Walking back from the edge

Better. He’s most definitely feeling better. So better, in fact, that I didn’t hesitate to suggest an outing today. I wanted to stretch my legs and feel the wind on my face—I wanted to catch winter’s last blast and watch the waves collapse against the shore.

So we bundled up and took a ride. We hiked along the trail to the lighthouse and back down to the beach. GP wrote his name in the sand and cautioned everyone to stand back, away from the water. “You’re too close,” he called, as we walked to the edge of the sand.

And on this last day of this weekend of missed opportunities and cancellations, of tummy trouble and high fevers, we laughed and held hands and talked about our favorite things.

Tomorrow my brother flies back to LA, and then in a week or so, back to South America. I hope he’ll come home again in July and eventually even come home to stay, but I keep that last thought to myself, not wanting to influence a decision that is only his to make.

The older I get the more I appreciate these moments of easy togetherness. We need to come together more—to dream and tell our stories, to be a family.

 

On leaving and finding a separate peace

He has not stopped to take a breath since he woke his uncle an hour ago—6:10 a.m. A school day. A day to pull apart, separate. He hurries, rushes his thoughts and his words, a lifetime of play into a small window of opportunity. In twenty minutes he will have to brush his teeth, comb his hair, go on with his regularly scheduled day. Not an easy transition, considering the novelty of his companion.

But he handles it like a boy twice or even three times his age. The smallest amount of whining segues into, “I will meet you in the schoolyard after school, Uncle Mark. You pick me up, today.”

Already my mind is anticipating another separation, one that will not likely come with a scheduled day or time to meet up again. In a week, maybe ten days, my brother will go his own way, leaving us like he has so many times before. Back to LA and then South America—Colombia, Brazil, Argentina—places I can’t picture beyond the beautiful and romantic photos he shares from his laptop. A life we are not a part of, a life I often think about and ask myself, why—why so far away?

And then I remember that I left, too. I left first. My leaving never required a passport and a string of vaccinations, but it was leaving just the same. I don’t write much about my siblings. About all the ways we are the same and, yet, still uniquely individual, separate, unrecognizable to each other.

Yesterday we were on the speaker phone with our sister trying to figure out a problem with the computer (his, not mine). And though she is the youngest chronologically, I see how we both sometimes go to her for answers, as if she—and not I—came first. But she is the one who stayed. She is the one who held her place, who kept her feet firmly planted in family soil. So I give her that. We both give her that. Because we left? I think so. I can’t help but feel that if we were there, together, close enough to drop in for coffee—well, I think the dynamic would be different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

My son unleashes a stream of thought—plans, ideas, outings to fill his uncle’s time. There is no end to what he expects, what he hopes for. He is a child who cannot process a week or ten days of time.

As we walk back from the drop off at school this morning, I wonder out loud about his day. “I hope he can hold it together,” I say.

My brother, quiet, thoughtful, never one to use a lot of words, shrugs. His mind, perhaps, on another bit of leaving. A separation yet to come. A plane ride, then another, settling in, finding his place. Leaving what’s here to search for something there. I don’t like it.

But I know I have to give it to him—his separate peace. I do this, we do this, because there is no other way, no other choice. We are together, close, connected because we are apart.

Santander, Colombia

 

Small gifts and angels without wings

Last night my brother flew in from LA for a visit on his way back to his way back home to South America, where he spends most of his time teaching and traveling. Yesterday, when I told my son that we were expecting a visitor his eyes lit up. “Uncle Mark is coming,” I told him.

It must be said that a visit from my brother is like a gift. He moves easily within the boundaries of our life, his presence somehow calming, comforting, peaceful. We are at our best, our very best selves when he is with us.

Maybe it is because there have been too many years when he has not been here. Too many days lost, too much time spent in other time zones, without cell phones or internet or practical means to keep in touch. To have him here, sitting at the table, on the couch, playing on the floor with my son? Well, there are few words to express how important it is, how meaningful.

He was scheduled to arrive last night at 8:23. But there were delays. The minutes dragged, soon it was an hour, then almost two. Though it was long past bedtime, GP kept climbing out of bed, coming back downstairs. “I’m too excited. I can’t sleep. I just need to see Uncle Mark before I close my eyes.”

This morning, GP could not contain his excitement. He led his uncle around, showed him every new thing, talked endlessly—but beautifully, like a host—his manners impeccable. “So, how was your flight, Uncle Mark?” and “Would you like to eat breakfast with me?” and “Can I read you a story?”

Can I read you a story?

And here’s what I mean about our better selves, about the gift that is my brother—GP sat on the couch and read my brother a library book. A book there was no way he could have memorized because we only read it one other time and that was already more than a week ago.

Last summer, when we were all in LA together, my brother taught my son to swim. Countless hours in the pool with trained instructors, and in the end, it was my brother—with his gentle kid whisperer ways—who taught the boy to dive under the water and kick his feet and move his body forward.

This morning, my son read a book. See Pip Point. Point. Not an easy word. Was it perfect, flawless, without error? No. But he did it. He wanted to do it.

And that’s what I mean about the gift.

Yesterday I was looking for a miracle worker from the city of angels. Last night, I think he arrived.

(Of course, we’re still going to need a tutor.)