. . . and I don't think anyone has been "hateful." It's an advice column and the letters section is for opinions. I think the LW knows the range of responses that usually show up here.

Everyone agrees that the brother's behavior is not something anyone would enjoy putting up with. No one says that the long-suffering LW has to like it. They just think she should understand the limits of her influence in this situation . . . and LET IT GO.

The problem is that the LW presented a fairly ordinary family problem and everyone who ever met a person with a mental illness or Asperger's Syndrome has jumped in with a completely unfounded diagnosis. MAYBE he has one of these conditions, but MAYBE he does not.

I don't like boors or slobs any more than the next person. And no, it doesn't reflect well on North America when we conduct ourselves poorly in more refined countries. But jeez—when did dressing badly as a tourist become a mental illness?

I don't like it when people act like jerks—but I don't like it when people try control people's private lives. You can only advise and recommend and suggest so much . . . and then what? Force the brother into treatment? Buy him a bunch of new clothes and insist he wear them? Sign him up for etiquette lessons?

This does not sound like a battle the sister can win. If the brother is not harming himself or others, then it is up to the sister to decide how much of his behavior she can stand . . . and then LET IT GO. If she chooses to continue to "advise" and "recommend" and "suggest" then she is just pushing her brother farther away. The brother is not a child, and the sister is not his Mom.

On the note of mental illness: it is obviously a SERIOUS situation for anyone who really has one. My sympathy goes out to all those here who have a loved one struggling with any kind of mental or emotional disorder. HOWEVER, we should all be careful about flinging those terms around anytime someone does something unpleasant, as it trivializes the issue. Not all sadness is depression, not all thin people are anorexic, not all unhygienic or disrespectful people are mentally ill.

Wow-thank you for posting your story—what you have described goes on ALL THE TIME and most people don't believe it.

That strange materialistic consumer ideology is behind so much abuse of children, and we as a society seem to prefer nice, tidy medical labels that absolve us adults of any responsibility.

I used to do youth counseling work so I know pretty much everything there is to know about asshole parents and the free rein we give them. (I left that line of work a long time ago because I was afraid it would literally kill me.)

I wish all the amateur psychologists would leave the clinical diagnoses for the situations where it is truly merited—obviously, the people (adults and kids alike) who really need medical help should get it, without question. But not everybody needs medical help to "fix" the very routine, often unpleasant, often abrasive, and often heartbreaking realities of ordinary, everyday life.

Beautiful, poetic, insightful. I will have to read it a few more times to get everything that's in there. That's why I love this column.

LW, you sound like a smart, decent person who has done all the "right" things to try to make a good life for yourself. You sound resilient, and adaptable and able to recover from whatever life throws at you. You have been betrayed—we have all been betrayed—but I have no doubt that you will get through this and get back on your feet soon enough.

But I also wonder if this isn't as a good a time as any to reflect on what exactly it is you want for yourself next time around. When all this craziness is over, will you still want to go back to the financial industry? Or is there some other field that might be a more satisfying use of your energy and talents? You should never believe that you are too old to retrain or change direction.

You seem to be a person who can see "opportunity" where the rest of us miss it. It probably doesn't seem that you have been handed anything good right now, but if anyone can make lemonade out of this rotten lemon, it would be a person with real knowledge of how the system works. (Finance is utterly mystifying to 99% of us, you know.)

Clearly, you know how to get money, but I would bet that more than anyone you know that money is really only a means to an end. You will have money again. You must ask yourself, then, what is it that you really, truly want to DO with the next part of your life? That might be the first question you need to answer.

So sad to have to say goodbye . . .

. . . but thank you, Berkely Breathed, for all that you have given us over the years.

I'm glad I can still open my copy of "Toons for Our Times" whenever I like and visit all the old friends that got me through such strange and mystifying times.

Bill and Opus still sit on the top of the bookshelf in here in my studio, keeping an eye out for Otis Oracle, Senator Bedfellow, Pat Boone, Hairy Fishnuts, and, of course, Jerry Zuchmeister and the Albuquerque Fatboys.

Too many brilliant strips over the years to count—I loved them all.

While I would love to have seen what Opus and his pals would have said about the next part of our twisty-turny new century, I wish BB all the best in his future artistic endeavors.

I hope Opus gets to spend his eternity Naked in the Periwinkle, with the Bora Bora girls and endless supply of Herring Wallbangers and Banana Walrus Wafers.