FOREWORD
The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has
forced the social distancing and lock-down restriction on many around the
globe. Here at home, millions faced this disease with disbelief as if their
life has been turned upside down and cast inside a horror science fiction
movie. This brings out some of the best in us and also for many, the worst. Restricted
in their home, feeling more restless each day and realizing the uncomfortable
fact of living with the less-than-optimum others, my siblings grew anxious,
onerous, difficult and eventually hostile to each other via phone calls, texts
or email.
My siblings, who are mostly
over fifty years old, started with perfunctory niceties but gradually descended
into the sanctimonious abyss of discussions, debates, mocking, guilt-tripping,
and then open hostilities and hypocrisy. The tenor became unbearable. I tried
not to get involved in their squabbles or take the bait of their criticism,
even as I was targeted as the unresponsive, the callous and "wealthy"
older brother not offering much help to needy family members. Their worldviews including those of family
relationships, responsibilities, gratitude and money (mortgage, expenses, loans
and debts, …) are naïve and downright ignorant. There were innuendos, pontificates,
half-truths and lies. Speculative events or presumed facts without any proof,
evidence nor documentation which happened more than thirty years ago were
dredged up and wrapped in nonsense and fallacious argument. Inside their
need to find a villain, they called up innocent actions from long ago,
embellished them with speculation and drivel, and wove them into an outlandish and nasty narrative in which they assigned guilt and blame.
My purpose in writing this is
to bring forth the factual records in hope of reducing or better yet end the
speculation of malfeasance. If this makes the other siblings to slow down and
re-examine their own lives and their own moral sanctimony it would be a greater
success I can hope for.
MW
