This is my big brother

We used to fight a lot

Last week, after a pandemic-induced hiatus, I flew out to Missouri to visit family. I didn’t take many photos, but this is one of my brother and me, hugging in front of the little church where he preaches.

We used to fight. A lot. The family loved to tell the story of my toddler brother being taken to the Army hospital to meet his baby sister, where his response was, “Yuck. A girl.”

Things pretty much devolved from there.

We never discussed why we fought so much, but it continued deep into adulthood. I’d come home once a year, and he would make himself scarce, which I didn’t mind because really, a life-long feud does not lend itself to happy conversation. What, really, is there to say, other than a rehash of past indignities?

Yet when we spent even a little time together, my big brother would say smart and deep and soulful things. When I asked him once why we didn’t seem to like one another, he said our crap childhood was like Vietnam, and every time we saw one another, we were reminded that we lost the war.

He said that a couple of years ago, in a little diner in Carthage, Mo., at a breakfast I was — frankly — surprised he came to. It was just the two of us, and he was already eating when I showed up — on time — because he said he wasn’t sure I’d come, either.

When he said that, I had a hard time not bursting into tears. But he was right. Our childhood was a living, breathing after-school special, and the more miles we could put between us and any reminder of it, the better.

(Here is where I insert that we both now have families who love us, jobs that feed us, and more riches than we ever thought possible. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for children right now enmeshed in the awful crap childhood net.)

You have to figure that if you’ve forgotten what you’re fighting about, the fight might should be declared over, but old habits die hard.

And then a few weeks ago, my brother’s granddaughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and things got scary. We found ourselves corresponding more in two weeks than we had in two years. At one point, I sent him a text to say that if I was in Missouri, I’d hug him. That’s funny, he texted back. You always act like you want to hit me.

This is going to sound like I’m about as deep as a puddle, but his text made me sad. I never realized he thought much about our phantom feud, or that that feud might have hurt him.

Why didn’t I like him? Our mother didn’t seem to like him. I’m not sure she liked any of us, but my big brother was her special target. This isn’t an excuse, but it might be an explanation: When you’re a kid growing up in a trauma-infused home, you throw in with the warden, the person with the most power to make your life miserable. I didn’t like him because our mother didn’t like him, and even though I’ve long since abandoned my mother and mostly anything she ever said — ever — here I was, still waving this particular tattered flag.

One day here recently, I called him and told him that, that I’d followed our mother’s lead for all these years, and I was wrong and I was sorry. It was a short conversation. I’m not even sure I made myself clear.

On this visit, my brother wanted to show me his church, which I’ve attended a couple of times, online. We went inside, and sang a few hymns. And then he showed me where he and his wife will be buried one day, right next to a young woman named Becci, whose death at the hands of a home intruder rocked their little town.

My brother’s grave is about 50 yards from his pulpit. He said he takes comfort in that. I think that means it’s comforting to know that the distance between the place where he’s found such joy is so close to the place where he’ll find peace. I get that. I really do.

So. Will we now be the best of friends? Dunno. But I hugged him. I didn’t hit him. I hugged him and I meant it, and as we fought over the breakfast check on my last day there, I felt a little like we reached back, far far back, through the fog of war to where we are both just two little hillbilly kids, wrasslin’ in the front yard.