Today, I helped my brother move from Louisville, KY to Colorado Springs, CO. He's ten years younger than me and we haven't been close since he graduated from high school. Aside from holidays and an occasional visit in the summer to see my kids, we've probably spent less then three total months together in the last decade. For whatever Freudian reason, we have become strangers... bound only together by the fact that we share a birthday (exactly ten years apart) and are expected to socialize together several times each year.
I'm a salesman by trade (not something I'm proud of... but we all have to make a living), and I spend a good deal of time trying to figure out what makes my customers tick. Some people are motivated by money or material things. Others seem obsessed with relationships or the hope that by doing good they won't be left behind when Barry Gibb, in a flowing white robe, leads them to Valhalla. At first I categorized my brother as a materialist... a Generation X kind of person who lives for today and says "to hell with tomorrow." He always shopped at the 'cool stores' at the mall & would spend more money on a pair of designer sunglasses than I would spend on a new radial tire. But over time, especially in the last six months, I began to realize that he didn't neatly fit into one of my 'that kind of person' categories.
I was confounded that he never seemed to have plans for the future or follow a schedule that dictated his life. Getting information out of him about his personal life was like pulling tail feathers from an indifferent peacock. I knew more about some of my business customers than my own flesh and blood. How was that possible? He had no particular direction and it didn't seem to bother him at all. When you're married, with kids that are constantly needing to be driven from one activity to another, it's hard to get through twenty-four hours without your Blackberry or daily planner. My brother abstained from this type of regimentation, and frankly it drove me nuts.
As he got older and our gulf became wider, he seemed to revel in the fact that he didn't own a cell phone, answering machine, or computer. He actually read newspapers and magazines, used a Rand McNally Atlas when he traveled, and was much more up to date on many things without so much as a glance at the internet. He never forgot my kid's birthdays, something that I do on a regular basis with my nieces and nephews, despite my reliance on today's technology. He was an exceptional uncle of the highest order, but a mystery as a brother.
Over the years, I've expected (almost demanded) to have an epiphany which would suddenly open my eyes to what made my brother tick. But it never happened. He confounded me right up to the moment I said goodbye to him this morning. This move is a very big deal for him. He's leaving his home of nine years & everything he knows for a fresh start 1,100 miles away. In many positive ways... it's a life-altering move, something I respect & admire because many people (myself included) would find it damn near impossible to make such a huge leap in the middle of their life.
Everyone else was waiting patiently in the truck & van to take his extra stuff to our mother's house in Winchester for storage. We were alone in his apartment saying goodbye when that moment of reckoning hit me. Instead of doing our usual routine of shaking hands, we embraced for a moment (something we hadn't done in almost a decade). It was a brief, tearful acknowledgement that made me realize that I didn't have to figure out who he was or what made him tick. I only had to love him, because we're brothers.
I'm a salesman by trade (not something I'm proud of... but we all have to make a living), and I spend a good deal of time trying to figure out what makes my customers tick. Some people are motivated by money or material things. Others seem obsessed with relationships or the hope that by doing good they won't be left behind when Barry Gibb, in a flowing white robe, leads them to Valhalla. At first I categorized my brother as a materialist... a Generation X kind of person who lives for today and says "to hell with tomorrow." He always shopped at the 'cool stores' at the mall & would spend more money on a pair of designer sunglasses than I would spend on a new radial tire. But over time, especially in the last six months, I began to realize that he didn't neatly fit into one of my 'that kind of person' categories.
I was confounded that he never seemed to have plans for the future or follow a schedule that dictated his life. Getting information out of him about his personal life was like pulling tail feathers from an indifferent peacock. I knew more about some of my business customers than my own flesh and blood. How was that possible? He had no particular direction and it didn't seem to bother him at all. When you're married, with kids that are constantly needing to be driven from one activity to another, it's hard to get through twenty-four hours without your Blackberry or daily planner. My brother abstained from this type of regimentation, and frankly it drove me nuts.
As he got older and our gulf became wider, he seemed to revel in the fact that he didn't own a cell phone, answering machine, or computer. He actually read newspapers and magazines, used a Rand McNally Atlas when he traveled, and was much more up to date on many things without so much as a glance at the internet. He never forgot my kid's birthdays, something that I do on a regular basis with my nieces and nephews, despite my reliance on today's technology. He was an exceptional uncle of the highest order, but a mystery as a brother.
Over the years, I've expected (almost demanded) to have an epiphany which would suddenly open my eyes to what made my brother tick. But it never happened. He confounded me right up to the moment I said goodbye to him this morning. This move is a very big deal for him. He's leaving his home of nine years & everything he knows for a fresh start 1,100 miles away. In many positive ways... it's a life-altering move, something I respect & admire because many people (myself included) would find it damn near impossible to make such a huge leap in the middle of their life.
Everyone else was waiting patiently in the truck & van to take his extra stuff to our mother's house in Winchester for storage. We were alone in his apartment saying goodbye when that moment of reckoning hit me. Instead of doing our usual routine of shaking hands, we embraced for a moment (something we hadn't done in almost a decade). It was a brief, tearful acknowledgement that made me realize that I didn't have to figure out who he was or what made him tick. I only had to love him, because we're brothers.
