My brother was 2 1/2 years older than me and was a typical big brother. He pretty much let me follow him from one place to the other and even rode me on the handlebars of his bike in he summer so we could go to the Shell swimming pool together. Those were the fun days. We played together, ate together, traveled to family events together and were very close.
And then the teen years came and we began to drift apart. He developed interests that I was not included in and I was living in my own world by then. We would sometimes go together to the weekly sock hops and to the ice cream parlor on Friday nights, but we seldom came home together.
In 1957 my mother remarried and she, my stepdad and my brother and I moved away from our childhood home and into a new home in Metairie, La. I was in the 10th grade and my brother went off to college.
While still in college he got married and he moved to Baton Rouge. We really went separate ways then. I remember thinking often that he was an alien and I did not know who he was anymore.
I think we both had changed a lot by then and were definitely pursuing different goals and had different lifestyles. He had gotten his degree from LSU and was making good money and living a lifestyle that was not familiar to me. I would sometimes visit him but seldom felt comfortable around him anymore.
The closeness we had shared during childhood was definitely gone and though I longed to be close to him again, I could not seem to find a way into his life. We were like night and day and except for being related by blood and connected by family, I felt no connection.
I am grateful all of that changed when we got older. He went through a divorce and remarried and we started connecting a little bit more. Over the years, thankfully, we drew closer and closer to one another and I felt like I had my brother back.
As I look back on all of those years and the broken relationship we had I can see how my feeling intimidated by him helped to create the gap that developed between us. As I began to grow in my sense of self I was able to take a step back and look at him in a different way. Instead of judging him for being who he was, I began to look at all of his good qualities and I found myself appreciating him and taking an interest in his life and what he was doing.
The closer I moved in towards him, loving and appreciating him, the more he moved towards me and we rekindled the close brother-sister relationship we had as children. Before I knew it we were calling each other all the time and sharing stories about our lives.
On January 20, 2021, the unthinkable happened and my brother died of Covid-19. He was in the hospital in quarantine so I could not go see him. Before he had to go on a ventilator, I called him to try to talk to him. He did not have his hearing aids in so he could not hear me. I was screaming into the phone and he could not hear me. He finally hung up, the next day he was on a ventilator and that was that.
I was in Virginia at the time and he was in Arkansas. I knew in my spirit that he was not going to make it. Feeling distraught over not being able to see him or talk to him so I could say good-bye, I did the next best thing and decided to communicate spirit to spirit. My spirit talked to his spirit many times over the two weeks before he died so I did get to tell him what he meant to me, how much I loved him and how much I was going to miss him. I said my good-byes in spirit.
I miss our phone calls, our visits and I miss his being able to fill in the missing details of my life from when we were children. It is strange and still sad on birthdays and holidays to not be able to talk to him.
I loved my brother (it was just the two of us) and I will always miss him and hold him close in my heart. I am grateful for the opportunity to get to know him as an adult and to share in his life. And now, thankfully I get to continue to share him with his two sons, my nephews Anthony and Andy.
Happy birthday Bubbee. You are loved and you are missed.
My brother and my son, Mac |
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