Joe

I’m thinking a lot about siblings today. I am grateful for mine. This year I made a promise to myself to appreciate them more, to see them more often, to call. I am guilty of letting life get in the way of my good intentions, paving the road to hell.

I am nine years older than my baby brother. That is quite a distance when you think about it. I was riding the school bus to elementary school when he was born. I was in junior high when he began kindergarten. I was away at college when he got his first pimple. I was married with a child before he graduated from high school.

He was always Baby Joe. I remember well his childhood imaginary friends, Johnny Bangus and Johnny Thompson. I see him with his stuffed teddy bear, Charlie Baby-o, more clearly than I see him as he was in college.

Years passed, he grew up, he married, he became a father. Who do I see today? I see a good man in every respect, a good husband, a good parent, a good provider, a good brother.

He is also one of the luckiest people I know. I accuse him of this often. My siblings and I tease him about it. It’s as if he got all of the luck genes delegated to our family.

When I was almost twenty-three and Joe was just thirteen our middle brother died in a motorcycle accident. I was five-hundred miles away, but Joe was at home to bear witness to our parents’ grief, and suffer his own. I often wonder if this shaped him into the man he is today. Did he strive harder to please our parents or would he have been who he is regardless?

The more I think about my little brother I realize luck isn’t something one is born with – you make your own. Joe certainly has. He has worked hard, planned well, and, yes, maybe had a wee bit of good fortune along the way.

I am very proud of the man he has become, but I can’t help but occasionally still picture him dragging Charlie Baby-o through our childhood home while making grand plans with his imaginary friends.

I love you Joe.