My Brother...That's Who I Would Choose

When I was very young, about five or six, I remember my Dad playing this game with me.  He would tell me to pretend that I was being filmed for television and I could only say hello to one person.  To whom would I choose to say hello?  Obviously, he was messing with the psyche of a young child and trying to get her to choose Mom or Dad.  (This was all in fun, mind you.  I assure you I carry no deep psychological scars from being presented with this dilemma).  I would come up with all different sorts of answers where I would acknowledge one and send a signal to the other or I would very quickly say, "Hi Mom and Dad!" but he wouldn't let me get away with any of those options.  I had to choose one of them.  Needless to say, I never could choose one over the other.  I think I decided I would rather not say hello to either one as opposed to the heart wrenching choice of preferring one over the other.

As I have been thinking about what to post about next on my blog, my brother keeps coming to my mind.  I have a lot of people in my life who I love and adore, and hopefully, a handful who love me right back.  I could write about any number of people but that brings me back to the dilemma of choosing one person over another.  My solution is to write about my brother.  In writing about him I feel like I'm still paying respect to my parents as he and I are very much a product of the two of them--both the good and the bad.  So, Dad, it turns out that I'm going to choose to say hello to Rob.  I know it's only for the benefit of my tens of readers and not to all of Searcy, AR but it's the thought that counts.

What feels so odd to me is that a lot of the people who are currently part of my every day life have never met my brother and likely might not even know I have a brother.  I do.  I have only one sibling and he's my older brother, Rob.  He's going to be 43 in December which seems really hard to believe.  We don't see each other very often because I live in St. Louis and he lives in Springfield next door to my parents--"Everybody Loves Raymond" style--although they tell me their lives don't really mirror the TV show.  We don't even talk very often.  We do e-mail on occasion and that's probably the most common way we stay in contact.  I didn't even know he read my blog until my Mom told me that he has it as one of his Favorites for web sites.  Awwww.

Rob and I do not have a glowing history as loving siblings growing up--caring for each other, protecting each other, giving lots of hugs and smiles, sharing willingly with each other.  No, we had none of that.  We fought...a lot.  I mean pretty much 24/7 we were fighting with each other.  I think our parents were ready to ship us away to reform school at times.  I don't exactly remember when that phase of our relationship started but I think it was when we moved from Searcy, AR to Springfield when he was eleven and I was six years old.  I look back on that time, knowing that it was one of the most difficult--in so many ways--events my parents have been through and I can see, with my adult eyes, how challenging it must have been for my brother.  He went from living in the country on a gravel road to living in town. He left all his friends behind along with the only life he had ever known.  He was basically stuck with a younger, bratty sister who didn't try at all to realize that this might be more difficult for him than it was for me.  We were horrible to one another.  I know I got under his skin and when we were at home together it was not good.  I remember one particularly dark day when he was being quite a stinker to me and I was trying to call my Mom at work to tell on him.  These were the days before cordless phones.  Several times he let me get to the last number I was dialing and then he would hang up the phone.  I think he let me actually get to the operator once but he disconnected the phone right as I was believing I was going to actually get through to my Mom.

That type of relationship was what we had for many years.  Maybe it's not so uncommon for siblings to fight with each other, but in mind those were some really rough years.  As we grew up and he was in high school we basically chose to not have much to do with each other.  I don't recall having much of a relationship at all but we started sharing friends later on and things got a little better.  In my mind, the real turning point was the summer I turned 19.  I was home from school and he was still living with my parents.  He had experienced a pretty bad break-up and I became the shoulder he could cry on.  He hung out with me and my friends and even went along one time on what I remember was supposed to be a date.  I also remember he and I eating at the Sub Shop together that summer when a guy I had dated once walked in.  There was a reason it was only one date.  I got Rob to pretend he was my date so that the guy would go away.

I don't know if Rob will remember that summer as significant or as some turning point in his life or our relationship but, looking back now, it seems significant to me.  After that, we became actual friends.  I left to go to college in Tulsa that next fall for my sophomore year and when I moved back again for my senior year, Rob was the one who took me back to school.  He moved all my stuff in for me and I remember before he left to go home we sat in his car and he held my hand and prayed for me.  I knew at that moment that all of my parents' prayers for us were being answered.  I was assured that not only were Rob and I on the right track in our relationship as brother and sister but I saw a sincerity and a dedication to God that I knew would not be easily swayed.

That moment was 17 years ago and it's hard to see my brother as the same person that used to torment me.  I look at him now and I see one of the most honest, honorable, humble, kind, gentle, generous people I've ever met.  Even if he wasn't my brother I know I would see him that way.  He loves his wife and his daughter and he is highly respected in his job.   The mere fact that I'm writing all of these things about him on my blog and focusing on him will probably be difficult for him to read.

I think, to this day, that my husband isn't sure how my brother feels about him.  It seems really important to Lindy for my brother to like him because Rob is all the things I just shared.  Looking back, it was probably a mistake to tell Lindy what Rob said about him when we first started dating.  Rob said he was a "pretty boy."  Granted Lindy is "pretty" but I know he wants to be more than that in his brother-in-law's eyes.  My mother had much of the same to say about Lindy when I first brought him home to meet my family.  I think her exact words were, "That Lindy is too good looking.  He's going to be trouble."  Mom, trouble he was, but it was our mutual stubbornness that took us five years to actually walk down the aisle.  I could write a book about how wonderful my husband is, but remember, I chose Rob.

