It came to my attention today that my brother reads this blog every morning. This morning he emailed me a critique of last night's blog. Apparently he didn't like it very much. LOL. Well it's my blog so :p
Let me tell you about my darling baby brother. My parents created me first. Since I was practically perfect in every way, they decided to try again. And that's when it went downhill. LOL. We didn't get off to a very good start. When he was just a baby, I used to scream my head off and throw quite the tantrum when anyone tried to hold my brother. I would let them feed him and change him but that was about it. I guess I had some jealousy issues. We're pretty close in age, I'm 21 months and a week older than than he is.
Soon I'd taken over and was bossing him and the other neighbourhood boys around (there were no girls my age on my street). My brother was a very shy child and I used to do all the talking for him. I remember once, when he was in Scouts and they were selling tree saplings. I went door to door with him, making the sales pitch, claiming that my brother was sick and had lost his voice. My brother stood with me and just looked sad and coughed a bit. We sold a lot of saplings that day. This worked well for school fund raising as well. I made his G.I. Joes marry my Barbies. And I dressed him and one of the neighbour kids up likes girls from time to time too :)
My brother and I are almost polar opposites. I'm short and stout, he's tall and lanky. I was good in school and loved reading and being in the drama club. My brother didn't do so well in school and he participated in sports. And we fought. A lot. The top of my middle finger is crooked thanks to him. After fighting in the basement, I chased him up the stairs and when he stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, I swung to hit him. He moved and I hit the door frame instead, breaking my finger. He got grounded and I got out of gym and music class for a month. One Christmas morning, he opted to wake me up by standing in my doorway and threw batteries at me until I woke up. Nice kid eh? Too bad Santa didn't see that. I'm not totally innocent. I once locked him in the bathroom of our house trailer (not on purpose!). And I once fed him a bag of jellybeans with some "Bert's Every Flavour Jelly Beans" mixed in. Watching his face when he bit into one of the gross flavoured ones (vomit, sardine, pepper) was priceless. He wrecked his knee playing football. I painted his toe nails black and then had to remove it before his surgery. It tickled and he kept trying to kick me. That was an adventure. After the surgery, he was in a soft cast from hip to ankle for some time. We went away camping over the labour day weekend to Long Point on Lake Erie. There are a lot of sand dunes there. I pushed my brother down one of them and he got stuck and couldn't get up. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't pull him free either. Mom came to the rescue but then she was laughing so hard she couldnt' help either. It was great. He got his revenge later by throwing his crutches down the basement stairs just to see how fast I'd come running in case he really fell. Jerk. LOL.
We went to the same high school but ran in different circles so our paths rarely crossed. He did date a couple of my friends though but that was short lived. As much as we fought, he never picked on my at school and neither did any of his friends. And when our mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, we leaned on each other for support. The day my mom was having her second surgery, I was headed to the office at school to sign myself out ( I was old enough to ) and I ran into my brother in the hallway. He was planning on skipping class to head home. So I signed him out too and we headed home together. It was instinct. When our great-grandmother died and I was giving part of her eulogy, my brother stood at my side and even finished it for me when I got too choked up to speak. I did kind of have to punch him in his side and growl "read it" at him, but he came through.
One night in our late teens, the neighbour kid brought my brother home from a party, very drunk and bleeding. My darling brother fell over a cinder block. While trying to clean him up and bandage him up (and not pass out from the fumes coming off him), he just kept telling me what an awesome sister I am and how much he loves me. LOL.
And this morning, he told me that he loves reading my blog because it makes him feel like I'm sitting across the table from him, talking to him and telling him what's on my mind.
It's funny. No matter how much we've fought or how long we've gone without seeing each other, we still have a special bond between us. And I have to admit, the older he gets, the more he seems to be more like me. And listening to him talk about my niece just melts my heart. That darling little girl has be totally smitten and wrapped tightly around her finger. Boy, is he in for trouble later.
I can't wait to see him (and my parents and niece) at Christmas. We're going to go out and shoot some pool one night. I bet we can get ourselves into a little bit of trouble ;)
I could sit here all night and share stories of the crazy stuff he's done (like eating an entire tin of ginger cookies with our cousin in New Brunswick or the time he coloured a certain body part with a permanent black magic marker...he was 3) but I do need to get to sleep at some point.
So, baby brother, I hope you have enjoyed reading tonight's blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I miss you lots and love you even more.
Good Night!
Sarah
My brother and I at Bolt Castle on Heart Island, wayyy back in the day :)
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