Happy Birthday, Bro

Today would have been my brother’s 74^th birthday.  I’ve told so many people lately about how close siblings are and that a loss of a sibling – the people we grow up with – is one of the hardest of all. I won’t say it was as hard as Paul’s death on me, but it certainly came close. 

I still get so angry thinking that he paid good money to make himself sick from cigarettes. Even though he was cured of lung cancer, his last years as he slowly faded away from radiation damage - the treatment 

that cured him - were like a nightmare for all of us.

Ken in 2006. He died in 2008

Here's a poem I wrote about him that was read at his memorial service.

Brotherly Love

He made me walk across the street

away from him and his friends

to avoid me, his little sister,

on our way to school.

He’d rub my arm until it burned

whenever he could take hold,

and flicked me with a dish towel

when it was his turn

to dry the dishes.

He called me fatso,

He called me Madeldini

He shut the door

of his room in my face.

Growing up, my mother’s mantra,

“He teases her and she screams,”

echoed throughout our house.

I only retaliated once.

I threw a pair of scissors at him

that landed just under his eye.

It hurt me more than it hurt him.

Instead I wanted to copy him

to get the same grades, to see the same movies,

to read the same books, to go to all the Cubs games.

I was happy tagging along even if it meant

being two steps behind.

Now he’s so thin his shirts fall off his shoulders.

The lines around his mouth are deep and black

like the strokes of a charcoal stick.

His white hair combed flat

barely covers his skull.

His voice is raspy and weak

like my father’s in his last days,

and he has to suck regularly

from his oxygen supply.

The only walk he takes these days

is around the block.

Not trying to hurry his dog as she sniffs along the way

he takes short steps and short breaths

until he’s back inside.

In his chair in the sun room,

he reads, he snoozes,

he watches his grandchildren play

breathing more easily with a hit or two

from his oxygen tank,

his new-best friend.

He looks out to the yard

while the birds flit from one feeder

to the other

and sing their songs.