Sometimes I feel like Facebook is a virus. A few weeks ago I received a friend request from my brother, and eventually my brother’s wife. I thought it was cool – I get to see pictures of my niece and nephews on a regular basis, and I don’t have to do anything! Score one for the lazy team. I was pretty excited about this new development, because I hardly ever see any of them, so getting to see the kids grow up, even if in pictures only, was pretty cool.

Until it depressed me.

My brother and his little family live no more than 15 minutes away from me. Jeff is a contractor for my brother and sees him on a regular basis, and is even doing work on my brother’s house. A house that I’ve been to twice. In the five or so years they’ve lived in this area. My niece and my nephews know Jeff by name, but probably wouldn’t know who I was if I was standing right in front of them.

My brother and I have never been particularly close – we have the same dad, but different moms and didn’t grow up together – but there’s always been a distant line of communication between the two of us. Until my brother got married.

Don’t get me wrong. My sister in law is fantastic. She’s sweet, gorgeous, a size 0 after three kids, and is the super mommy I hope to be someday. When my brother married her, though, it was as though his “old” family didn’t exist anymore. He was adopted by his step dad when he was a kid, and his step dad and mom’s families, as well as his new wife’s family, were suddenly his main focus, and no one on my side of the family heard from him much. Not even my grandmother heard from him, the grandmother who spent a good portion of his childhood raising him, while his mom and my dad did whatever crazy thing the kids were doing those days.

It makes me sad to see those pictures of the kids; what a happy little family they are. It makes me sad that the only contact I have with my niece and nephews is through a social networking site.

Their youngest, my sweet little niece Ella, is the same age as the Little Monster, and I think that the two of them should know each other. I want for them to be close. I want them to have the relationships with family that I never had.

My grandmother’s side of the family had a reunion this past weekend, and it was widely thought that my brother and his family were going to be there. They didn’t show, though, and it really bummed me out. This is the family that was there for him growing up, the family that provided an anchor for him during a tumultuous childhood.

I got a message on Facebook shortly after I got home from the reunion.

How was the reunion? Drive was too much for the kids”

It’s just disappointing that a website is my main form of communication with someone that I share a bond with – one that can never be broken. And it hurts my heart that that is what its come down to. Because ultimately? You only have your family.