Brother
It has been a few weeks since I received the call from my sister. I could tell right away it was bad news. You could hear the defeat in her voice. You could feel the grief welling up inside her little body spilling through the phone. That kind of sadness tastes metallic. She had confided a couple weeks earlier of her fears and I had responded with hope. You always respond with hope. In our family, it's hope mixed with a little gallows humor. "Kid's got a little hole in the heart...hey at least it's not brain cancer." I really thought we had this one. We wouldn't lose again. She wouldn't lose again. All the hope and all the humor couldn't stop that call. I think of a lot different things in retrospect. My father spending nights watching Elmo stroking her hand as she sleeps. My brother, ever the river marshall, making everyone comfortable, entertaining visitors before he would start his shift. My sister reveling at her daughter's spunk with her ...