My oldest brother turns 86 tomorrow. I know this because I keep getting automatic reminders to send him a birthday card. Which is kinda hard to do, because I’m not sure where to mail it, since he died in 2021.
Pete was a mixed bag for me. A lot of good, a little bad, and a smidge of ugly now and then. In other words, like me, like you, like all of us, he was a beautiful and broken human being. He was capable of such good, and offered it to the world within his reach, which often, thankfully, included me. He was also capable of inflicting harm, as am I, which sadly always spills over on those we love the most. As his birthday draws closer with every tick of the clock, I remember this complicated brother of mine for all that he was—and wasn’t—to me.
Thirteen years older, he taught me how to clean a gun, handle it safely, and occasionally, bring down a duck to add to the dinner table. From him I discovered that losing myself in a book could also be the fastest way to find myself. Facing down a hissing goose was easier with Pete’s big brother arm around me. He loved all creatures great and small, was slow to speak, and quick with a deep-throated laugh I can still hear today. Growing up, I counted him among my best friends, and I always knew that he was in my camp, until one day, he wasn’t. He was always one of my safe places, until he wasn’t.
Somewhere along the way our political paths diverged. He took a hard right, and I veered slowly but surely to the left. It wasn’t meant to separate us, but it did. Maybe because we were close, I was a safe target. The one he could take potshots at for all the things he saw going wrong in this country that we both loved. Gradually, we saw each other more infrequently, talked less and less, and over time it became almost a bridge too far to cross. But then the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol happened. My thoughts that day didn’t turn towards my big brother, but thankfully his turned toward me. The phone rang, and it was him. Rather than ignoring it—as I often did—I picked up, grateful for his deep, gravelly voice. The reason for his call was simple. He wanted me to know that this was not the America he believed in, and he knew it wasn’t the one I believed in either. It was a day, he said, when it mattered to hear the voices of those you loved. To turn towards each other, come what may. To come together rather than be pulled apart. It was the last time we spoke before he suddenly took his leave eight days later, at the age of 81 .
Who’s to say that just because someone is not longer here in person, that they aren’t still with us? Aren’t still taking their next trips around the sun in ways we won’t be able to imagine until we join them? Aren’t glad to be remembered and thought of on the day that will always and forever be the day of their birth, regardless of the day of their death?
Time has a way of sorting things out, if we let it. Of helping us gain a bit of perspective that we might not have been able to find while in the thick of it. From where I sit now, I can see my oldest brother a little more clearly. A guy who loved me as best he could, which was often more than good enough. Good enough that —thanks to him—we found our way back to each other before the end.
If he were with us today, here in this country that he loved, he’d remind us to find our way back to each other, and to to call the people we love, regardless of politics or party. If there’s a better way to remember him and celebrate his 86th birthday, I don’t know what it is.
Happy Birthday, Pete.
