The ones you love will hurt you the most.

Someone hurt my brother. Not physically, but emotionally. Someone in our family hurt my brother and his wife. And it sucks, mostly because of the kind of people they are. People who would be the last to hurt someone and the first to help.

D&D would do anything for anyone. I remember several years ago when one of the former volunteers at the museum suddenly resurfaced -- homeless. The museum helped him out, hooked him up with social services, gave him a janitorial job. He got an apartment. I told my brother when he was visiting me, and immediately we went to Wal-Mart to buy towels, dishes and flatware for Gilbert.

Each year, they buy school supplies for my niece's 4th grade class. Twenty sets of markers, notebooks, scissors, paper, folders, book covers. For 4th grade kids who might not be able to afford fancy markers and crayons, but because of D&D, have them.

I have a standing offer to move there, to live with them. For whatever reason, for wherever life takes me. If I find a job down there or suddenly can't take New York anymore. The spare room isn't even the spare room -- it's my room.

And they do all this because they can. Because they are able to. And because it's the right thing to do.

But recently -- within the last few days -- someone in the family shit on their generosity. She moved in and lost all sense of what's right and wrong, lost all sense of how you treat your family and how you thank people for helping you.

She and her boyfriend moved in a couple weeks ago. D&D made it clear to her, that she was welcome to stay as long as she needed, but her boyfriend (who just graduated from grad school and is in the process of trying to find a job) could stay two weeks. They talked about it several times with her. Even as recently as my first night in Richmond. It seemed clear enough. What could go wrong?

And so they moved in. And as the two weeks wound down so did a family relationship.

My brother was made to look like an ass. Was really thrown under the bus. She never told her boyfriend that he only had two weeks. And when a discussion about it happened, she acted as if she had no idea what D&D were talking about. And suddenly there was bitterness and hurt feelings and no talking on all sides.

And just as suddenly, as if they were sneaking away in the middle of the night, they were gone. In the middle of the day. Before anyone came home from work or school, they packed their stuff and were gone. No thank you, no sorry for the way things turned out, no fuck you.

Well, maybe the fuck you was the note on the counter asking them to forward her mail. My brother has said he has disowned her as his niece. He's that hurt. The sweetest of my brothers, the one with the most patience, the kindest heart.

I'm not disowning her, because frankly it didn't happen to me and it's not my business. But am I disappointed? Absolutely. I guess I never thought something like this could happen in my family. Again.