Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of the end of my elder brother’s fight against cancer. That sounds a lot better than saying it’s been fourteen years since his death, but there you are. If I’ve done the math right, I guess he would have been forty at that time. I’ve fallen out of touch with his widow, and it’s been far too many years since I’ve spent any time with his daughter. Both live thousands of miles away in Portand, OR, not that I’m fishing for excuses or rationalizations.
I find myself thinking about my brother more and more as I get older, piling up birthdays that he never did. Fifty-one doesn’t seem old to me now that I’m here, and by extension forty feels almost youthful. He visits me quite regularly in my dreams. Half of the time I know he’s dead and remark on the fact in the dreams; half of the time I don’t.
Quite by coincidence, my eldest brother is in town this week, on business here in Philadelphia from distant southern California. He’s making time in his schedule, and we’ll get together on Wednesday.
The rest of my surviving family, my mother, sister, and nephews, are also all out west. I manage to get out to see them every few years. How odd that I see my deceased brother so much more often.
