I just got off the phone with my brother. I think it went pretty well, all things considered. I mean, it was my letter, among others from the family, that changed the Idaho judge's mind about whether or not my brother was firing on all cylinders. Apparently they'd had a pretty good understanding until the defense attorney convinced us to write to the judge pleading for leniency and what we said made the conservative Christian judge determined to make an example of my liberal, decidely non-mainstream brother. So he got three to seven years instead of three to seven months. He served his time, and is now living on his own and working as a house painter. But we haven't spoken from then until now because he was angry, angry enough to send me a letter telling me that we had nothing to say to each other and he was cutting off communication.
He didn't mean it. Or he didn't think he was quite that specific. He was hoping to hear from me while he was in jail. And I, well, I was horrified that my letter had made his sentencing worse and not better. I believed him when he said he never wanted to hear from me again. I didn't write to him once in three years. And now I feel rotten that he thought it was because I didn't want to write to him. He forgot exactly what he said to me. My brother's memory isn't what it used to be.
It's hard to do the right thing. It isn't always obvious what the right thing is.
So he phoned me last week, and we played phone tag for a while, and finally he got through tonight, and we talked. We talked about what happened, about why I wrote the letter. I told him I had held back for years from giving him my opinions on his beliefs and religious ideas because he seemed to be doing okay for the most part. But I also told him I thought he had been mentally disturbed for awhile, that I feared he was losing touch with reality with all his talk about the Russians controlling the weather and so on. I thought the judge would get him help. Instead, the judge turned on him and doubled his sentence. So I also apologized to my brother for being naive and causing him more trouble, not less. And that was all exactly the right thing to do.
I am grateful my brother is free again. I think I will forget about keeping my opinions to myself, though. Neither of us can afford to pretend any more.
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