison to feel a sense of belonging. I remember his first detentions, from his first years of adulthood. He was very impressed by the major criminals he encountered. I had the impression that he was getting a taste for going “inside” with a gang of people who accepted him. On the phone, he adopted prison jargon: “Yes, there was someone who was stung in the wing, if that’s why there were no visits. »
One thing led to another and his crimes of all kinds – fraud, assault, theft – became more and more serious. His knowledge of the subtleties of criminal law has become more and more detailed.
When he was released from prison, he often returned to my mother’s house. The fear that he would kill her returned. I called the local CLSC to try to have a social worker sent to my mother’s house. “Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to set up a P-38 for my mother… it seems to me that intern her and force her to see a psychologist, that would help her. Can I put a contact ban in place between my brother and my mother? Yes, yes, she’s an adult, but how can I explain it to you… she’s under his influence. She’s not in her right mind. They have a relationship of domestic violence between them. » No one ever called me back.
Waiting for the inevitable
I was delighted one day to learn that the parents of one of his former friends had encouraged her to file a complaint against him. His latest escapades regarding domestic violence made me fear the worst. He killed one of his ex-partners’ rabbit in a moment of drug-induced psychotic rage. It was two years ago. I was convinced, at that moment, that he could kill a person. After that moment, I compulsively watched the justice and news sections of the Montreal newspapers. Until a recent day when, while I was taking the metro, his mug shot appeared.
I felt very nauseous. I was relieved to learn that the murder attempt had failed. I obviously feel a lot of pain for the victim. For people who read newspapers and make comments on social networks, it’s just a news item: a seller of dope who draws another. Two esti waste from society.
When I called the police to try to understand what had happened and provide context about our childhood, I was told, “Call your mother, she will explain.” » I would have liked that, 20 years later, they understood that my mother would not give me explanations. This mother who updated her son’s Facebook statuses during his stays in prison is not likely to question herself anytime soon. She will breathe her last breath in denial.
As an adult, I am able to rationalize the trauma that she herself must have suffered, intergenerational or in a marital context, for having reproduced this with her own son. If she was a stranger, I would have a lot more empathy for her. But I couldn’t forgive her for her indifference when the little girl I was begged her to do something, because I was afraid of what might happen to her on the evenings when she drank too much juice.
Recently, I wanted to contact my brother, to tell him that in hindsight, I have compassion for him. But his legal aid lawyer wouldn’t let me talk to him. It was not strategic since I had been in contact with the police.
Once again, a system incapable of appreciating the subtleties of the human condition: I have no right to want to protect the public and my mother and to be there for my brother. The one that was stolen from me.
I still asked his lawyer to send him the following message, without having confirmation that this was done: “That I love him and that I think of him and of our childhood and that I am sorry for this that happens to him. That I’m trying to live a happy life and feel guilty that I got away with it and he didn’t. That I’m getting married this summer and hope to give my children what we didn’t have in the dysfunctional family we grew up in. I don’t blame him for everything that happened, because I understand today that the adults around us failed. I wish him success in getting out of this suffering which kept him prisoner in the street of our childhood. »
* We are protecting the identity of the author of this letter so as not to reveal that of her brother, which could harm her right to a fair trial.
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