“Wait for it,” my brother would say as we lay outstretched on the bed we shared. My fingers clutched around the edge of the blanket prepared to shield my face at the first drop of spit I felt.
I’d never particularly enjoyed any aspect of that horrid game and, no, I never thought for one minute, even with my eyes closed, that the shower of his spit felt like rain drops on my head. But I waited as instructed until the first drop hit every single time. Don’t think of me as weird. I was like six or seven, maybe eight tops. He was two years older and my absolute hero and best friend. Okay, he was my only friend back then.
That’s the power my brother possessed, not just over me but most people he encountered. He’s no longer with us. Losing someone you care about is, well there really aren’t justifiable words for it. It’s tough. It’s sad. It’s lonely. It’s agonizing. It’s frustrating. It’s guilt-ridden. It’s months and then years of 'what if’s' and holidays that somehow mean just a little bit less than they used to when your family used to be whole.
That might be a bit generous -- we were never exactly whole by typical standards. Our family fractured years ago when both Billy and I were young. But we’d recovered nicely, dare I say even perfectly, as just the three of us: mom, brother and sister.
Would I be ungrateful, perhaps even sinful, if I said at times I’m envious? Don’t get me wrong – I treasure life, especially my own. But some days, just every few here and there, like a single sprinkle in the vast sky, I allow all the concerns of the world to mount and before I pull the blanket over my eyes I think, what’s the point.
Then a six-year-old girl walks into my room with a stretchy string adorned with mismatching beads of every type, size and color that’s knotted so low I doubt she could even get it over her own head and says, “I made you a necklace , mommy.”
My heart melts, and I forget about my own losses. I pull the blanket back down and face the world with renewed belief that it does all matter.
That little girl needs me. My nearly 10-year-old son needs me. Boy, how time flies. I can’t believe he’s almost ten. My husband needs me. No one needs me as much as my mother who I think may be beyond the ability to recover. Preservation to be there for my sake may be her only hope and that’ll have to be enough.
My point is this. Life sucks and nothing is fair but it all has a purpose. Life has meaning and direction even if we shield ourselves from a single sprinkle or the entire downpour. Be patient and, as my brother would say, wait for it.
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