I went on a short excursion with my cross-street neighbor a couple of weekends ago to Tawas City, which lives on the northeast coastline of Lake Huron. Standing on the empty beach near a lighthouse point with nothing but wind and water as far as I could see gazing north or east or south, reminded me of a time when you and I were close and young, and would frolic and explore together along the shoreline of Michigan’s great and opposite western lake, amidst the boulders and the bracken, gulls crying overhead, time and uncertainty stretching before us in our imaginations and our unwritten histories, but always paired through a love that transcended circumstance and the pettiness of childish confusion.
Although our separate journeys have caused our shared day-to-day lives to melt away, and the clamoring of families and geographical dislocation demanded that our attention be focused elsewhere, there has for me always been the certitude of our friendship and our fealty, something that the imperative of time could never abridge, nor the material world could ever mitigate. It is possible that I am mistaken, for as a human being I am plagued by many shortcomings and flaws, and if any of these rough areas of my being have ever abraded you, I am truly sorry.
Your birthday is looming, three score year and four, and the beginning day of every May has always tugged at me, the way that you have, in every year since your birth. You were the single treasure of my earliest family, fixed and remaining in my heart throughout all of the years and the mistakes and the tumult and perplexities intervening, a frail yet strong beacon along the shoreline of the only family I have ever truly known; you.
Our time is limited, though we do a constant battle with the inevitability of our story, like footprints along the beach of our intentions, where water and wind and impressions fade upon the sand. Our God is the same God, and may He comfort you and keep you safe always, in all of the ways I never could but always hoped to do. I may be a weak, cracked, leaky vessel for His love, but one of His enduring gifts to me has been my love for you. I send it to you now and always, your brother in spirit and in flesh,
Yes, there is a special place of shared love that a brother and sister can have, deep in the heart. It’s a place of joy, built together, in secret, against the threats and cares of the world.
My sister’s ashes remain with me, but soon I will do what I promised her I would do: sprinkle them in the ocean so she can swim with the dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.