His siblings are right. Hard though it might be to know the truth, he needs to listen to them if he wants to know the full story.
My parents didn't like my ex-husband. Back in 1984 when I told them that we were getting an apartment together, my mother accused me of having sex with both him and our roommate, a guy whom I couldn't have been less attracted to, even if I was inclined to sleep around, which I wasn't.
They also turned my brother against me and our relationship has never recovered.
I try not to use past harms as an excuse to be hateful now. My mother wouldn't even remember these events, not because she has dementia (she doesn't) but because she has selective amnesia and, like the rest of my family, is utterly incapable of wrongdoing. (Yes, that's sarcasm.)
Also, it's not as though I'm innocent of saying completely horrific shit at times. I grew up listening to my parents shout at each other and at me and my brother. It was "normal" to shout horrible shit when you were angry. When it bothered me, I was admonished to stop being so sensitive. My frustration at being unheard and dismissed, particularly when it came to the trauma I'd endured, made me angry. I became quite deft at slinging my words like projectiles.
I promised myself that I wouldn't ever yell at my son the way my parents yelled at me. My efforts weren't perfect, and my tendency to scold and lecture damaged my relationship with him. When he was fourteen, I started turning things around. Sometimes I probably take things too far in the other direction, but sometimes the less said, the better.
Parents aren't perfect and I do forgive my parents, but I wish I could patch this shit up with my mother. I know I'll never be able to. She'd only get defensive and I'd end up even angrier. As Stephen King said, sometimes dead is better, but in this case, it's buried in an unquiet grave.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Free use image by Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay
