That Call You Don't Want - 1. That Call You Don't Want

That Call You Don’t Want

I got that call you don’t want the other day.

Everybody remembers where they are when they get such a call.

It’s like the Pearl Harbor Attack, Kennedy Assassination or 9/11 but on a very personal level.

The Docs say there’s nothing more to do. The cancer has won. Your big brother is going home to hospice care.

One of the pillars of your world is falling down.

These little dramas play out in the real world a million times a day. The players, setting and plot are different but the theme is always the same.

This drama is yours and, you don’t get to write it. All you can do is wait, hope and pray. That’s it.

My older brother was a tough act to follow. He got good grades and was well behaved. I was bored in school, made more B’s and C’s than A’s and it seemed like I was always trouble.

Since he was eleven years older than me, he was my really big brother. He was enormous from my perspective so sibling rivalry wasn’t much of a thing. All things considered, it was better just to stay on his good side. That wasn’t too difficult because he was remarkably good natured.

By the time I was starting school, he was about ready to start college. From very early on and, much to my regret, our lives were heading in different directions and time and distance was usually always between us except for a few remarkable adventures.

Our first big adventure was when he was done with his summer internship in Neah Bay Washington which is about as far away from Mississippi that you can get and stay in the continental United States. I was barely a teenager but I flew to Seattle for the drive back to Mississippi.

It was a LONG trip. We drove around Mount Rainier and played in snow that had not melted yet. We waded in crystal clear mountain streams of ice cold snow melt. We smelled the fragrance of Pacific Northwest forest of spruce, lodge pole pine and firs. We both fell in love with the place.

From Washington State we went east to Yellowstone and saw the wonders there: boiling hydrothermal pools and geysers. Then we went south to the Grand Canyon. Then we saw the Meteor Crater in Arizona and the brand new Very Large Array Radio Telescope in New Mexico.

That was just the first of many adventures we had exploring the West. It was magical for me to see these wonders. It opened my young eyes to a wider world.

Our other adventures took us all across the West from the high deserts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico to the lush Pacific Northwest forests and mountains so tall that they were always snow capped to the depths of Carlsbad Caverns. From Mount Hood’s majesty to the other-worldly blue of Crater Lake to giant Redwoods so old that empires had come and gone in their times.

These are the wonders that my big brother showed me and for them I will be eternally grateful.

My big brother was a tough act to follow. He challenged me, in a gentle way, to grow, to improve and become more than I was. It was little things but, it’s always the little things— until they become big things.