I recently returned for a 4 day visit with my brother and his family.  I marveled several times while I was there on our evolving relationship.  And I left with a heavy heart even while I looked forward to coming home and seeing my husband.  The most unfortunate part of having an only child is that he will miss out on that shared experience both Tom and I have had.  The shared experience isn’t always pleasant but we both have siblings that we have known our entire lives.

I remember idolizing my brother as a child.  He was definitely the leader in all our rabble rousing but I was his co-conspirator.  We both had active imaginations as children and spent hours together playing pretend games.  My brother was in my eyes everything I wanted to be.  Smart, funny, well liked.  For years I was willing and did fall on the sword for him simply because I wanted him to be happy.

His welfare is of my concern No burden is he to bear

We’ll get there

For I know
He would not encumber me

My favorite memory of my brother and I happened when we were young and lived in Memphis.  I was around 7 years old which puts Jay at 11.  It was summertime and hot.  We had been left to our own devices.  I am not exactly sure where he procured them from but Jay had a handful of bottle rockets.  And he decided we should set them off this his bedroom window.  And we did.  It was a lot of fun.  We were getting away with something!  (One of us might have been grounded to the house).  The fun continued until a bottle rocket fired backwards back into his bedroom setting the floor on fire.  One of us tossed an orange blanket on it which burned slightly.  There was a black mark on his floor we deftly covered with furniture and I am sure we explained the singed blanket somehow.  Many years later, after Jay had moved out and a combination of situations forced anxiety and depression (although at the time I didn’t know that is why I felt the way i did) to weigh down on me I would drag that blanket out and remember that time.  I wanted most in life to be there again.  Setting the house on fire, in it together, brother and sister.

If I’m laden at all
I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart
Isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another

Our tween/teen years were hard on our relationship.  I think they were a hard time on every relationship in our family.  I regret that we didn’t find the support in each other, but alas teenagers are self involved aren’t they?  But we occasionally reached out to each other.  In junior high I struggled with finding my place in this world.  We lived in a small town which just makes weirdness, well weirder.  During this time when our relationship was not the best Jay reached out and encouraged people to befriend me.  And he helped me find a little bit of me.  These days those little things outweigh any of the bad of that time.

It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share

Adulthood presented its challenges as well and it took us years to find our place in each other’s lives. Parenthood provided that path for us to reconnect and learn from each other again.  I consider myself blessed to have him in my life.  He is one of a few who have known me from the very day I was born.  I find he often has the capacity to remind me of good I never knew or forgot.

I love him and his wife and his son.  And if we both end up raising our one boy each I hope they find in each other the love and support my brother and I took 30 years to get right.  Because it has been one of the best things in my life, knowing him as an adult and a parent.

And the load
Doesn’t weigh me down at all
He ain’t heavy he’s my brother

Happy 36th Birthday Jay!

(ps I bought you a pig!)