There are so many examples I could share to highlight my brother's true character but that would make for a book, not a blog.  I'll try to pick just a couple.  I recall a particular Christmas before either of us were married.  It might have been the last trip that our family of four went to south Louisiana for Christmas to be with my Mom's family.  (That was pretty much how we spent every Christmas--in shorts and eating shrimp and crawfish).  Before we left town my brother wanted Dad to stop by his work because there was someone he knew who had several children and not much money to give them Christmas gifts.  My brother had some cash in an envelope that he was going to leave anonymously for his friend.  I'm sure he wouldn't have even told us that much but he had to convince my Dad to stop by his work.  He exercises that kind of generosity and selflessness to this day.  I have no idea if any of Rob's friends know anything about my blog but I'm sure there would be many, many accounts of examples just like this.   I know he gets this aspect of his character from my Dad because Dad "stalks" people at the grocery store during Thanksgiving and Christmas.  He goes to the not-so-nice section of town and looks for people who might not have enough money to spend on groceries.  Then, he goes to the manager and offers to pay for their groceries anonymously.  His technique has changed over the years because some people have actually gotten offended by his efforts.  He's still out there trying to help everyone he can.

About a month ago I went to Springfield for the funeral of my brother's father-in-law.  I didn't know Ken very well, but I felt the need to go to support my brother and sister-in-law because I love them and care about them.  Before the funeral started, Rob said he was going to be getting up to talk and he was concerned he couldn't do it.  I know he's not much for public speaking but his apprehension had to do with his fear of getting emotional and not being able to get through what he had to say.  You see, my brother saw the positives in Ken and he wanted to convey what an impact Ken had made on his life.  He wasn't able to get through it without breaking down, and my parents and I sat there completely touched by this man that has his own family yet is still a part of us.  My Dad is the only one of us who can really express how he is feeling without crying.  I blubbered like a big baby at my brother's wedding rehearsal when I tried to get up and say all that he means to me and I did the same thing at my Dad's retirement dinner.  For not being a crier I really shed a lot of tears when it comes to taking down those guards around my heart and expressing how I really feel about those I love most.

After the funeral, my parents and I were waiting in the car to leave for the cemetery and we were discussing what Rob had shared.   Most of Ken's children had also spoken along with others, but naturally, we were most touched by the words of the one who shares our DNA.  My Dad really hit the nail on the head when he said, "You know, your brother is a man without guile."  I knew exactly what he meant because I had a student teacher in 5th grade whose name was Ms. Guile and she taught us the definition of that word.  It's not a word commonly used to describe people, or to describe the behavior they don't display.  Maybe that's because there aren't a lot of people out there who are completely without guile.  Guile means "crafty or artful deception" or "duplicity."  My Dad put into one word what I already knew about my brother.

One thing I have learned from him--or maybe we both learned it from our parents--is to always give people the benefit of the doubt.  If you talked to my brother you would never hear a critical or unkind word about anyone.  He will always take up for people and give them the benefit of the doubt, even to his own detriment.  That practice has served me well in my personal and professional life.  I always assume the best of people and I feel like it's enabled me to get along with just about everyone I meet.  My brother is the same way.  We treat people as if they have no devious or ulterior motives.  If we get hurt, so be it; but it's better than living your life always being suspicious, expecting the worst in people, or expecting to get hurt.

My brother is wonderful in all the ways in which it's important to be wonderful.  He's not much for team sports.  I think when he played t-ball and soccer as a young child he spent more time chasing bugs or butterflies than he did focusing on the game.  He's smart in ways I am not.  He's completely mechanical and understands the way things work.  I completely missed that gene.  It was only two years ago when Lindy went to Israel that I learned how to successfully plunge the toilet.  It seems that I always had my brother or my Dad around to understand how things work and now I have Lindy or his mother.  Lord, help me if I ever have to fend for myself.  When we were both living at home Rob was taking a refrigeration class.  I used to tease him after every class about whether they had taught him why that light comes on every time you open the door.  Clearly, I know nothing about refrigeration.  On those tests they make you take in school where you have to look at a pattern and then pick out which object it would be if you folded it up, Rob excelled.  I could never wrap my brain around that kind of thing.

Rob doesn't really like to spend his time reading.  I gave him a book last Christmas which was an interesting gift choice for him, but I really wanted him to read it.  Recently he told me he had almost finished it and, honestly, I was surprised he ever opened it.  We are both very even-keeled, not a lot of highs and lows.  You pretty much get the same person every day with us.  I think that has served us well too.  Rob is extremely adventurous, whereas I am not.  He's done some crazy things and is pretty much fearless.  He and my Dad are people who always have to have some sort of big project.  I've never known either one of them to "exercise" because they've never been people who sit still too much.  Why exercise when you are active all the time in just the way you live your life?  I think that's the French in them because French people think Americans are crazy for all their organized work-outs.

All in all, my brother is the one I choose to highlight on my blog.  He's also one that I would choose if I needed a steadfast friend, someone I know I can trust to a fault, and a man of God who lives out his life with the utmost integrity.  I'm blessed because he's a part of me and I hope I have, in some small way, turned out to be someone that makes him proud.  It wasn't an accident that he turned out to be this man.  We have wonderful parents who have made it all appear easy to follow our convictions.  Rob, we are blessed (and not in the generic way this word is most often used) and I am a better person for having you in my life.