Today is not just another day. Oh, no. Thirty-seven staggering years ago today, my little life was changed forever by the immeasurable blessing of a baby brother.
I was only three, but I still remember him coming home from the hospital. It's so funny how my mind adds a red carpet to the scene of my mother being pushed in a wheelchair down the walk way from the hospital to the van my parents drove at the time, tiny bundle in her arms.
That bundle became the best friend I've ever had.
Oh, yeah. Tears staining the keyboard, here.
We were friends from the beginning. I adored him from the start. He is the only one of my five siblings with whom I have a deep, abiding friendship that has delighted and sustained me ever since I've known him.
When we were children, he was my playmate, and we had many adventures together beneath the bright Florida sunshine, in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, on its sandy beaches. Later, we clung to each other through the turmoil of leaving our childhood home for Texas, where we were beset by culture shock and a whole lot of related challenges.
We both loved the Star Wars saga, and it was one of the things we shared that gave us hours and hours of fun, seeing the movies, acting out scenes from it, collecting action figures and paraphernalia. My nickname for him, Wormie, comes from the movie's novelization in which Luke Skywalker was called that by his friends.
In high school, we clung to each other while our lives became shattered by our mother's illness, and as our paths diverged with the approach of adulthood, we remained close, no matter how much geographical distance physically separated us. We have shared some of life's highest joys: his marriage to my new sister Melinda, the birth of their beautiful, amazing daughter Olivia, and my marriage to his new brother Daniel. And we've been shelter to each through one of life's most terrible storms, the loss of our father.
He has been one of my life's strongest anchors, and I hope I have been his.
Relationships change, and ours is no exception, but what has never changed, what I know will never change, is the iron strong yet flexible bond that links me to this amazing man who grew from that little bundle Mom held in her arms thirty-seven years ago.
Bright, intelligent, passionate, so hard-working, he is a great person, an excellent husband and father, and the best little brother, the best friend, a woman could ask for.
I am so proud, and so damn lucky, to be his sister. Happy Birthday, little brother. I love you. Always.
Copyright 2008 Melissa LaFavers