And yet, the calendar always finds us in moments of reflection for those we remember.
So today I remember Jimmy, not so much for who he was (which is the stuff of legend and tall tales, some of which are kinda true), but for the man I could have discovered as integral in my life during the last few years, which have been replete with transitions, failures, self-discovery, trauma, and loss.
Most of my adult life with Jimmy, the question I lived with was what kind of brother I was or wasn’t to him.
I’ve lived in the regret of the failure to hold that in the sanctity it deserves.
And yet at some level, I always felt we understood each other, and that one day we’d come to embrace the gift that brotherhood is.
Part of my work of rediscovery and recovery is to come to peace about what wasn’t and what can never be. Let me tell you, it’s hard f’n work. And it’s work worth doing.
He’d be 50 this year. Since I’m more than halfway to 60, my zeal to rub that in is tempered.
I find myself wondering not what kind of brother I would be to him right now. Instead, I wonder what kind of brother he’d be for me as I walk into the chasm of the unknown.
And I think I know. I know I do.
We shared this trait, sometimes to our detriment...to stand with, to stand in front of if need be (nothing’s going to get you today, not on my watch).
That’s what he’d do. Without thinking, almost instinctively, he’d stand a post to overwatch me. It was his way, it’s mine, too.
“I got you.”
To have my little brother be my big brother these days would have been fine by me.
For a while, at least.
