Snakeskin Journey

Four siblings:  Me (…looking grumpy, but you would too with that hair style!), David, Karen and Pam

Growing up, my brother wasn’t much of a big brother.  For starters, he was only a year and a half older—just one grade level above me—and he was always shorter than me.  At times he was much shorter, poor thing.  Try making it through 6th grade with a bossy, younger sister looming over you while you try to engage in a respectable fist fight.

In school David struggled academically while his sisters breezed through.  He was always causing some sort of ruckus…little things like starting a fire in his closet-turned-chemistry lab (can you believe the chemicals they used to put in those kid sets back in the 60′s?) or taking the family station wagon instead of his bike on his early morning paper route in junior high.  So while my brother was usually good for some new crisis or entertainment, he wasn’t much of a big brother to me.

Eventually he landed on our doorstep when I was married and the mother of three young children.  His appearance was wraith-like.  He was strung out on drugs and alcohol.  He moved in with us and over time and many troubling incidents, David came to the fork in the road:  it was either get sober or get (more) lost.  He chose sobriety and as of January 31st has been sober for 15 years.  He and his family moved to Arkansas not long after he came to himself and it was with tears that I watched him go.  When he returned a few years later to attend the funeral of my husband, the man who had helped love him to health, I was so thankful to see him.

For he had become my big brother, I needed him, and he was present.

Me and my big brother, David, in front of his boat dock in Little Rock a couple of years ago.  (Doesn’t he look fabulous?)

Tags: family, photography