The urge to divulge in blog form comes at the most impractical times of day. Eight minutes to two o’clock, Saturday morning is a rather indecent time to be up, for one, for two, it’s awful on the brain to even consider writing. Today marks two thirds’ completion of this school year. Today also marks nine days before Jeff’s deployment (ten months? eleven? fifteen? does he even know?). It’s finally dawning on the family, and we speak in a softer voice when the subject arises, and one can feel the collective blood pressure rise in the room. It will be his first time overseas.
He is my dearest brother. I want to describe him here– do some character study, talk about childhood games, and find myself surprisingly emotional. He is strong, and oh so brave (he’s defended me in reckless predicaments more than I can mention). His verbal mileage exceeds mine to the umpteenth degree. In a single, sixteen mile car ride, he will take three breaths between paragraphs. I love listening. He’s stubborn, too, like me, and we’ll argue for an hour over a petty matter, until one of us tires and consults Wikipedia. Though the boy:girl sibling ratio is low (1:5), he’s man enough for seven, and still girl enough to watch Pride and Prejudice and channel Betty Crocker on occasion. (Well, that movie required some bribery.)
Growing up, he dictated most games of pretend: we were WWII soldiers, complete with old army cast offs from Grandpa and the surplus store. When he and I grew tired of vanquishing Nazi forces from our foxhole or submarine, we’d turn on each other with threats of court marshalling. Deviously, I discovered that if I threw a fit, I could get my way in most games — feign injury and life would be sweet. Still, such behavior was aggravating, and games where my trickiness displayed itself quickly decayed into a mash of attitudes and abrupt arguments. When he was in a sulky state, I would tease him sometimes–many times, shamefully–yet on sunny occasions, all I had to do was pretend to be a jolly superhero lion (“Binjee Banjee Lion”), or a crazed creature named Pan Pipe in order to cheer him. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs during childhood was summited when I made Jeff laugh.
