TO JOHN – NOW YOU ARE 50

I have been sifting through yesterdays that don’t seem so long ago.  My first memory of you is when you arrived home – the Green Street house.  I was four.  We had been waiting for what seemed like forever and the excitement was feverish.  You were three days old and Mother presented wrinkly little you swaddled in blankets.  ”JOHNNY!” we exclaimed.  You grew into a tow-headed imp who was doubly blessed:  the only boy and the baby to boot.

My most vivid memory of you is after we moved to Clinton Street.  I must’ve chased you out of our bedroom.  You were wearing a flannel nightshirt and your matching nightcap’s tail flew out behind you like a flag in a gale-force wind.  The sight of it was so hilarious I collapsed with laughter.  You came back and laughed with me, too, so long that it hurt.  Other memories out of that house meld together.  Although I was the oldest and you the youngest, we had the bond.  I remember the day we posed in front of the doorway for your first day of school.  Your casual stance indicated you were far more confident than I.  Years later, you would scoop up my baby daughter so that I could tend to my crying son, and we would pose with all our children on the same steps.

We lived together again when I was working and you were saving.  There was an accident at your work with molten metal and you were terribly burned.  I didn’t let on how worried I was that you would never heal.  You hit a deer with my brand new car and couldn’t understand that I wasn’t upset because you were unhurt.  We have never lived in the same state since.  I wonder how things might have been if we had.  But we haven’t.

What we do have, though, defies simple description.  Perhaps we would have taken each other for granted if the miles between us had been less.  Instead, we cherish each other more.  I count on you for balance.  We laugh and cry, rue our mistakes and celebrate our smarts.  We are interdependent and independent of each other.  We are no longer, yet will always be, the children we were.  In your darkest days, I worried again that you would never heal, but you have.  In my darkest days, I have known that you would willingly be my escape, should I ask.  This has given me the strength not to.

You have made a haven for memory and tradition on the remnant of our father’s land.  You have ensured that your children appreciate its beauty and meaning.  I am lucky I have been able to return to see and show my children that you have tended our roots with great care and creativity.  We have both finally been blessed with the lovers we deserve, who appreciate and share with us.  It is yet another privilege that means more with each passing year.  I see our father in your talents and good sense.  I see our mother in your insistence on doing what’s right, even if that isn’t the easiest thing.  I see the tenderness and respect you and your son give each other.

All of these yesterdays surface unexpectedly.  Memories from long ago are more vivid than where we left the car keys this morning.  The time hasn’t flown, it is merely in the next room.  Since we are surely now in the middle of our age, it may be that we should cull even more in order to make room for the future.  Out with the bad, in with the good.

So, my wish for you, dear little brother, at this mid-point in the journey:  May your memory fail to the extent that you are unable to summon anything but joy.  May you look to a meaningful future, filled with every luxury you have deferred.  May your line never snag!  May we visit each other more frequently.  May you always know how important you are to us all, and how deeply you are loved.