Jung believed that every person had that lost child within and I think he was right. The Christian doctrine of humanity’s separation from God fits, as it creates a God-shaped vacuum in the individual. This is the lost child.

I agree that looking at a situation like your brother’s is made more difficult when we consider the other people involved. Mind you, I’m not making excuses for your father; had I been in his shoes, I would have adopted the children and paid the price. The children would have gotten what they needed, I would (probably) not have, but I would fully expect to have everything restored in the end, and I having made the spiritual decision. I do fault your father, for he might have found a better way out of his own lostness than he has found since, by making people dependent on him after all.

I’d like to know how your visit goes, or how it went.

I meanwhile have had time to think, and realise it will be best to wait and see what comes rather than working up a mental state prior.

I think my brother was about ten or so when he asked dad to adopt him. I’m sure this child’s emotional needs were great (as was his sister’s), and you opened my eyes to see that that is what scared dad in an unconscious way. (At a young age, my father also lost his father – he died in a motor cycle accident.) My mum blamed his decision on not wanting be responsible for her boy financially – and that was the only way he knew/knows how or feels comfortable to care. Interesting that he has a family around him who are to varying degrees emotionally needy.

So, you are right – no blame, and lots of pain. Blame is a great escape-goat. I will be looking for broader horizons, I think, if I can. Understanding the perspective of all who surround a situation can be just as painful, though. So, I guess, a path to healing needs to be found, and it brings up for me what you spoke of a while back about the archetype of the Abandoned (lost) Child, and the possible patterns of its expression surrounding our family.

Thanks Eve.

About your dad refusing to adopt your brother. When a child is old enough to ask to be adopted, that’s a huge thing. We’ve been “proposed to” by four of our children. It’s incredibly scary to say “yes” to a profoundly wounded human being, particularly one over the age of majority (we’ve adopted two adults).

Seen from your brother’s perspective, this rejection may well have been one of the worst of his young life. I can only imagine the pain of wanting to belong, wanting to be wanted by a father, and being denied. My sympathies are with him, of course.

Still, I know first-hand how grueling and painful it is to adopt an older child or adult. If it does not go well on both sides, the way they cheat you out of your experience as a parent is every bit as painful as the rejection your brother must have experienced. If you keep your end of the bargain and are more-or-less the parent they dreamed of, but then due to character flaws, neuroticism, etc. they fail to keep theirs, it leaves you feeling nothing less than idiotically, robustly stupid.

So I don’t blame your father. Though I doubt he was fully aware at the time he made the decision, there would have to be some gut instinct in him for self-preservation. Yes, even at a child’s expense.

Having said that, I’ll also add (and quite fairly too, I think) that even broken people are beautiful. If Ned were intuitive, he would also be able to see much about his wife’s true self or essence. People’s real selves can be quite beautiful even in a passing glimpse. But you know that.