I am 4 years old and you are 14. It is June and the nights of our new Northern California home are warm and lovely.
I follow you outside to where you have set up the chaise lounge chairs. One for you and one for me. I am amazed at the brown flannel sleeping bags that lay before us in anticipation. It is my first introduction to the concept, and I marvel at the pictures inside the sack, of hunting dogs and ducks flying away. You tuck me in and then get in your own. Our mother interrupts the moment to coat us in mosquito repellent, and despite my protestations that it smells gross, you gently tell me that it's OK, and she thoroughly covers each arm and my face. I am astounded at all the things adults know...about how to keep away mosquitos, sleeping bags, and the multiple uses of lawn chairs.
Mom turns all the lights out in the house, and the darkness in our rural small town is deep, the crickets gaining prominence with this flimsy shield against the night extinguished. Above us, the stars begin to pop out in relief against the black. You tell me that now we get to stargaze. I ask you how to do it, and you tell me to just look up at the sky, that maybe I'll see a shooting star. You teach me the poem for wishes, help me trace the arc of the Milkyway with my hand, and show me the big dipper. I am soon asleep.
I wake in the middle of the night, disoriented and frightened, but quickly soothed by the sound of your snoring. It is an intimate, familiar sound and so comforting. With a resonance I can feel in my toes, I am filled with a feeling that I am too young to understand...a combination of joy and gratitude, and a sense of being very, very lucky.
I am 35 years old and you are 45. It is June in Colorado where you now live, and the sky outside is stormy and there is thunder in the distance. You are unconscious and an oxygen machine hums next to you. I am laying beside your bed on a couch, taking in your jaundiced skin, your bloated stomach, your parched lips.
Soon you are snoring and I am transported back to our childhood. I have not heard this sound in 28 years, but I instantly realize that it is a sound I constantly ache to hear. The loneliness that rides on my back is brushed away, the tenorous sound of your breathing stitching back together the wide wounds, the sorrow that took the place of your presence when you left home.
The next day it is time to say goodbye. You have surfaced from the deep sea that is carrying you away, and you tell mom that you want to kiss me. I lean down for the last of all goodnights. This is not the moment for settling the score, it is for creating a bridge over the breach from our childhood to our present. The simplest and most honest thing I can tell you is that you are the best brother I ever could have asked for. Your heart blooms wide open, we are both crying. It is a totally fucked up situation, but I have to walk out the door knowing I will never see you again. I don't know how to do it, but I just do, amidst your soft protests for us not to go.
I will never be 4 years old again, and there is nothing to buffer me from the darkness that I awaken to occasionally in life. Mixed in with the broken heart of grief, one thing remains true...a combination of joy and gratitude and a sense of being very, very lucky.
I love you Matthew. Thank you for being my big brother.
