Thursday, September 6, 2012

“They Say That It’s Your Birthday…” (The Beatles)





                          (Pic courtesy of Cathy Winchester, who is a fantastic photographer!)



He might be somewhat annoyed at me for writing yet another item that involves him, but how often does one’s baby brother turn almost 30?  And I am not close enough to partake in a little Southern Comfort with him (our shared favorite poison), so this is what you get brother….


I was thinking this morning of what life was like before my brother was born, and I can’t really remember it.  I was 12 when he was born.  I know he was a very great surprise to all of us, someone not really planned.  But I think that the best things in life just seem to happen to us, don’t you?

 I remember very clearly the day Mom and Dad called me into the kitchen without the other kids and shut the sliding door.  I remember, because I thought I was in trouble for something.  Shutting the door was never a good thing.  They had me sit down on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, while they stood across from me.  I remember thinking that the situation felt very much like a scene from a movie where it didn’t end well for the person sitting in the chair.  So, when they told me there was going to be another baby, I about fell out of the chair, not as much from the shock of a new baby but more from the release of tension that I was not, in fact, going to be drawn and quartered.  I’m trying to remember what it was I had done, but that part has conveniently fled the memory banks.  

Caleb has known since day one that he was special ordered.  And his response is…”Blah, blah, blah”.  But too bad.  All of his sisters made a concerted effort to pray that we would have a boy, that he would have freckles, red hair, and green eyes.  And as you see by the above, we got what we requested.  I have strawberry blonde hair, but that is the closest to red we have in our family.  Both my folks were dark headed, and no one has green eyes, though you can’t see in this pic…He has green eyes, though they sometimes alter to a grayish color, I think.

I remember seeing him through the window at the hospital as he lay in the little tiny bed with all the other babies, all new and shiny, plump and a sheen of light red dusting the top of his little head, and I remember thinking, “I will love this baby forever.  I will spoil him, and I will dress him, and I will protect him.”  I was twelve…The inner dialogue was not profound.  I was able to do with Caleb what I was not able to with my sisters, because I was so much older and was able to help more with taking care of him.  I was able to dress him and bathe him and just play “little mommy” to him.  

I am waxing selfish here, but I believe Caleb came along, in part for me, because Abba knew I would never have a child of my own to raise.  I was able to be with him from birth to the time I left home.  I know he remembers me being gone a lot as he got older, but I was in his life helping raise him from the day he came home from the hospital until he was five years old.  Not too many years, but they were some of the most important in my life, I would later discover.   Many times in my dark teenage years, his little voice saying, “Ya-yell” (couldn’t quite say my name, but most adults struggle with it as well and don’t have the cute factor going for them).  He would come running (when he was little…not so much as he got bigger) and hug me when I walked in the door, his little chubby legs churning to get to me.  What an ego booster!  

I gave him the nickname, Slick, when he was a tot, because he used to love it when I would wet his hair and slick it back.  Loved it.  And later, when I went to beauty school, I would give him flat tops, until Mom nixed that, saying the haircut turned him into “Dennis the Menace”.  I have pictures of shaving his head into a Mohawk and then bald, as was his preference when he got a bit older.  Now, I still get to cut his hair, only, as you can see in the pic, there is a lot more of it.  

I have been privileged to be a part of this extraordinary human’s life as he grew from baby to gangly boy to indecisive young man and into a man of integrity, much like his father (though he does not think so).  I believe we become versions of those we admire most.  We cannot become them, but if we really try, we emulate.  Caleb has emulated the man he most admires, my dad, and he has become a wonderfully sensitive, dangerous, humorous, honest, smart, fallible, and authentic version of the only person he could be…himself.  

As a person who has made many poor decisions unlike other members of my family who have never crossed moral boundaries in the ways I have, I identify with my brother.  I have an understanding of human carnage I share with him.  He has been to war, as a Marine, seeing things someone so young should never have.  And I have been walking through the war zone of mental illness, littered with the devastation of addiction, insanity, and death that so many people with such illnesses struggle with.  Such experiences make one jaded.  They change you and make you both strong and very vulnerable all at once.  I think I share this with Caleb, and as his eldest sister, I have always felt it my job, much like my grandma did for me, to make sure he has someone in his life who he can tell anything and who will not judge him in any way.  

Enter, Jana.  I no longer worry about my little brother’s well being, because he found the perfect mate.  Jana is all the things Caleb needs.  She centers him.  She helps him access the child within, she is a Marine and understands that mentality, and she is 100% behind him.  That is what he has always needed in a significant other, and as with the good choice to go into the military to have direction as a youth, he made another spectacular choice in her.  

Now, he is a dad.  And he is a basket case, as I would expect with such a valuable little package.  But he is going to be fine.  He is going to walk through each day, taking in failure and success as part of living.  He will, because he is made of very tough stuff.  I know he may not always feel up to the task, the weight of what should be often falling like cement blocks onto his shoulders, but he will endure.  He will laugh and smile, and as he works his way back from all he has seen and heard to reconcile with the stresses of daily life and responsibility, I believe he is finding joy again. 

The ruby is my birthstone.  They are not easy to get hold of, and did you know that a ruby that is flawed is more valuable?  Inclusions can help certify that the ruby is authentic.  I think my brother is a ruby...and his flaws make him more valuable, because anyone who sees him, knows him, can tell he is authentic. 
I love you, Slick.  It is my very great honor and privilege to know you, from birth to eternity.   Happy, happy birthday sweet boy. Miss you every day!

Sis

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