CORRECTING A MISUNDERSTANDING

Yesterday, I posted a little essay that was supposed to be about my parents and the shift in their parenting strategies. I meant to write about how they were much stricter with my sister and me then they are with my brother. Brother did not take it that way and thought the posting implied that he had no moral character. It was certainly not intended to imply that and the offending posting has been deleted.

So what do I think of Brother? It's hard to be objective since I am so much older than he is and we have never really been peers. I was already eleven when he was born and sometimes, when he would cry at night, I would go across the hall into his room and rock him rather than wake up our mother. So there has always been some maternal-ish feelings there and it is hard for me to see him as a young adult and not the same little kid with a bowl cut who claimed his name was Lonny Deroony and turned every conversation into a game show.

But he has grown up. He is a junior in college and contemplating some major life changes. He is one of the smartest people I know and has a quick and biting wit. I cannot imagine him failing in any endeavor (except possibly Italian class).

I love when we find common interests as adults and I smile whenever I think of the time we went shopping for toothpaste so I could teach him how to clean a SCUBA mask and can not hide my excitement when he calls me to tell me he got up at 6am and stood in line to be the first to vote in his Precinct. I just wish he would call or email more and let me have more moments like that, but then again, how often does anyone really call their siblings when they are in school? I think it is universal that at that point in life, friends come first.

Hopefully, after college, he will join Sister and me in New York City so we can have even more of those moments where we connect one on one as peers.