Happy Birthday

Today would be my brother Wade’s fiftieth birthday. So very hard to imagine my nineteen year old brother at fifty. He is frozen in time as a teenager of the 1970s; long hair, long sideburns, drinking beer, smoking pot, and riding a motorcycle. He was a drummer. He was in his element, in his own world, when perched behind his drum kit. It was everywhere else he was out of place; never truly comfortable in this world’s atmosphere. His life cut short by a dark road and a missed curve. I wonder what he might have been, might have become by his fiftieth birthday. Would he have learned to breath? Would he have learned to conform? Or would he have stayed his path? Perhaps I would have seen him on the Grammy Awards this year, gathered my friends around the television and said, “That’s my little brother.” He might have had children, more nieces and nephews to add to the family tree, to carry on his legacy. I wonder what kind of father he would have been. What would he have taken as an example from our parents? He would have been a kindred spirit. Someone I could call and tell, “I miss Mom and Dad,” or “Remember the time…,” or “I’m sorry for…” And he would know exactly what I meant, because he would feel it too. Thirty-one years is a whole lot to miss out on. We were both cheated. Happy birthday, Robert Wade Primo.