My brother, M, turns 42 today, but he will celebrate his day deployed to a country half a world away, defending our freedom – the only job he has in his entire life wanted to do. From the time he was a very small child, M would tell people that he was going to be a soldier, and he enlisted in the Air Force directly out of our senior year in high school to become an USAF cop. Twenty three years and lifetimes later he is an expert in his field, requested by name for his past two duty stations, and one of the best men I know.
When my mother welcomed her infant son those four decades ago, she was determined that her son would never touch a gun. (Somewhat ironic considering that she had married a man who intentionally got himself tossed out of Virginia Tech with the sole purpose of going to Vietnam. Hmmh…) Then when M was less than 18- months old, sitting in his highchair while eating his lunch, he chewed his toast into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot our mother with it. I guess you could say he was destined for his career path.
I showed up approximately 18 months after M’s arrival into this world, and he began teaching me what he knew. These lessons, of course, were passed along as he learned them himself. Primary lesson: onions are nasty – avoid at all costs. (I grew out of that one. M has not.) Second, he taught me how to use scissors when I was three and he almost five; we played barbershop. (As you can imagine, I lost most of my hair, and he lost NONE of his. FYI: I am still abysmally bad with scissors. It may be latent trauma from the barbershop incident.) Third, never, ever try to play the parents against each other. That, my friends, is similar to betting against the house. The kid loses EVERY single time. Fourth, mom’s greatest weapon is the threat of DAD. Finally, if you’re bored in church, make a ruckus; you’ll get removed in less than 5 seconds (This lesson was incomplete as M failed to explain the consequences of such behavior which I learned on my own – not pretty.) He also taught me how to climb pine trees in the Florida forests, that Barbie dolls can come apart, and that if you threaten to run away, Mom will pack your bags for you. I’m sure there were other valuable skills and truths that M taught me, but you get my point.
However, as often happens with siblings so close in age, eventually we became rivals and all around pests to the rest of the family. I think I heard you ask for an example:
R: (Glaring.) Get out of my room.
M:(Smiling.) I’m not in your room.
R: (Slowly and in a low voice.) Yes, you are.
M: No, I’m in the doorway.
R: ( Loudly.) I said, ‘Get out’.
M: (Hanging onto the outside doorframe. Said gleefully.) I can’t get out of your room if I’m not in your room.
(Sound of door slamming)
M: (Screaming indignantly.) Mom! She slammed the door on me!
(Charlie Brown adult voice: Wonk, Wonk, Wonk, Wonk, Wonk.)
Now, none of this is surprising in any way, right? But what may be a surprise is my mother’s reaction to EVERY fight, argument, door-slamming event M and I ever had. Her typical response was something akin to: “I just don’t understand this. No one else’s children ever fight. Why am I the only one who has kids that fight? Can’t you just be nice to each other like ___________________ down the street?”
M and I always met The Statement with a shared glance of skeptical concern because, come on, this woman was a teacher. She had to know that EVERYONE’S kids fought, didn’t she? All our friends fought with their siblings. If she didn’t know this, was it our responsibility to share it with her? In her profession, she really should know. If we told her, we’d be doing a service to every child she would ever teach in the future, sharing our hard-earned knowledge with an adult who probably should be in on the child-led conspiracy of home skirmishes. We’d be crusaders of a sort. But, remember, Southern here. Contradicting Mama was a violation of the Southern Child’s Handbook. Besides, she might tell Dad, and no one messes with Dad. So, instead we’d just nod. (I wonder if she knows yet that everyone’s kids fight.)
I usurped M’s high school senior year by graduating with him, something he still thinks is a bit nasty, and maybe it was, but then I went to college, and he went to boot camp, and from there completely separate lives. At times those lives converged as when he came from his base in North Dakota to my college graduation and Air Force commissioning to receive my Silver Dollar Salute. (Traditionally, the first salute given to a newly commissioned officer by an enlisted person earns that enlisted troop a silver dollar.) He was proud of me, proud of that silver dollar, and I practically levitated as I gave it to him. Then, when I was promoted four years later to captain, he made sure he was there to help pin on the new rank.
If you know M, you might say he’s a hard man. He walks and talks tough. He does not suffer fools (at all), and he expects excellence from himself and everyone around him. He is brutally honest (Hate that brutal part. Sometimes it just smarts.), and if he thinks you are acting like an idiot, he will tell you so regardless of rank or age. (Fair warning: he probably will substitute another word for idiot.) In a word, he is intense. But if M loves you, he will go to the ends of the Earth for you. Even if he doesn’t love you or even know you, he’s willing to lay down his life for you without hesitation to protect you and has been for 23 years. That says a lot about a man.
In our adult lives he has literally saved my mortal one three times. (No, I’m not going to share the circumstances. You may find this odd, but there are some things that I find too personal, too painful, and too private to share. I see you raise your eyebrows. Nope, I really do have some things I am just not willing to talk about.) He also tried to prevent me from returning to Husband #2 more than once, tears in both of our eyes, him practically pleading, with me refusing; I just couldn’t be divorced twice. (Yeah, you know how that worked out. Insert eye roll here.) If you know M, it took a lot for him to let that emotion show, then even more for him to let his little sister return to a man that he knew was, well, not very nice. (He did, in fact, tell me I was an idiot. I acknowledge and accept that he was correct. M, if you read this, I will NEVER, EVER say that again. Yep, that’s your Happy Birthday.)
So, as we gather family and friends tomorrow to enjoy Thanksgiving, please remember that there are selfless men and women like M who will sit down to celebrate an American holiday in countries that are not their home, striving to protect this way of life we share, willing to die for it, who will miss Thanksgiving, birthdays, Christmas, Chanukah, and other special days, but who also wouldn’t have it any other way, because in M’s words, “If I’m not doing it, someone else would have to.” And that, my friends, is a great man.
Happy Birthday, M. I love you.
The Unexpected Life 