And these occasions do mean a great deal to my mother. I know I can't change them. Dear Dreading It, I can't get a clear picture from your account, so I'm at a disadvantage here, but I suggest you go and leave your wife and stepson at home. You should go, for the sake of your relative and your mother, and focus on them, and let the brother and any others say what they wish. But if you feel that you're cast in a demeaning role in a family psychodrama that you're powerless to escape, the sensible thing is to stay away from it in the future.
Nobody has to have a big happy magazine-cover family.
You can live your life very well without your siblings, if necessary. Dear Mr. Blue, Feeling inspired one day, I wrote 800 of the best words I could manage and sent them off to a hip local weekly, whose new editor is supposedly looking for fresh material. I know nothing of the ways of editors. If the 800 words you sent him are anything like the 800 you sent me, he may be trying to edit them into two or three cogent sentences. This takes time.