Happy Birthday Brother

Today is my brother's birthday. At thirty six, he is the baby of our family.

My relationship with my brother was not especially close when we were children. With the difference in our ages, we didn't have much in common except our parents and a sister that we wanted to maim. We were never in the same school together and by the time he was a teenager, I was long gone from the family home.

A week after he was born, I distinctly remember my mother bringing him down the stairs of our Moncton home wrapped in a blue blanket trimmed in satin. He was the prettiest thing I had ever seen with unblemished ivory skin, rosy cheeks and refined features. He was placed on a love seat for a diaper change. I was fascinated with the stump of the umbilical cord protruding from his belly button. My mum enlightened me as to what it was and apparently, there were holes in my understanding because for days, I inexplicably worried that he would die when the rest of it fell off. His plumbing however, didn't phase me which surprised both of my parents who expected some sort of curiosity. What they didn't know was that Frankie, the lad next door, and I had already established that boys and girls were different during a mutual show and tell in the forest that bordered our property. The fact that my new baby brother had a branch and berries was old news.

For the next twenty years or so, nothing much changed for me since that day that we were first introduced. My brother remained this slightly exotic creature who lived a charmed life that I witnessed from a distance. Besides being the baby AND the only son, he had me as a sister to pave the way with the parental units. After surviving my teenage years, my parents were mere shells of their former selves. There wasn't much that fazed them. Drugs? Underage drinking? Smashing up the family car? Sneaking out in the middle of the night? Please. By the time my brother was old enough to drive, he was tossed the keys to a new car, his insurance paid, and told to sleep it off at the party if he'd had too much to drink.

Then, my brother permanently left home and over the next several years, as he settled into his mid twenties, the nature of our relationship shifted. We spoke more often and got to know each other on an adult level. I realized that just about every opinion that I had of him was distorted by the dysfunction that existed between my father and me. I was surprised at how much I really liked my brother. He was intelligent, well-read, fun and completely unselfconscious. He was the kind of guy that I would choose to hang out with regardless of the fact that we shared DNA.

Now, my brother and his wife hold top spots in the hierarchy of my life. This past summer, he was the one who walked me down the aisle. My children worship him. We talk regularly and when I need a sounding board, he is there. The truth is, he's always been there, patiently waiting for me to stop spinning long enough to have a conversation. I am one very lucky girl.

Happy Birthday, Ted. And many, many more.

Love, Beth