Brothers and Sisters

I imagine many brothers and sisters are very similar to each other, and this is what binds them together. My brother and I couldn't be more unalike than if our our parents went about choosing our characters from a list provided by God. "Outgoing and Boisterous" for him, "Serious and Quiet" for her. Noticing both children would be so unalike from each other, they looked at each other and said, "Well brothers and sisters love each other because they just do."

I spent most of my early youth trying to avoid my cute little brown eyed brother. It was just so much easier than trying to fathom why on earth my parents ever brought him into our house. He could always be counted on to do the unexpected such as trapping his head between stair railings, getting his mouth stuck around door knobs, and having to be rescued from the neighbors roof on a weekly basis because he overheard the father say he wished he had a rooster instead of an alarm clock to wake him in the morning. My brother was the rooster, and he was only two!

I pleaded with my mother to punish this naughty little brother of mine to no avail. "He can't be punished!" she would say, "He's much too clever." Sent to his room he would climb out the window and "play" on the roof. He would rearrange his bedroom furniture into make believe worlds. I think it was just easier on my mother's back to kiss him on his cheek and tell him to behave.

And then came came the darkest days of my sisterhood. The arrival of "the best friend". A perfect Partner in Crime. All admonitions to not go into the woods alone, or cross the street alone, or paddle across the Potomac River alone, could be ignored because there were now two.

Closed bedroom door tears falling on deaf ears, how would I ever survive these naughty, messy, smelly boys? How to even begin answering the mother question I knew would come, "Where are the boys?"

Overheard telephone commiserating between sips of coffee, waiting for my mother to realize a bus ticket to military school was our only salvation. "Yes, we now have a hole in the backyard the size of a swimming pool." ..... "Well,  I said he could dig to China."

Outgoing and Boisterous, Serious and Quiet. As different as can be. I would worry myself to sleep at night in prayer to God that I be allowed in Heaven even if I didn't love my brother.

And then we became adults, and the very characteristics chosen on God's list so long ago now fill every corner of our heart with images of our youth and love for our parents. And we love each other the way brothers and sisters always do.

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