“Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us together today. Mawage, that blessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam. And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva. So tweasure your wuv.”
The Impressive Clergyman – “The Princess Bride”
You can be forgiven for wondering if this day would ever come to pass! 🙂
In fairness, there were plenty of adventures they had along the way to the altar including the world going straight to Hell with a nasty pandemic and attendant lockdowns and the realities of life since but there was never a doubt in my mind they’d eventually get round to it in their good time.
After all, I was still married and living in the previous house we’d had built in Garner when Ben came to visit on the second floor of the RDU General Aviation terminal and it was very clear pretty much from the off just how head-over-heels in love with Jessica he was.
This was not one of his crushes from the past and as he spoke and as the years would prove, Jessica gets who he really is in a way that few ever have.
I also have no doubts that theirs is a relationship that really has a darned good chance of the only difference after “I do” being enjoying the benefits of a “married filed jointly” tax return. 😉
Doing things in his own time and his own way seems to have been a central theme to Ben as long as I’ve known my brother which as you might imagine is a pretty long time.
And let me just get one thing out of the way straightaway whilst we’re talking about my brother. Even though the four of us (Mom, Meghann, Ben, and I) could certainly stand in on “Sesame Street” for the “one of these things is not like the other” song and I think a blind person could work out who the non-Hungarian looking one is amongst us, the one thing my brother and sister aren’t is half. So don’t be like the buffoon of a lawyer who was toilet-trained at gunpoint and made the mistake of calling him my “half-brother”.
Whilst that may well be how the law sees it, it’s certainly never the way I have and I never will. I am not Solomon, I don’t just love half of them and that’s the way that is. Full stop.
Ben certainly didn’t have it particularly easy pretty much from the get-go. Not only did it take another attempt to get the sister I’d asked for in 1974 (and in so doing caused my mother to almost have a heart attack as she and Lee wouldn’t be married for another four years!) but he’d end up being sandwiched in the middle of his siblings.
Let’s be honest, being the oldest sucks more often than not unless you’re the only one as I was for 11.5 years before the advent of Ben amongst us. Your parents are often ill-trained and are making it up as they go along. A couple more kids eventually make their way into this world and you’re watching them have it seemingly so easy compared to how hard life was for you as your parent’s training and willingness to be *COOL* has dramatically improved with the passage of years.
Except that it usually sucks for the one in the middle who is often overlooked and ignored in favour of the younger ones who need more care and feeding and attention. If that brings to mind Andrew Gold’s ballad “Lonely Boy” from 1976, then serious bonus points will be awarded to your House! 🙂
In spite of these challenges, Ben actually navigated that particular Scylla and Charybdis with a grace I can only aspire to and in so doing developed that sense of justice, fair play, and most of all empathy for those who suffer and who are in need that he has always had and likely always will.
And it started pretty early on from the time when he first understood what Christmas was all about. Back in the dark ages known as 2-3 BM (that’s “Before Meghann” for those playing at home!), I was still subject to a divorce decree where I’d spend six weeks in the summer and a week or so at Christmas with Mom (where she’d have me on Christmas Day on alternating years).
This was one of those years where I wouldn’t be arriving at Grannis Regional Airport in Fayetteville (KFAY for the jet bird nerds!) until the day after Christmas. As I understand it, Christmas morning finds everyone at Aunt Judy’s as usual and Ben is having absolutely nothing to do with opening his presents. When they asked him why, he insisted that I wasn’t there and he wasn’t opening those gifts until I was.
No amount of reasoning with him that I’d be there in about 24 hours and that I was OK with him opening his presents. They even called me to have me tell him personally it was OK and still no dice!
And that’s why there was a pile of presents on the deck on Boxing Day in a country not known for celebrating it. 🙂
There are two things to take away from that story:
- He’s just as stubborn as the rest of us and I can tell you that none of us had any shortage of stubborn from either side of the family that we inherited. When he’s made his mind up about something, you may as well tell the Sun to orbit round the Earth because that’s the only thing that’s going to change his mind.
- It was also at that moment I really saw just how awesome a brother he is. I’d known this of course but had never quite appreciated it as I ought to have.
Even after the decree had lapsed, it wasn’t Christmas for him until we were all three in the same place.
Just like Halloween in 1981 was the last year I ever went out trick-or-treating. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the concept of intel gathering on which of my neighbours was worth visiting (multiple times!) but when you have a brother born on that day, well…it was his day and has been ever since for me. 🙂
It has been a joy watching him grow and mature through the years and it’s been especially interesting when he and Jessica first got together. The years would pass and he’d seemingly get more and more like my stepfather Lee by the day.
Even though he has a baby face to die for that would probably still get him carded at the pub, he’s managed to rock the now grey-infused beard and hair to add the “distinguished” bit to go along with those degrees of his.
(Look, Meghann and I can rip on him all we want…that’s our perk with putting up with him for so many years! And I can assure you that stubbornness isn’t the only common trait between us. The Force of Sarcasm runs strong on both sides of my family… 😉 )
But even though we occasionally go to professional lengths to take the piss with one another, there are very few people in this world that I would trust to have my back without hesitation or reservation and my brother and sister are pretty much top of that short list.
After all, who else would have the guts and the nerves to show up on my doorstep unannounced one morning and then immediately volunteer to help move the household goods of my cherished neighbours Miguel and Jessica (and there’s another Jessica I know as a result of being friends with them…my cup of Jessicas runneth over so much that it seems that we might well be channeling “Logan’s Run”!).
These would be the same neighbours who may have seen him once or twice in passing but had never met him as his schedule as a teacher and mine as an IT weenie with no life plus being about 70 miles away meant we rarely had the opportunity to get together.
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think twice.
OK, he did make sure it was OK with Jessica but fair dinkum when he was signing up to be part of a labour camp of strict regime for the day!
He may have been years removed from his time as a Boy Scout who had not only attained Eagle but also topped out the ranks of the Order of the Arrow but his fidelity to the oaths he swore long ago to do a good turn daily (amongst other things) has never wavered.
But that’s just who he is and I couldn’t be prouder of him.
All the best to him and Jessica as well as Gabriel and Rachel as they navigate the days to come and will likely find that the ceremony at the altar really hasn’t altered the love and commitment that has been there all along.
