Last night, my brother and I played catch in the street for
almost two hours. We hucked the football...
Last night, my brother and I played catch in the street for
almost two hours. We hucked the football back and forth. We talked and laughed.
Last night was my brother’s last night in Cambridge. About
an hour ago, I watched and waved as he and his wife drove away in a loaded U-Haul, headed
towards Missouri and a graduate program in creative writing that his wife will
start this fall.
Last summer, when things had gone so bad, my brother said to
me, ‘there’s an apartment opening up in my building, you should take a look.’ I
did. On a humid morning, I spent eight minutes looking at the place, and with
my hands shaking and tears welling, I wrote a check and signed a lease. It
meant the end of a six-year long relationship. It meant the start of some new
phase. The fact was: I needed rescuing. The fact was: I needed someone to throw
me a life preserver. I didn’t realize how much then, and it’s a hard thing to
admit, but I see it now. I see it now. In saying, hey, there’s this place, maybe you should
live here, my brother saved me.
“Isn’t it strange,” someone said to me recently, an only
child, incidentally, “to live in the same building as your sibling?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not strange. It’s really nice.”
The Mediterranean diet – all that fish and olive oil, all
those eggplants and red wine – has long been credited for the longevity of
Italians. But it turns out it’s only part about the food. They live in
proximity with their family; they take care of each other; they share meals and
conversation. It’s this, too, it’s been shown, that propels them deep into old
age. And it rings true. Weeks would go by when I wouldn’t see my brother, each
of us involved in our own lives and pursuits, but the comfort knowing he was
nearby was profound, and I’m only realizing how much so now, now that his place
has been emptied and he’s on I-90 heading west.
Last night we threw the football back and forth. We talked
about his nerves and his excitement about this move. We talked about our
parents and our great younger brother. We talked about old flames and nostalgias, about Kings
Quest IV, depression, friends, and love. The light began to disintegrate and
the crickets got loud. We tossed the football back and forth on our short
street near the Charles River, trying not to hit the parked cars, the
powerlines. His new river will be the Mississippi. That feels exciting.
I feel excited for him, for them, for the thrilling process
of the unfamiliar becoming familiar. I feel grateful and lucky and sad.
Last month, on the night of the Full Buck Moon, I went
outside to get a look. And at the same time, my brother and his wife appeared
on the sidewalk, and we all looked together at the big white brightness. What a
nice thing, to bump into your brother and his wife on a sidewalk to look at the
moon. What a nice thing, to throw a football in the street as light fades.
“My arm hurts.”
“Mine too.”
“You want to keep playing?”
“Yeah.”
