I had a chance to hang out with my brother Joe
recently. We haven't really talked much in the last year or so. It’s mostly because I haven't been
around, duh. But he's been living in a vacuum for some time and hasn't been
able to punch his way out of that dirt filled bag. Not that the air flowing
over my life is all clean breathing. No, I'm not going to point a finger like
that. But I'd say when it comes to gauging filth his meter has been pegging for
quite some time. So we talked.
As always, his unique perspective caught me off guard.
I don't know why it always surprises me when the words that spill from his mouth
make absolute sense. It certainly must be because we are brothers. That basic
fact makes up 100% of my confusion for his motives, and equally for my
astonishment at his insight. For years I have made my bones believing we were
totally different men, jabbing and dancing at our lives from different corners.
But finally, after all this time, and quite like an Ali hay-maker, I was
knocked-out by the simplicity of our similarities. We Are Blood; it not only
courses though us, it derives at the same spring. How could I have missed that
simple reality for all these years? Of course we think alike, love alike, and
hurt alike. It's so obvious now...that I am a complete idiot.
Part of our conversation revolved around
relationships. He's finally trying to break free of the one that's been killing
him for years. And I, of course, am mired in the ones that torment me. He was
very curious about how I maneuver about the complexities of bachelorhood and I
could see him searching my face for answers and hope. After I described the
loves of my life and how they confound me he made an amazing comment. He
likened my love life to a bouquet of emotions and compared it starkly to his
own singularly dead flower. He was actually in awe of the fact that I've been
able to let so many emotions "blossom" over the past several years.
He simply saw my feelings, good and bad, as blessings. The envy is his tone
astonished me because I haven't perceived myself that way at all. What seemed
like opportunities to him have only burned as trials to me.
And he cried, for the first time in front of me, about
something relating to our father. Dad's been dead almost 10 years now and Joe
has never cried about it in front of me. I have never thought to wonder if he
ever grieved in private because...well, I don't know why. Because I am a
selfish son-of-a-bitch who can't ever see past the end of my own nose. Joe was
so strong at the time of Dad's death. He came and was the rock every big
brother/oldest son should be. (That's a story for another time.) And on this
day, as I watched his face contort into a painful portrait of a son who lost
his father, I realized that for all this time I had mistaken his strength as
indifference. I was wrong and I felt shame for it, and relief, and most of all
admiration.
I am exasperated. There's something here I have to
resolve and I don't know what it is. Of course it's something to do with this
family of mine and how it's all coming together at this particular time in my
life. My father is present and I can hear his voice from the hereafter. I hear
his tone echoed in my brothers words. His actions reverberate down the halls of
that old house and my soul absorbs them when I walk there. I am confused by it
but know I have to face him once and for all in order to find some peace. His
sons deserve some peace.
-Jim Franks
