For those of you who do not know this, I have a brother. Yep, there is a genetically tied male out there who is older than me, a bit shorter but he is my bro.
A baby boomer, he came of age in the era of the late 60’s and 1970’s when civil rights and disco balls were all the rage. As he grew into his late 20’s and middle age, my brother became the quintessential disco king. Now although I jest of his choice of musical taste in the 70’s he was, at one point, actually quite a decent fellow with a pretty innate sense of right and wrong.
Case in point as told to me by our Mom. He was with her one day near our downtown area when he saw a mentally challenged kid he knew from school…being bullied by other kids he knew. My brother without hesitation went over and confronted those kids and got them to leave the other kid alone. A good deed all the way around.
When it came to love…well my bro was quite the Lothario. I can’t remember a time when he was not either chasing or married to some lady who he seemed to have an untamable love for. Such was his life. I had BMX and he had women, LOL.
Overtime though he became more and more involved in “the teachings of jesus christ”…as he saw them. To the point that he turned his whole life over to studying the insane rantings of people who constantly predict “the end times are here”. Normally this would exalt a chuckle from me as I would pass it off as the delusions of a man getting up there in 
age and questioning his place in the universe. The part that bothers me though is he cut off all ties from his family, even his Mother who now resides in a nursing home who would like to hear from her other son perhaps one more time before she is gone.
I have seen his rantings on youtube about the “end times” and predictions and quite frankly it’s disturbing. I even had the displeasure of getting emails from him when one of the “prophets” he and a few others were following predicted the “rapture” a few years back…which of course did not occur.
So I look at this person, who I am genetically tied to but morally, spiritually and emotionally have no connection with and wonder, what happened? Where did these end time, god delusions take hold?
Many times people will see me rant on Facebook about the insanity of all humanity’s religions and although much of it is attributable to my own research, knowledge and facts, I owe at least part of that disdain to my brother’s embrace of a sect of a religion over those who cared for him and did the best they could for him as a child.
Genetically, I have a brother…emotionally I only have a sister.
I find it strange how someone can go from being a person who would stop schoolyard bullies to being a man who does nothing to acknowledge the reality of his family that wonders about his own well being.
It is unfortunate that in the end he will find out that all the waiting for the end times was just wasting the short time we are given on this planet.
When the end comes for him and the lights finally go out I sometimes thing his last words will be…
“Why did I wait?”…