My large scattered family gets together every couple of years for a reunion, and typically there are too many people and activities to spend much quality time talking one-on-one. But at the reunion I attended a couple weeks ago, we had a smaller group and the pace was slower.
I didn’t spend a lot of time with my older brother Bob, though. At meals I avoided sitting near him because he’s always touching his teeth, rearranging his uncomfortable dentures. When he asked me one afternoon to go tour his new “berm garden--whatever that is--I refused, not wanting to be stuck listening to him for too long.
Hey, I went to see him on his last birthday. I should get extra points for that.
I enjoy talking with Bob’s two sons, and had a chance to do that at this reunion. But Bob is hard to take unless you’re playing a game that requires enough concentration so that he won’t go on a long harangue that you’ve already heard fifty times before.
Even on the tennis court, he found ways to stall and slow down the game, making us all stand around waiting for him. He tried to be the center of attention, but ended up alienating everyone, especially when he took his teeth out and tried to scare my grandkids. It isn’t Halloween yet.
I love my brother Bob, and now I feel guilty that I didn’t spend any one-on-one time with him at the reunion. I got to do that with almost everyone else there.
One reason I avoided him, perhaps, is that I was reminded that a needy person is never satisfied with what you give them. The more you give, the more they want.
I remember Adrian saying to me one day near the end of his life, “I’d like you to devote the next two weeks to me.”
Why couldn’t I give him 24 hours a day for just two weeks? Maybe if I had known he was going to die two months later, I might have tried. But who can really give of themselves 24 hours a day? This was when he wasn’t sleeping at night, so it was a real 24 hours.
I have no idea why Adrian picked that period of time—two weeks. Did he think he was going to die soon?
Spending time with the difficult ones, if you can do it, is a true gift of love and generosity. My brother’s sons and his ex-wife, who is still “big sister” to me, do it as much as they can stand to. I’m impressed by how much they do give. And when they’ve met their limit and can’t do any more, I understand that, too.
Brother Bob on his birthday
