reevaluation

So, I'm the youngest of eight. And there's only 11 years between me and my eldest sister. So, I know most of my family. Or at least I thought I did. See, this past week we had a family reunion, will ALL of us. This hasn't happened in years. It was fun, but I looked at some of my siblings (and their spouces) with different eyes, and it caused some reevaluation. I've changed my view of some of them, for the better or the worse. Or just for future reference. I'll give one small example here. Just above me is a brother, Phil. Phil is about two years older than me, and growing up with him was interesting. We didn't really fight (I have another brother that fills that role), but he did things that wern't the best, and my parents had to put him in foster care, they counldn't deal with it. So I was biased growing up, because most of my memories with him are with him in foster care. I had a slanted view. He made other choices, too, that helped me keep my biased view of this brother. But, today it all changed. We were comeing home from the airport, Phil, Mike, Phils friend who picked us up and I. Phil was having a conversation with his friend, and I realized that I misjuged my brother. He wasn't this awful, misguided rapper. He might have been in the past, but now he's a considerate, trustworthy dude. And I respect him. I didn't really expect this to happen. Now, I don't think we'll ever be really close, our interests are still far apart. But, to know that he had another side that I never got to see, it means something. I need to look for that other side in everyone. Maybe all we see is one side of someone, when they don't show their warm, fuzzy, good side. But we should look for it, and bring out the best in others. Maybe all we see is their angry, upset or bossy side. But if we look closer, we can see their other, good happy friendly side. And we should reevaluate whether they're really as bad as we thought they were.