Mind the Gap

This is a strange, difficult year for me. My sons are turning 13 and 21, which is crazy, amazing, and deeply traumatic all at the same time. I guess that last one needs some unpacking.

Some Background

For context, I had an older brother. We were 8 years apart, and he was incredible.

Kind, funny, and never really cared that his little brother followed him everywhere and wanted to be with him all the time. John Michael was special for many reasons, and how he treated me, how he loved his little brother, was only one of them.

He was kind to everyone, gentle until the moment required him not to be, funny, and soft-spoken.

He was also 6-foot-5 and 350 pounds. I'm the runt of the family at 6-foot-1 and 300 pounds.

For all of my childhood, he was this walking mountain. I remember playing outside, running as fast as I could, which was pretty darn fast, and launching myself at him like a bullet. I would just bounce off and hit the dirt laughing. He was invincible.

Until the day he wasn't.

The Fracturing

Our mother and John had an argument about medication he should have been taking that ended with him leaving. He was 18, and I was 10. He moved out on his own, got a job, and started a new life. We would still hang out as much as possible, but of course it wasn't as much as we had before, since he was an adult with bills, a job, etc.

Over the next three years, we drifted apart, as people, even close family, tend to do as they age. I became a hormonal teenager, with all the stupidity and baggage that comes with that.

I could always spend time with John later. Parties, girls, and fun were now.

That was the mantra in my head. I was traumatically disabused of that notion in July of 1990. John had a massive stroke and was rushed to the hospital. He wasn't taking his medication, and with his size, it eventually caught up to him.

He was paralyzed on his left side for more than a week, but eventually regained full use of that side before he was discharged. We found out while he was in the hospital that he had sleep apnea, which was not well known at the time.

He was given new meds and a course of treatment for the apnea, and with a renewed sense of purpose, he was released on July 31, 1990. I wasn't there when he was released, or at any time that week for that matter, since I was too busy being a stupid teen. I had the rest of our lives to see John, after all.

There aren't many times in my life that I have been as wrong as I was then.

John died that day, sitting on the side of his hospital bed, dressed to come home to us. My mother was washing his face, and a clot that had gone unnoticed in his leg broke away and stopped his heart. I was 13. He was 21.

I trust you see the pattern?

Reality Bites

I mean, I know my kids aren't John and I. We didn't plan to have them 8 years apart; it simply turned out that way.

My oldest, Jakob Michael, is healthy and still living at home while he is attending university. But they are so close to how we were.

Alexander thinks of Jakob as his best friend, and Jakob loves Alexander and hangs out with him all the time, playing games, watching movies and TV shows, and being the same big brother John was to me. It's beautiful and sad all at the same time.

Sad because they never got to know John, and he never got to meet my wife and his nephews. We were all robbed of so much. I still have dreams from time to time that John is alive, and him being gone is the bad dream.

I then wake up and have to remember all over again what is truly reality and what is nothing but a comforting, but hollow, dream.

This year, my youngest will reach the age I was when I lost half of my world and the rest of my childhood. Thankfully, he won't be suffering the same losses, and I am genuinely thankful for that. It's just going to be hard for me.

But that's okay. I'm okay.

It took years and a lot of work, but the things that matter always do, and they're always worth it.

Have I stopped hating myself for being a selfish idiot? No, I probably never will.

But that pain and shame were fuel, and still are, to make sure that I never make a mistake like that again, and more importantly, the impetus to teach my kids so they know what and whom are important.

That's my great work, and I am dedicated to doing it.

What's yours?