Catching a Break

My nephew Shane caught a rare break today.

He was on trial for sexual harassment and the judge dismissed all charges.

Shane’s one of those people with a heavier load to carry than most of us.

His mom—Jan’s younger sister Julie--struggled with mental illness and drug addiction throughout Shane’s childhood and his dad was absent. Shane never quite made it in school and at 19 he already has a long arrest record.

We had a little celebration for him tonight.

The charges against him in this case were silly from the start. But trouble finds some people cuz the path is well worn.

Our son Andrew is Shane’s half-brother. Julie got pregnant with Andrew on a one night stand when she was on a cocaine jag. We have no clue who the father is and we adopted Andrew because Julie decided not to get an abortion. One of the few good decisions she’s made :^)

So Shane got one path and Andrew another.

I sometimes wonder if the biblical teaching about predestination didn’t come right out of real life family experiencies like these back in the Bronze Age.

“Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.”

Brothers on different trajectories. No matter what the 'pull up your bootstraps' types claim, some folks do just have a lot tougher path to walk.