Brothers and slippers….
When I was a kid, like around 4 and 5 years old, I had these kick ass slippers. They were kick ass because they looked like little tennis shoes…but they were really slippers. Until the past year when I started staying home literally all the time I can’t remember ever having slippers prior, except for this kick ass pair.
I also had this kick ass older brother, I actually have two kick ass older brothers but this memory is focused squarely on my oldest brother. My oldest brother had to wear a lot of “hats”, and when it came to his and my relationship that’s probably an understatement. My brother passed in 1994, I was 19 years old, he was 33. The firework memory, which led to another firework memory, and then to another, and so on (in fact at this point I’m not sure where this thing is going to end, good thing is I know where it’s going to begin because it has already begun), that has been going through my mind the last few days does not directly dwell on my brother passing, I don’t think, but it’s hard, if not impossible, to have any memories of him or his time with us without that being there, in the background, an underlying layer, always there. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, and not necessarily saying it’s a good thing, but it’s a thing, just an honest fact and it created the domino of memories in this entry that don’t all directly tie to each other.
By the time I was starting to resemble a real human being (you parents know what I mean, like the first time a kid says something to you and you realize it was an original thought they had, and it was a pretty damn good one, and you think, damn, this person is becoming a person) my oldest brother was already out the door off to college. Crazy for me to think of now, but when I was four he was eighteen.
…quick off ramp…
Just writing this last sentence about my brother being eighteen led me to think of another firework moment right this very minute (we all Love tangents right, my wife has already stopped reading this I’m sure). I remember he moved into a house that was two doors down from our childhood home and I think he was having a move in party or something like that. I was eighteen years old and I remember him coming into the living room where I was sitting, you could tell he was all excited about the house and the start of the party, it was a big ass house for one fella, and he said something like, “Patrick, you can have a beer, if I was allowed to drink when I was eighteen then I say you can too.” It was genuine and delivered to me like in this cool older brother way. I remember I immediately became pissed off at myself because I had already helped myself to a beer. Not because I felt bad about having the beer, but I felt bad about not giving him the moment where he offered me a beer in a cool way. Alright, I’m totally fucking off track at this point.
…ok, brothers and slippers…
The first firework memory in the domino chain (ok, originally it was the first and now I suppose it’s the second in this entry) was that my brother was coming home. I think it must’ve been from college and at that time I’m guessing he was coming home from Fredonia State college in Fredonia, NY, which I had never heard of, but I hadn’t heard of much at this point. I always thought, and probably still do, that it was a funny sounding word, Fredonia. It could’ve been on the moon for all I knew. Years later I would receive a work assignment in upstate New York and would end up driving by it on a weekly basis. The school has a small sign that faces the freeway. I remember doing a double take the first time I saw it and was like, wow, no shit, that’s where that is.
So I’m out in the driveway helping “unpack” my brother’s car, which I actually suspect was my Mom’s car or some shit like that and she had picked him up. I don’t remember that detail, which is part of what makes these firework memories so weird for me. What I do remember is that I was wearing these kick ass slippers, which was probably a real asshole thing to do and my Mom probably told me not to wear my slippers outside. Anyhow, I remember saying to my brother, “Hey, do you still think these are tennis shoes?” He responded something like, “Yeah, those are tennis shoes.” To which I responded, “No, these are slippers.” Then I think we went back and forth a bit with this little ruse in which he says they’re tennis shoes and I tell him they’re slippers. (On a side note, I’m realizing how sort of dumb and vanilla this sort of all is, but I can’t tell you how much I’m missing him right now and how much I would Love to be having this discussion with him.)
I remember the whole interaction just being kind of awesome and kind of awkward too. Here I am, this little kid that see’s his big brother, whom he barely knows, come back home from some far off damn place doing some far off damn thing and I go right back to the well with whatever the slipper thing was. We must’ve had this thing about those slippers, and like many of these memories, I don’t remember it. I don’t remember one other instance of those slippers in my entire memory. I don’t remember anything else about my brother coming home or going to college. In my mind I think he just wasn’t around because he was off doing big brother stuff, which was called college.
When reflecting on this it seems to get back to those multiple hats my brother had to wear. He was the oldest, he was our leader in life and even went so far as being our leader into death, for the whole entire family. His multiple responsibilities couldn’t have been more extensive than it was with his and my relationship. He was a brother, a father, a mentor, a leader, an idol, a friend, an enemy, a teacher, and the list goes on. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like from his perspective. I’m fairly certain it was pretty heavy.
