A lucky man

My brother called tonight and he mentioned this blog. Both of those things are unusual, first, my brother called randomly, although more lately, than say, 5 years ago. The other part, where he reads this blog, even stranger.

I am shocked that anyone reads this blog and what I learned from my brother tonight, I do not read this blog. I know, weird right?

See, I hardly ever edit this thing, much less go back and naval gaze.

This came to a sharp point tonight when he mentioned something about a lawnmower. I had no idea what he was talking about, then he said, "in your blog, the lawnmower." Sadly, that did not help, not that I do not know what a lawnmower is, in fact I think I own one, but I have no clue what the lawnmower reference could mean.

When I had a family seemingly thrust at me, I swear I am innocent of all charges, I wanted to create a perfect family. First, I wanted them to work as a team, to respect one another, to honor one another and most important to trust and love one another.

Now, I also wanted them to make it to adulthood without being sexually abused or put in terrible danger. So, on the first goal, I failed, second, still doing OK.

See, the thing about families, and someone else said this, I am just stealing it, we do not choose our families. Parents kind of do, I mean I chose to mate with the kids mom. I thought we were on the same page about raising healthy kids, we probably were, I don;t remember. The DNA mixing and all that other magic creates a new life, and from that moment, it has its own personality, likes, dislikes and plans for treating siblings with hostility and degradation.

I think my own children do kind of love one another, but it can be a strained relationship. My hope is that when they are all adults and put the tribulations of childhood behind them, they were fall back on those familial bonds that should pull them together to become something of a dynamic, if disjointed, team.

When we were boys, my brother and I did not always get along. In short, he was smart and handsome and I was a dick. Not so much a bully as a moron. I teased and pestered, prodded and picked and every now and then he beat me up. It was humiliating and about 2-3 days later, I was back to torment him. Same thing happened. We did this for years.

Then he went to college. We kind of grew up and I realized he was a pretty neat guy and I think he realized I was just a little more than a tormenting dick. We grew close, then we did things that forced us apart, a marriage here, a job there and thirty years slip by like it was an hour ago.

I miss him dearly, he has many of my fathers traits, brilliance and a sense of humor and none of his cynicism and ambivalence. He has a bunch of kids and a beautiful wife and his life seems in order. We are both fathers now, which kind of over powers the brother bond. I will always love him.