My half-brother, Ken, died of acute leukemia on Thanksgiving Eve. Ken was a force of a man. A warm-hearted and deeply respected and beloved professor of Political Science at a college in New England. Yet before your heart goes out to me, I must share that I only met the man twice. The first was when I was seven and he just a toddler. My father had managed to secure a weekend invitation to the home he shared with his second wife and two young sons. Quite a feat, given his wife demanded I not be a part of their family from the start of their marriage. Yet, while he was persuasive enough to land us this prized weekend together—of which I still have fond memories of my dad playing Fiddler on the Roof on the turntable and the three of us kids dancing around the living room in our PJs, he ultimately lost the battle. I was not invited to their home again until I was well into my 40s.

The second time I met Ken was 30 years ago when my father flew the two of them to California to meet me. As I went to give them both a big bear hug upon their arrival, Ken recoiled, looked me in the eye and told me he had no interest at all in getting to know me. He made it clear he was only there for the free trip to Los Angeles. As you can imagine, our second weekend together was not nearly as fun as our first.

Ken was close to his mother, who resented my father for marrying another woman before he knew her. As though it were a personal insult; a betrayal that put him in the dog house right from the get go of their union. And so he managed his double life. His wife and sons and booming career on the one side, and secret visits to the Jolly Rodgers Amusement Park or to get Carvel ice cream once or twice a year with me. We kept this up until the burden of trying to balance two worlds became too much to bear and he caved to the demands of both his first and second wife that he simply stop being my father. In tossing in the towel, both women were happy.

So you can’t really blame Ken. He was being loyal to his mom. And I certainly don’t fault him for that. It’s really only in his death that I am fully understanding just how much I lost by not knowing him. I’m hoping he’s seeing our connection from a different perspective now, wherever he is. That it’s all somehow getting reconciled between us.

A couple of weeks ago, I came down with pneumonia and had to spend a few days in the hospital. My dad came to visit and brought me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. He brought his wife, Barbara with him. The death of her son had crushed her, and she came into the room nearly hunched over with sorrow. Seeing me in a hospital bed after saying goodbye to Ken in a hospital bed just a few weeks before didn’t help I’m sure. I did my best to be kind and tender in asking her how she was getting through her loss. She felt safe enough to cry and share truthfully about how devastated she was. Both my father and I felt for her. Barbara’s grief is of the unspeakable kind. The kind you don’t know that you can survive. Yet the conversation between us had moments of lightness and levity as well and when it was time for them to leave, I spontaneously reached out my arms from my hospital bed to hug her. She leaned toward me in response and allowed me to take her in my arms and rub her back as I held her. I felt her melt as she just let me love her. Decades of coolness between us just up and disappeared, and all that was present between us was tenderness, kindness and love.

When she finally stood up she did something she’d been refusing to do for decades. She began mothering me. Did I want my blanket fixed? Did I need her to put on my socks? Did I need a sweater? Sometimes our hearts break closed and sometimes our hearts break open. Somehow the love in my hug tipped her towards the latter and the 60+ years of a tense and difficult history between us simply melted away. 

I share this story to remind us that we always have the power to evolve our gnarly histories in the direction of goodness, light and love. As John Lennon once said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”