Its been a year since my  brother died, and I ‘m having a hard time letting him go.

Only since his death do I begin to discern the complex singularity of the bond between siblings. Now, when I revisit the corridors of my childhood, I find both my brothers there, with me at every turn, behind every door, in every room –  my confederates in all respects.  I am astonished that in my past journeys here, I did not discern the the constancy  of their presence next to me, and shocked it  took the death of one to illuminate their figures in these precincts we shared.

I study the three of us as we play and fight,  bartering the secrets and promises that are the currency of our childhood.  None of us is aware that every moment we spend together as small children fortifies the bonds that have joined us since  birth.  We do not know that although the adults we’ll become will love and offer intimacies to many, none will know us as long, or as genuinely, as as we  know one another

As I watch us play, trying on the roles and establishing  the hierarchies that will follow us into adulthood, I am struck by how we three very young explorers share our discoveries–triumphantly,  and with real joy. This more than any act cements our bond, for nothing brings persons closer than discovering new lands together. And small children and their brothers and sisters discover new lands together over and over again throughout their childhood.

Eventually, though, their ardor dims, and it continues to diminish as they grow into us: bored, blase, jaded, indifferent adults.  My  brother never really lost his zeal for discovery. I don’t think his sense of wonder ever dimmed. Now, I see it in the faces of his three small sons, but even as the sight assuages my grief, it makes me miss him even more.

(2013) 

My brother Milton: Nov. 1959 – Aug. 2012.