Early draft of an introduction for my memoir

Our assignment for this week's memoir class was to find a theme running through our stories, then write an intro to our memoir expressing the theme. Patty, our instructor, had explained that if we worked with them long enough a theme would reveal itself. I struggled with this for a few days, reading, sorting, then rereading and resorting. I was in the middle of writing an email to Patty, questioning whether a memoir was actually what I intended for my end product, since it seemed my stories had no common thread. As I tried to explain to her how my stories seemed unrelated to one another, I realized I could no longer figure out how I had separated them earlier. They all seemed to speak to one theme - Relationships. Below is an early draft of my memoir's introduction.
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Relationships are not stagnant. They change with the seasons of our lives.

My two brothers are much older than me. When we were young, they played cruel tricks on me, often bringing me to tears, then laughed as my mother scolded them. Many years later, one of my brothers, Gary, introduced me to a good friend of his, Jerry, who would become my husband. The other brother, Bill, the oldest, and the instigator of most of my childhood teasing, suffers from Parkinson's Disease. Now bedridden, he resides in an assisted-care facility. Gary and I visit him regularly, though not often enough. At family gatherings, Bill used to chase our squealing kids around the house, threatening to kiss them. If he caught one, he would grab her up in a bear hug and plant squeaky kisses on her neck and face until she wriggled free. Someone always seemed to be hollering at Bill to leave the kids alone.

Relationships mold our lives. Never a demonstrably affectionate family, my brothers and I seldom hugged each other over the years. And I can't remember a time when either of my brothers kissed me, or I, them. Now I plant a quiet kiss on Bill's forehead before I leave him at the end of each visit. Gary and I exchange a hug whenever we get together.

Time warms some relationships, and cools others. Gary and I have a closer relationship now than I'm sure we would have had if I hadn't married his good friend. My mother and her sister, Ruby, were close as children. As Ruby's alcoholism escalated, my mother's disdain for her grew. I'm sure they both suffered from the resulting estrangement.

No one is immune from the effects of relationships.

This is a story about relationships.