Oh Brother...

Anyone heard of a thing called sibling rivalry? Anyone experienced it? It’s an amazing thing. My brother and I are just short of three years apart (I’m oldest). We grew up fighting each other and playing together and barely understanding the difference. I don’t remember being the only child before he was born. My earliest memories include him. He has always been there and been a part of my life. Sometimes it was a wonderful blessing. At others it seemed more of a necessary evil. At any rate, I can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like without my brother. He read my diaries. He stole my forts. He spied into the bathroom through a keyhole. He cheated at board games. He laughed at me when I exercised with Jack Lalane. He told my sister what I got her for Christmas. I could go on. And on. But it wasn’t always him that did the torturing. I stuck a pin in his boxing bag and deflated it. On car trips I made him sleep on the ledge under the back window so I could sleep on the seat. I blamed him for stuff he didn’t do. I guess he forgave me. I hope so anyway. He did a lot of nice things for me too. He did my animal chores every morning when I didn’t like to wake up. We had vacation clubs in the barn attic. We made tents on his bunk beds. We built trains out of bikes, trikes and wagons. I did a few nice things for him on occasion. I quizzed him on football cards. I bought Valentine’s Day flowers for his girlfriend. Once I even cleaned out his toy box so I could find all the change inside from his broken piggy bank. That’s all I can remember. And then there were the “embarrassments.” Like going on a double date together with another brother/sister pair. Or when I was a senior, he a freshman, and kids in our high school kept getting us mixed up. We looked alike, I guess. Horrors! Oh and the stuff we know about each other! Cactus needles in the behind. Hugging trees on the top of KT. Having a wreck on prom night. Rampart Range Road. Dents in the ceiling. Spying in the basement. This list could be dangerous so I’ll quit there. Nowdays we don’t fight anymore – not much anyway. I have a sweet sister-in-law, two awesome nephews and an adorable niece because of him. He doesn’t mind being my facebook friend and we celebrate his birthday every Christmas Eve. Funny thing, though. He’s given up on trying to catch me in age. He used to think he could do that. Now he doesn’t even want to. We watch K-State sports, we enjoy thinking “Nobody ever tells me anything” about each other and we can still get excited about remembering stuff from a long time ago. Stuff like Daniel Boone on TV. The commercial game. POAs on the Christmas tree. The county fair. Filling the sugar bowl with salt. Long walks to the archery range. Collecting pop bottles on the river bank. Picking and trading a boxful of fireworks. Drinking pop at Grandma’s. Zitting horses. Major Astro. Santa and Toy Boy zooming around the big wide world. Being banned from calling each other anything that ends in “head” or “hole”. (Yes – that really happened!) What would life be like without a brother? Glad I never had to find out. I have a sister too. But that’s another blog. Proverbs 17:17