I have a younger brother. I’m 18 months older than him. We have a pretty good relationship. Even when we were young we got along pretty well. We were each other’s first friends and playmates.
I used to be taller than him, but now he’s taller than me. When we were young, many people used to say we looked alike. Then we grew up and he grew out his beard. Now they just see the family resemblance.
I’m not sure how personal this should be. I want to respect his privacy yet I want to share our story.
One of the fun stories our parents shared with us was when we were quite little, I forget how old. He must have been a toddler. One day we were sitting on the floor playing or something. He got so angry at me that he leaned over and bit my Mary Jane shoe, (which was on my foot.)
And I’ve been annoying him ever since. I do have a tendency to nag my poor dear brother, which I’m trying not to do. We both have our foibles and vices.
But let me tell you about his virtues and talents.
He has our father’s wit and humor. He’s really good at making us laugh and keeping things upbeat. He’s really smart and tech-savvy. He’s warm, patient, kind and generous.
I remember one time we were out biking as children and he had taken a different path than me. A car drove to the end of our apartment complex and the guy was asking me for directions on how to get to the store as I was sitting on my bike. I didn’t realize it at the time how unusual it was for this guy to be all the way down the end of the parking lot where the empty daycare was by our apartment complex asking a child for directions. Then my brother happened to come back from the dirt trail he was on and the guy drove off real quick.
It didn’t hit me until later. When I told my family what had happened, that I realized the guy was highly suspicious.
Another memory I have is at the same apartment complex. There was a pool there and my brother and I would go swimming together. One time he was getting bullied and I stood up to my full height in the shallows of the pool and came to his defense and the bully stopped bothering my brother.
We used to like to race his Hot Wheels in the kitchen, where there was a tile floor-perfect for racing cars.
I always considered him the smart one of us. He helped Dad with the tech stuff in the studio and in classes. He learned how to edit on Avid, (a professional computer editing software), while he was still in high school. He learned how to work PhotoShop and do graphic design in his yearbook class at high school. He had a good eye for design and did a good job.
I was more of the get-it-done and people person while Ian was more of the figure out how to do stuff person.
Even after losing Dad, we’re still a team. We work together, take turns with chores and help each other with stuff the other’s not so good at.
We both say and do things that annoy the other. But we’ve got a pretty peaceful close relationship. We still rely on one another.
I like it when we have our impromptu chats. We sometimes have interesting discussions. They range from personal, family stuff to politics to whatever the both of us have watched on YouTube or learned about.
Sometimes we joke about running gags from our Voice Over classes or things from the past. We have a shared history that we both contributed to. It was a rather unique childhood working with our father in media production and teaching classes.
In spite of our visual and hearing handicaps, we worked in media. The dream of doing our father’s films and projects sadly died with him. But the camaraderie we gained throughout the years is still strong.
I don’t know what the next chapter of our lives will entail. We have a quiet life now of just taking care of our mother and my brother’s wife with their health issues. We all have health issues and we’re getting older ourselves.
May God continue to take care of us as he has been before and after Dad died.
I hope and pray we continue to have many more years of life together, to laugh, comfort and help each other.
