Goodbye Brother

A week ago today, I lost my only brother. I was never as close to him as I wanted to be, and never knew him as well as I wanted to, but we did both try to improve that, especially in recent years.

We were of different generations, me about four when I hid his army hat in hopes of keeping him from having to leave so soon after a visit. Ironically, I (the 60's kid) was the conservative and my brother the liberal on most political/cultural issues. But over the past decade or so we made a point of talking regularly about issues, and always found middle ground that wasn't just dividing the baby but a real win-win for all, in a way our real political leaders seldom do. (We both also moved toward the middle politically over the years.)

He was generous to a fault, literally. Mom used to worry about him giving away too much. And he really wanted to change the world for the better. He gave his life to bringing justice and opportunity to poor folks all over the World. Somehow the justice and opportunities rarely lasted more than a few years, until the next coup in whatever land he was helping ended his efforts there. But he was friend to some pretty famous people in the process.

He was once asked to be the undersecretary of Treasury by the Nixon administration, despite being a life-long Democrat. He turned down the opportunity, perhaps because it came after Watergate. He also turned down a chance to aid economic reform in Iraq after the current war there, saying he was allergic to mines.

As a young college grad, he worked for a big corporation that makes detergent. That much is in his obituary. What isn't mentioned is the night that something went wrong and covered every car in the parking lot with soap suds, both funny and useful in convincing him another career was in order.

I was jealous of him once. Ours was a very hierarchical family, so when Dad died, the only thing I actually wanted to remember him by, a transistor radio, went to my brother instead. But I knew that was our mother's wish, so I didn't blame him. And those who know me as a life-long gadget lover know it didn't keep me from buying my own radio later.

The way in which he inspired me most, though, was in the area of health and fitness. I was always overweight, at least in my own mind. Even when I weighed 130# in seventh grade, I was sure I was fat, and perhaps I was, compared to other kids. But my brother never was, and as such was the only one of us six kids never to be at least occasionally and somewhat so.

He was also active, walking regularly to work. Despite all that, he needed quad-bypass surgery 22 years ago. That motivated me a bit at the time. I'd walk briskly with him on his 3 mile walks afterwards, but he'd have to slow down for me, making it a shock later when he was no longer able to walk as fast as me due to complications from that surgery.

It wasn't until I reached that age myself, the age at which our Dad died, that I got serious about losing my extra weight and getting fit, not for another year or two but hopefully for the rest of my life. I was just barely smart enough to realize I didn't want to need the same surgery, and that if I'm still here, it's because God still has work for me to do - work I couldn't do while obese.

So it's perhaps fitting that this weekend will be focused around saying goodbye to my brother on Saturday, and then participating in my first triathlon on Sunday. I know my brother would approve, and know that as a life-long Christian he'll be watching from a better place, one where he can again walk as far and fast as he wants.

I owe one other debt of gratitude to you, brother. Thanks for taking point in settling the issue of selling the family farm that so divided the six of us and our cousins for years. I can only imagine the pain that would still await us if that were still now to be done without your help. And if that were the case, I would not be writing these words from the home we love so much.

We never know what a day will bring. A week ago, I thought you were fine, ill but in no danger of quick death, until suddenly you'd died - quickly, ahead of the sister who expected to die first, still in good health, and ahead of the sister who hasn't really been happy since her husband's death.

I know a bit of that last pain, having grown up with my mom after Dad died. Though she never considered herself happy without him, she figured there was a reason she was still here, and set out to make the best of each day she was given.

That's good advice to us all in time of loss: use what you still have, because you still have it for a reason. In her eighties, Mom penned the line "November too has its beauties." As I age, I take that as a promise.

I give thanks for one other thing: I also have a new brother, a friend closer than a brother, who plans to be with me for the funeral. Although we are of very different backgrounds, we are alike in so many ways it's scary. We'll do that triathlon together Sunday, and for both of us it will be an important step in a long journey toward fitness. It will also be the second time we've stood together this year in the face of death. On the coldest day of last winter, we buried Mike's wife. Life is short, and if it were the only one, we Christians would be of all people most miserable. But thanks be to God, it is not only for this life we have lived.

In the new world to come, both my brothers' thirst for justice is fulfilled, and there are none treated unfairly. Plenty of time for answers too, for all the tough questions that bother us now.

And no, it's not just a fairy tale. I know that because I've been there, long ago in a near-death experience. I trust, that having been accepted as I was then, despite my many sins, that I have nothing to fear either in what remains of this life or in what lies beyond. I serve a risen Lord, and look forward to the day when my brother by birth. my brother by friendship and I will all serve Him together in a land where there are no more divisions, and justice runs down like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream.