'Run For Your Brothers.'

"And I never wanted anything from you except everything you had and what was left after that too."
So listen, right now, yes, while you read. 

Some days come then go. Some come and weigh on you for the rest of your life, little moments, unacceptable realities. Certain snows on January Sundays that never melt.

Friday, four years, fast days, it did, I am, we are.

Tom, my step-dad, he wrote a poem about an umbrella once. And really it was about something much more important than that. [Now I get flustered when I see umbrellas, even in that ridiculous Glee mash-up of "Singin' in the Rain" and "Umbrella." (A high school auditorium could not handle that much precipitation.)] And I get side-tracked when I don't know how to say things.

This is what I want to say: Somebody we love died.

It was four years Friday if you ask a calendar. It's four years today if you ask a Bears fan.

But they won the championship that year. Then he went to start the truck.

I miss him in the achy kind of way, where my breath gets tight and my eyes burn. Like I'm chopping onions on the way down on the Giant Drop and I can't scream or breathe. I just sit and do try to pin my shoulders back, and stiffen my neck, and bite my cheek---to stop the burning before it becomes welling, then running.

Running. He was running. Right before that night, that game, those weeks, he was running. Not metaphorically, No I didn't say that. No listen, he was slapping his feet on pavement and pushing himself mile after mile with his little brother. They paced each other; yes, that's a metaphor. Do you hear? Do you hear their soles on suburban paths? Around waterfalls and lakes, sloughs? Can you see them in the Chicago crowd on marathon morning? Look at them, won't you? Look at them together, brothers, because I--I can't anymore.

I can't see them together.

I see the younger

and their mother

and the others,

but I can't see big brother.

Another metaphor. Where have all the biggest brothers gone?

Where have your brothers gone?

There's something we want from our brothers, and that's everything.

From the men who sit in our rows at church and talk like a Man from the Bible; our classmates who scream of insecurity and social justice; the policemen; our in-laws; musicians; actors; poets; writers; waiters; neighbors; drivers; builders; plumbers; doctors; cousins; uncles; grandfathers.

To our Brothers. And fathers and mothers and sisters and daughters, and sons--those sons are brothers.

I am unfinished. I am unresolved. I have a point yet to be made.

We want things. I want love, protection, security, commitment, consistency. I want brothers.

What do you want? Answer that--in your head, out loud, on paper, to me or yourself or your spouse--answer it. What do you want? And where are your brothers?

How well are you loving them? Have you left them behind?

"Leave all your loving, your longing behind.

You can't carry it with you if you want to survive."

Now don't you fear the paradox. Read again if you need to. Love your brothers.

This week I'm going to love mine. I don't just mean my brothers---my Tommy, my Sean, my Erik--I mean the men around me. Am I loving them? Am I being their sister? Would I talk myself to tears for them the way I would without pause when talking about an umbrella? Am I respecting his memory? I'm still loving him. Smiling at the thought of his daughter. Her brother.

Readers, an assignment: This week, love brothers well.

A treat while you reflect: Little Lion Man (excuse the language)

And always, thank you for reading.