Thank you, I appreciate it. We're pretty low contact as I live across the country, so I only really talk to him on holidays/birthdays to begin with, but this was an odd one-off.
I mostly really stay in contact at all because my brother has 2 babies, and the entire family is conservative (to the point that theyre considering home schooling the kiddos), and Im worried theyll never get ANY outside influence if my husband and I dont make an effort.
Its probably a worthless effort, because mentally I can only handle going home every year or so (and I make it as close to a 72 hr trip as possible), but I just feel like Im abandoning them completely if I cut everyone off now.