For This Dance, We'll Move With Each Other

My brother-in-law is without question one of my best friends on the planet. That's not even strong enough, he's one of my best friends in the universe and definitely my best guy friend. We were like 11 when we met, during my brief Catholic school stint, and it was one of those weird things where you just feel like this person was always meant to be in your life. Our school had one class per grade level so he, his brother, my sister, my cousin, and I were all in the same classroom. Our teacher had our desks set up in this horseshoe design so everyone could see everyone and I often caught my best bud staring across the room at my sister. They never really spoke and hung out with different crowds and I was the only one who noticed his staring so I didn't say anything. In our senior year of high school, he finally worked up the nerve to ask her out - and he got shot down in flames. So he asked again the next day, and everyday after that for nearly a month, until she finally agreed to go out with him just to get him to stop asking. But it turned out much differently than she'd planned cuz she fell for him and a year later she was pregnant. I don't have to explain why pregnancy at 19 is a bad thing and both families were pretty much thinking this was gonna turn out to be a disaster. But it only seemed to strengthen their relationship and now, 12 years on, they're still happily unmarried with three beautiful kids.
I can't explain how much I admire my bro-in-law. Growing up in the war zone that was his parent's house really wrecked his sister and brother but he managed to make it out with fewer scars than they did. Back in the late 70's his mom was the single parent of a son who met a man who fell in love with her and the kid. They married and had three more kids and bro-in-law and his younger siblings adored their oldest brother, who often had to distract them from their parents arguing. Unfortunately, their oldest brother also got caught up in hanging out with some gang members and it would lead to him being shot and killed when he was just 14 years old. With him gone, bro-in-law became the oldest sibling and he probably took the loss the hardest so he wasn't able to just dive in and become a great big brother. His younger brother (also a good friend of mine) resented him for this for a very long time. Their parents marriage fell apart soon after the death and they divorced and launched into a hellish custody battle. It was everything you don't want a custody issue to be; trying to sway the kids, using them as pawns and so on. It lasted a good two years and I remember his parents being right in the middle of it all when we were in Catholic school. There was an after school program we both attended and one day he fell down the stairs and broke his wrist and somehow both of his parents were summoned to pick him up and take him to the hospital. Even as a kid I could sense how much...tension and maybe even hatred was between them, even though they didn't say anything. As a result of the bitterness, one son took his mother's side and went to live with her and bro-in-law and his sister took dad's side and went to live with him. The difference was that the one who went with mom despised his father and blamed him for everything and had beef with his brother for not protecting him, while the other two kids just felt that dad's house was more stable and had no resentment towards mom. In the end, no one won and the kids lost.
But even once the custody stuff was over and the kids grown and moved out and on with their lives, they still have the parents to deal with. None of the kids have cut the parents out of their worlds, but there obviously aren't a lot of happy family reunions. I do admire bro-in-law's flat out refusal to let his parents crap bleed into the lives of his kids. They are a part of their lives but they know the minute they start to badmouth each other of bicker from a distance, they'll see the kids far less than they do now. Their parents haven't spoken in years, I was once in the same room as both of them after the birth of one of the kids and if I was that uncomfortable, I can't imagine what it must be like for their own children. Mom has a partner, a guy she supposedly met during her marriage and has been with since her divorce was finalized, but they don't plan to marry. None of her kids call him a stepfather, they just call him by his first name, but they don't seem to have anything against him. Dad, however, played the field for quite some time (though not until after his kids had moved out) and ended up dating a 34-year-old woman. She's three years older than my bro-in-law and soon to be his stepmother, which is not sitting well with him. Oh yeah, she's also pregnant and due this summer. All three kids are having trouble dealing with it, two of the three would rather not meet the kid at all and want to boycott the wedding. I have no clue how it's all gonna shake out, I've known very few people who have that much of an age difference between them and a sibling. My sister has really become the peace ambassador between the parties though, reminding her partner that, like it or not, this is gonna be his sibling and this woman is going to be a part of his family. And, on some level, she seems to be getting through to him. So as upset or confused about it all as he might be now, we all know they'll figure a way through this maze and get to the other side and keep marching on.

The entire custody war had turned off bro-in-law to ever wanting a family of his own. Then he met my sister and, as he puts it, he "suddenly wanted everything they show you in the movies"; house, family, woman he was madly in love with. And he has all that but it hasn't been easy. They've been through a lot; the loss of two of her best friends, the premature birth of their second child, the challenges of figuring out what's best for their supposed handicapped kids, not to mention the nightmare that is me. But they always seem to find their rhythm and keep moving on. (Yeah, I'm totally jealous about their relationship but I love 'em both to death and know they deserve it, and I hold out hope I'll find one like it some day.) Because of what went down with his parents he's still firmly set against marriage, but then so is my sister. They're amazing parents and seem to have found the formula for growing into a relationship rather than growing out of one. If that whole twins leading parallel lives thing shakes out to be true, there is no area I would rather my life mimic my sister's than in the relationship department.