Moving On

He was always there, my big brother. His hair was red and he had freckles just like me. When you are taller than everyone else your age and you burn and have freckles it helps to have someone just like you around. He was a walking reminder that I was not a freak. He actually would take time with me occasionally. And I am so glad I was smart enough to cherish those times. When you are young you can be so oblivious to the important things in life.I remember talking over my SAT scores with him. He wanted me to apply to all these colleges for scholarships and said, “You can do it.” I remember playing work up in the vacant fields with the neighborhood kids. I remember how he was always the pitcher cause not very many of us could throw that well. He was a proven genius, his test scores said so. He went to two different high schools in order to get the classes he needed. It was always a given that he would be there.After our teens we always lived in different parts of the world, at times even different hemispheres of the world. But we stayed in touch and I knew that the world had a big brother in it – somewhere out there. He was the one who told my girls there was no Santa Claus, I helped to sew the wedding dress of his wife to be. We passed in and out of each other’s lives while learning to be adults, building memories with children and friends. He was the first to be there when family needed him, he would go the extra mile to keep in touch. You could always count on big brother for an email here and there to remind us we were a family.The phone call came this morning that he was in the hospital. He is OK for now, but I am not – it took the strength right out of me to think that there was this chance that he would not be there – out there in the world some where. It is my prayer that I am able to keep my family and siblings and be the first to go. Surely that is not a big thing to ask, to be the one leaves first?

Don’t go big brother, stay a little longer. We can play work up in the rest home together in our wheelchairs and talk to grandchildren on the phone about Santa Claus. We can compare freckles and remember our red hair. Your wife and my husband can shake their heads at us as we sit around the computers and type away so fast. There are still many memories to make together and much we can share. Stay a little longer big brother.