I don't know if I would call this deception or, more likely, breaking all the bonds that keep a family together.
I was 17 when my brother invited me to live with him, oceans across from my home. I moved with him for higher education, his family became mine and his three stepchildren were more lovable than my blood-related nieces and nephews. I enjoyed being part of this new family God had given me, until one day his wife decided not to keep me with them anymore.
I was left out in the streets at four a.m. in the morning, thrown out by my own brother, literally with nowhere to go and no one to ask for help.
I survived. I survived those many weeping nights and dreadful days, I survived the panic attacks and the depression, and I survived the many on going thoughts of killing myself. I was robbed, I was raped, I was almost dead, yet I survived.
A couple of years from that day, things are better for me now and my brother and I are in speaking terms.
I can never forget that incident from my life and make everything back to normal. I don't even know if I will ever forgive him for dismantling my life this way. But yes I'm still there for him when he needs me. He is sick these days; his wife is busy in her own life of shopping and going out. It is me who takes him to the doctor, cooks him healthy food, take care of his errands and give him comforting words and prayers.
At the end of everything I just know one thing: family ties can NEVER be broken. Although he hurt me severely, when I see him sick, it is my heart that hurts more, after all he is my own brother. I know what he did to me was an attempt to break them and destroy me but I cant do the same to him, because I have been there and felt how it feels when your own relatives deceive you and betray you but I refuse to be one of them. I refuse to be him...
