I think about my brother a lot- he was quite a character I have to admit- at 14- my father referred to him as a curmudgeon already!
As a kid he was precocious- made up his own language & built amazing- detailed cities out of blocks. He picked things up quickly too- my Mother wasn’t always as careful about her language as might have been wise- one night my Father said something, of which my mother was skeptical about, at the dinner table- she snorted & said “bull” my brother- all of 3 looked up- held up a hand- index finger up like he was telling her 1 second & chirped “Ship” obviously he’d heard bull & shit together more than just the slightly less rude bull!
When he was 6 or 7 my father read him the Jack London story The Call of the Wild & being into it & very interested in writing already, he wrote his own sequel to The Call of the Wild & my mother helped him bind it himself. My mother has a video tape of him reading part of it, among other things, we were on TV for being homeschooled a couple of times in the early 80’s & she’s got all those appearances plus some of our goofing around caught on videotape by a friend of my fathers who got an early video camera, all on one tape- which my kids clamor to watch every time we visit my mother.
He was into the Star Wars stuff & played with it for hours on end. I remember standing in line to see the first Star Wars movie with my Father & him. I also remember my Father’s friend Ed taking us to see the second movie because- If I remember correctly my parents didn’t have the money to take us. (we saw the third movie with some homeschoolers & I’ve never seen the newer 3 movies- I intend to someday though!)He sent away for a jacket like Luke Skywalker’s in the Empire Strikes back - modeled here by my cousin who inherited all my brother’s Star Wars stuff after his death. We even watched that awful Ewok Christmas movie at his behest.
We got along OK in the later years- not so well as kids though- there were monopoly games where I handcuffed him to the table to force him to play with me! (I was not a very nice older sister) & nights when we sat down to eat dinner where he’d start singing that commercial for the game ‘Hungry Hippos’ while I ate.Because we were homeschooled we had a lot of time together- we played a lot of Atari I was a Megamania fan & played for hours on end- he liked to keep score of what video games were most popular in our house & tally them weekly. I went along for awhile- making a tick mark on his list for each game I played but after a few weeks I didn’t want to anymore & so he’d sit & mark my games & critique my game playing- I had a rule that if I didn’t make a certain score in the first round I would reset the game & we had many debates over whether that was a game or not on his scoring system. Oh yeah! Homeschooling was great for us!
He was fairly sensitive about little kids though- one year we had a homeschoolers Halloween party & he dressed up as Ozzy Osbourne on the cover of Diary of a Madman (My favorite Ozzy album still) Some new people were there & there was a little kid about 18 months old who was scared of his costume & he wiped the blood off & made funny faces at the kid until he got used to him. My ex- who was my brother’s best friend growing up- told me later on in our lives that my brother always would cross his eyes & make funny faces at his younger brother & sisters all the time & talk to them about their toys.
He was hardcore on music, books, horror movies, life & most everything. He wanted to be a writer but would never let me read anything he wrote (fair enough- I didn’t let him read my writing either) He was a fan of hardcore metal which in the late 80’s meant Metallica- Megadeth- that ilk of music- I was more a fan of hair metal like Cinderella- Guns’n'Roses etc. He didn’t mind Guns’n'Roses & admitted Cinderella sounded OK- liked the singers voice if I remember correctly- but couldn’t like the band because of their name which he said was weak. He dropped Metallica after they released the video for ‘One’ (their first) because they had said they’d never release a video & so he called them wusses because they went back on their word & refused to listen to them any longer. See? Hardcore!He was a lot more outgoing than I am & could talk to anyone about anything. Though that did back off a bit when he got older & became a full fledged teenager- He wrote a short piece about the importance of understanding for his Sunday school class (yes- we went to church- Unitarians have a slightly different approach to Sunday school though- mostly you learn about World religions & as you get into your teens you learn about your responsibility to the planet & the rest of the world- especially those less fortunate than you) Which he read to the church on Children’s Sunday - which marks the end of the church year- I used to like to tell people Unitarians took the summer off from church- something fairly true & something which used to annoy my mother (which was why I said it of course)
When I was a teenager & older - after I’d moved out of the house- As soon as I arrived at my parent’s house Ben would show up from wherever he was in the house to ask “got any food?” before even saying hello. He was also notorious for saying ’sorry,’ if you were in one room & he was in the next room over & you knocked something over in the room you were in. He’d call from the adjoining room “sorry” when it didn’t have anything to do with him in the least. My Father & Mother would be discussing something bad a politician had done during dinner & Ben would pipe up with “sorry” Hardly his fault at all.
He was indoctrinated early by my father to be a fisherman, he tied his own flies, I have 9 of them, framed, hanging over my computer desk, he also was an artist, some pencil & ink, he branched into painting & I also have a painting of his in my dining room which I treasure, there’s not a lot of his stuff like that, the only reason I have what I have is because when my grandmother died my mother let me take these things - which had been displayed in my grandmother’s apartment.
I don’t think you ever completely get over losing a sibling & I’m sure you don’t get over losing a child. Because of my brother’s death I worry constantly about my own children, I’ve seen what losing my brother did to my mother & father, their relationships with each other & me, their sanity & their will to live. I am in constant terror of the thought of losing one of my kids.
Post note: This one was a longtime coming, I have been tweaking & mulling it over for months. The most interesting part was finding out that my spell check doesn’t recognize Metallica as a real word & picking out the pictures - which would explain why it’s picture heavy.
Picture credits, My brother, April 1989, He & I Christmas 1975, Again in July 1976, At our Uncle & Aunt’s wedding September 1979, camping with a friend of mine & me August 1987, (shortly before I left for VA the first time) The last two pictures are from Labor day 1989, about a week before he died.
