Count Your Blessings, Day 9

Siblings

I have two brothers. One older, Robby, and one younger, Ryan.

Yep, I'm the middle kid, explains a lot, right? Well, at least helps explain a few things, if nothing else.

Anywho...

I'm thankful for my brothers, although I haven't always been that way. In our younger years, there was a lot of rivalry, a lot of fighting, and just a general amount of chicanery that would cause our parents no small amount of problems. 

In short, we were boys.

And the trouble we would get into. I have found memories of not getting caught for a large part of what we did wrong. Things that I would recall here, however, I'm not so sure the statute of limitations has expired on some of them. Needless to say, we were mischievous and ornery.

Rob and Ryan always had a good relationship, at least as far as I could tell. However, I was the odd man out. Ryan would cry out that I was hitting him when I was sitting across the room, because he knew Rob would come in and break it up by beating me up. Rob would torture the two of us, just because, you know.. older brother. It caused it's own sort of rending in my relationship with them.

It wasn't until I was 35 that I really had the chance to get to know each of them. Unfortunately, it took him getting cancer for me to place that relationship as a priority, and honestly, if it weren't for my aunt making me go take him munchkins every morning while he was at the hospital, I'm not so sure I would have actually taken the time on my own. He was only 31, he had a lifetime in front of him, I could just get to that later.

But God had a different plan. 6 months later my brother succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged his body. I watched him slowly deteriorate, getting worse as it metastasized into his brain, taking away his ability to walk, causing his eye to close. I watched as my older brother stepped in and took care of him with the physical things he could no longer do. That bond they had from their younger years re-emerging, but this time, I was apart of what was going on.

Since then, Rob and I have had a much better relationship. Something about losing a brother makes you realize how short life is, and what the really important things are. Sure, on the surface, it seems to be all about video or board games, but, as anyone with brothers knows, there is always more to those conversations then what is on the surface.

So, today, I'm thankful for my brothers. 

Tomorrow is a different subject. :D