In retrospect, that moment in our driveway (next to that tree) really encapsulates a lot of what we were, what we felt and what we would grow into. I have no fucking clue why I remember it. The extent of the memory of it is done, I’ve said everything about it.
“Hey, do you still think these are shoes?”
“Yeah, those are definitely tennis shoes.”
“No they’re not, these are slippers.”
“No, get out of here, those are shoes.”
I remember him going inside during this exchange and I remember being in the driveway at the “trunk” of the car (if it was my Mom’s car I was definitely at the back of the ol’ station wagon). I remember loving the interaction, being almost giddy about it, and I also remember wanting more, unconsciously thinking to myself, how do I engage this dude, how can I eat up more of this. It was always that way. I always wanted into his world, and, in retrospect, I feel kind of bad about that. My older brother was trying to live his life and have experiences and here was this little brother that just wanted in on it, even into his parties when I was a little shit. I remember his lady friends just talking about how cute I was and being cool with me being around (like if you had a cool monkey as a pet) and my poor brother just wanted to continue to grow and evolve, and to do so without this little shit around. Maybe that’s why the 18 year old beer offer sticks out to me as well, it was probably a first in which my brother was having a party and was like, hey little brother, get on in here, with open arms. Don’t get me wrong either, my brother would do some cool shit with me that I don’t think he was entirely forced to do.
…which evolves to brothers and conflict…
As I got older, and turned into a bigger shit, he and I would continue to evolve as brother and brother and evolution doesn’t always move in a positive direction. This whole recollection triggered another firework memory in this domino chain. It’s of me sitting at my brother’s wake, and it was the end of the day of his wake. If you’ve ever lost anyone close to you and had a wake you likely know the exact atmosphere that existed at this point. The “condolences” line has slowly drifted apart and scattered throughout the room. The formality and energy of the room has fallen off a bit. You find yourself unknowingly missing the throngs of people that had come to pay their condolences and say kind words to you and your family because at least then you weren’t alone with your own thoughts and grief. At this point I had landed in the front row of seats and a couple of my brother’s friends were there in the seats as well. You know, the friends that had been the oldest of friends and came toward the end because they knew this would be the atmosphere, because they just kind of wanted to have their own moment of dealing with all of this. I said to one of those friends, who I had known as being a close family friend for a long time, I said something along the lines of, and I’m not sure that I even said it to him or if I just kind of said it aloud, “We fought, we didn’t really get along, we fought all of the time.” He responded to me with, what I now realize to be, some of the most comforting words I think I’ve ever heard in my life.
“Yeah, brothers fight.”
I’m not sure I yet even fully realize how powerful that statement was. I can’t explain it in words but it has allowed me to let go of a lot of guilt.
…and brothers and understanding.
When my brother was sick there would be a lot of time just hanging around with him, only that makes it sound kind of better than it was, and don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t trade it for anything. However, it was more like hanging around with him and with the cancer, and the cancer served as the very unwanted third wheel in the equation. On one of these occasions he and I were in our childhood living room. He was sleeping on the couch and I was sleeping on the floor in a spot of sunshine that was coming in through our back door like a lazy dog (why was our childhood home incessantly fucking freezing cold). I recall him saying something along the lines of, “Sorry, sorry for the times we didn’t get along.” I remember it sort of coming from out of nowhere. We were both sort of half sleeping and I sort of lifted my head a little bit and kind of reacted like, “What?” and I think we went on to talk about it, I apologized for being an asshole most of the time. The thing about it, and this won’t fully be understandable by anyone but me, was that it wasn’t forced. My brother was in the middle stage of his fight, and it was a hell of a fucking fight, but he was still in the damn ring. It was a genuine discussion between two brothers, two grown up brothers who had a lot to say about a lot of things and had a lot of Love for each other.
Not too long after my brother had passed my Mom handed me a small book and said, “Here, I want you to take a look at something.” I sat down on our staircase and opened up the small book she had given me. It was one of my brother’s notebooks, which seemed to serve as a journal or a to do list for him. On the page my Mom wanted me to turn to there were a few things written and one item that was in my brother’s handwriting read,
“Make things right with Patrick.”
Cross it off bro.