Favorite Aquarian

Sunday was my brother’s birthday. It is amazing to me to picture him grown-up with kids of his own. In my mind he will always be 14, the age that he was when I moved away from home, no longer a daily part of his life. I spent sometime thinking about him. He is the one person that grew-up with the same views, opinions, and habits as mine. Those views that are based upon our parents actions and our family history. He is the only other person in the world that says breakfast the same way that I do. Tending to leave out the "k," I don’t know which of us influenced the other. If I said it wrong and taught him, or if he could never pronounce it so it became ours. I think of those odd family things.

He was so scared growing up, and being the loving big sister, I took advantage of this. I would sing the "Twilight Song" theme song in my silly little girl voice, I would use Ouija boards as devices of torture, toss little rain frogs into the bath. Those horrible things, that brothers and sisters do to each other. I can picture him, sleeping at the foot of my bed (after being kicked out of my parent’s room) then I deemed myself too grown up for that. He would then sleep on the floor between my closed bedroom door and my parents. Terrified of whatever monsters were creeping around his room or mind late at night. Looking back he must have been scared to death, his little six-year-old body centered between two ports of safety.

I hope that he had a wonderful birthday.