Grief and letting go of a relationship

I was never close with my elder brother. Too much of an age gap, too much family drama, conflict, and chaos throughout our childhoods. We've gotten slightly closer in the last couple of years - I was one of the witnesses at his wedding, a godparent to his firstborn. Yet, it all seems superficial. We never text, chat or meet as my colleagues and friends seem to do with their siblings. We never talk outside of mutual family gatherings. I tried for a couple of years to initiate some sort of contact - we live in different countries, so it's not always easy, but I tried texting, calling, and asking for a sibling's time during my visits (he never visits). He always refused and never reciprocated, stating that it's more efficient to just have a full extended family meeting - during which we don't even talk much due to how many people are around. But it kills two birds with one stone, I suppose - have that joint meeting for all your uncles and cousins, and that one sibling that you're obligated to meet sometimes.

I understand that he has many responsibilities, what with work and having a young child, but he has time to regularly go out with work colleagues for drinks - couldn't he go with me for a pint or two every few months? That's what I thought. That's what I keep thinking.

He's my big brother and I always saw him as a hero. I idealized him as young siblings tend to do. I know I could be a brat and that I annoyed him to no end when I was little. But he was my hero and whatever he did, I always cheered him on. He couldn't do wrong in my books and he was the only one that seemed to care at times about whatever happened to me. I know that I was at least partially dependent on him and that there was a time when he took care of me more than our parents did, however begrudgingly, still just a child himself. I always wondered if he resented me for it.

I know he's not perfect and I know he probably doesn't even like me. He hurt me many times too, in a similar way our father used to. I'm sure I hurt him back just as many times. Still, he's a good man, a man I would like to know better, to maybe, just maybe, have a sibling relationship similar to what you could find in books or movies, or in my friends' stories.

But I know he doesn't reciprocate, doesn't want the same, and that I should just let it go. Accept his choice. Like any other person, he has priorities in his life - his son, his wife, his work, and his wife's family. I am not one of them. I don't fit into his busy schedule any more than any acquaintance you randomly ended up sharing your blood with.

That's just how life goes sometimes.

Yet, it still feels like grieving something, someone - a fantasy that never was. It feels similar to what I felt after my loved one's death. Similar to what I felt about my parents, what I still feel about my childhood, about that loss of innocence, warmth, and happiness other people seem to get. A sense of loss and grief about what could have been.

You get so much advice when it comes to people dying. To grieve what you had, what you loved. It also feels easier, in a way, to accept and let go when you know someone is completely gone, no matter how important they may have been to you. You grieve for a year, or two, or five. And it gets easier. You still get misty-eyed when you smell the soap they used, or hear their favorite song, or see their favorite flowers - but it gets more gentle, the edges of grief less sharp, more a bittersweet longing than utter anguish. But how do you deal with letting go of someone that is still regularly a part of your life? How do you find resources to resolve that kind of grief?

I don't want to cut him off. He's my brother, and I love him, even if he may not feel the same. I love my nephew as well, and I appreciate my sister-in-law. But what else can I do when I hurt every time I see him, every time my phone rings with a message from a family member that's never him?

I want to accept and let go. A happy family, a warm sibling relationship, a person to depend on as a child, an unbroken childhood full of laughter - some dreams just don't happen. It's been 5 years already, or maybe 15 - how long am I going to pointlessly hold on? I want to give up on that pipe dream and move on, build something new on the rubble of the old. Yet how do I do that?