27. The joy of sibling love

This post is dedicated to my twin brother Daniel (aka the cutie on the right).

Dear Team Joy,

How do we keep choosing to show up for the people we didn’t choose to love, especially when we are different?

We don’t choose our parents and we don’t choose our siblings. As a twin, the question I always heard growing up is, “Are you guys similar?” The answer for Daniel and I is always yes and no. We are both loud, overly enthusiastic, smart, athletic, and kind. We both love coffee, country music, spending a day outside, and eating chocolate chip cookies.

But we are also different. Daniel will gladly tell you all about the energy markets before he shares how is own relationship is going (meanwhile I can be found publicly writing about mine on a blog). I remember being with him on day 3 of a trip, when he casually mentioned for the first time that he was thinking about moving in with his then girlfriend; something that I would have shared within the first hour of arrival.

When we both moved home during COVID I mustered up the courage to ask him to have more deep talks with me. His response was something like, “Its not that I don’t care, I just don't want to sit around and chat.” He’s happier playing a board game, going on a bike ride, or concocting some other random adventure ranging from mini-golf to jet skis. Meanwhile I have gleefully signed up to have hour long “life chats” multiple times a day in my profession as a coach.

Besides moving home during COVID, Daniel and I have not lived in the same city since high school. It’s understood that we deeply care about each other, but for the most part we are living entirely separate lives.

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Its easier when I meet new people now to say I only have one brother, but I actually grew up with two. After getting married, my older brother Jeremy left our family in 2018. It’s a grief I don’t feel prepared to capture properly in writing, but acknowledging his existence publicly feels like an important step. We went to college together, and I considered him one of my best friends in the world. I haven’t had a real conversation with him in about 5 years. I blamed myself for a longtime; wracking my brain with what I could have said or done differently to change the outcome. But at the end of the day we all make choices. I am accountable for mine, he is accountable for his.

Losing a family member without them actually being dead is a unique, present kind of grief. My parents, Daniel, and I have been left to rebuild our family unit in this broken context. For the first few years we had long discussions about the situation at every family gathering. But overtime we all saw that wasn’t leading towards healing. At some point the question becomes is it more or less painful in our time together to acknowledge he was here?

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It’s through this grief that I understand even more that loving family is an active choice; it is an act of continuing to choose to show up.

Instead of coming back east for the Jewish Holidays, Daniel and my sister in law Sarah decided to join the Adventure Rabbi community in Boulder, and spend holidays out there. They invited me and my parents to come out to Boulder to celebrate with them. Rosh Hashanah is a time of new beginnings, and celebrating the holiday outside in a tent with spiritual breakout groups felt more aligned to me than sitting in temple; even with my hard health summer, I chose to go. My parents weren’t so into the tent idea so they chose to celebrate the holiday in New York.

I noted that this felt like an important milestone; Daniel and I choosing to forge new traditions for our generation; carrying the mantel forward for what we want our Judaism to be.

Most of the weekend went as expected. I spent my days going to yoga, reading, and in coffee shops. Daniel went on hikes and long bike rides. No intense life chats were had, but it was nice to be together. Everyone was making themselves happy; which honestly is a great step in any long term relationship.

But it was one of the last moments of the Adventure Rabbi retreat that took my breath away and shifted my relationship with my brother.

Every year during Rosh Hashanah we say a prayer for healing called Mi Shebeirach. It’s on a long list of prayers we say routinely, and I have grown up saying this prayer for grandparents or various relatives.

This year the rabbi asked anyone to come into the circle who would like to say the prayer for themselves or for a loved one. It hadn’t occurred to me to say this prayer for myself, and certainly not publicly. But my gut was telling me to step into the circle. I hesitantly stepped forward, and I looked up to see Daniel already there.

My twin brother, who might not express love in the same way I do was looking at me earnestly and with a lot of tenderness. Because we don’t live in the same city he doesn’t see my suffering with Crohn’s in person. Him stepping forward on my behalf made me realize he does see my struggle.

The prayer started and all of a sudden I was overcome with grief. Grief for everything my body has been through in the last year. Grief for STILL not being in the place I want to be with my health. Grief for being seen as weak and in “need of healing” publicly. I tried to open my mouth to say the words for the prayer but all I could do was cry. I just looked down at the dirt and cried. I was overwhelmed, a bit ashamed at crying publicly, and trying to get through it. But Daniel physically and spiritually caught me. He put his arm around me and let me cry into his chest. I went on silently, and he said the prayer for healing for me. I can’t think of a time in my adult life where I felt his love more. 💚

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It’s easy to take our siblings for granted. It’s not the love we are taught to run around the world searching for. It’s not one we are told to work on, or even acknowledge that maintaining a close relationship with our siblings requires work sometimes. But at the end of the day I am realizing it’s a long term relationship like any other that’s important to us; a relationship between two people who are different and have different needs. It requires quality time and vulnerability to remain close.

Choosing to stay close as adults when we aren’t forced to live in the same house is a choice. Choosing to acknowledge the ways we are different and creating space to allow each of us to be ourselves in the relationship is a choice. Choosing to accept his love in the ways he can show it rather than holding onto all the ways he can’t is a choice. When I needed him, he showed up.

Daniel I am really grateful for you. Thank you for catching me.

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I still struggle to actively rely on others but it felt beautiful and freeing to be caught. Sometimes we need help and need someone else to say the prayer for us. Sometimes we don’t have the right words to capture our yearnings, and we need to rely on the words of our ancestors. For anyone on Team Joy in need of healing I offer you this prayer.

Mi shebeirach avoteinu
M'kor hab'racha l'imoteinu
May the source of strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing
And let us say Amen

Mi shebeirach imoteinu
M'kor habrachah l'avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing with r'fuah sh'leimah
The renewal of body, the renewal of spirit
And let us say Amen

Much love,

Isabel