While in Texas, I also took time to visit my brother and extended family.
Jeremy, my brother, and I had never, ever been close. In fact, when we lived in the same house, during high school, we were closer to being real enemies than brothers. It was probably more just simple sibling rival than anything else. In any case, with me in Germany and him in Austin – we hardly ever spoke with each other. Perhaps we’d talk on the phone once a year, unless we saw each other at Christmas or Thanksgiving.
When I reached the North Cape in July 2013, I told myself that this situation had to change. I realized that I’d know my brother longer than any other human on the planet. Longer than my grandparents, parents, any kids I might have, friends… My brother and I, we had to improve our relationship.
I put on my North Cape change list, to try and call my brother every two weeks. At the beginning, it wasn’t more than “Wuz up?”. There wasn’t much depth or intensity. I just tried to call on a regular basis, on the weekends, if even just for 5 minutes. Sometimes I just left a message. After about 6 months, Jeremy caught on. “You call me every two weeks.” “Yeah. I wasn’t ever there for you before, so I thought I’d try and change that.” “That’s cool.”
Its been now almost 2 years since that first call. Now we talk almost every weekend. Sometimes its just a short call. Sometimes its a few hours. My brother has had some ups and downs. I’ve had some ups and downs. Probably at first, we exchanged with each other simply because we didn’t have anyone else to talk to at the moment. It was opportunistic. Jeremy vented his frustrations with me, because I just happened to reach him at the right moment. I dumped my heart out in the same way.
Now, he’s one of my best friends. I can’t express how freeing and comforting it is to have a person, my brother, who I can confide so much in. He knows my background and I know he has my back. We’re still radically different people. Rather than that being a negative thing, however, I feel we have grown to appreciate each other’s differences. We provide each other with a different vantage point.
We both try to find a way to support the other. We both try to uplift each other. We both speak the words, “I love you.” Anyone who knew us in high school, will know what a radical change our friendship now represents.
So why am I sharing this? Because if Jeremy and I can fix and grow our relationship, you can too.
After a few weeks, my mom had made a pretty good recovery from her cracked pelvis. I planed a little treat for her.
She normally went to the high school in the mornings for work, but I though it would be fun to take her for a ritzy massage and fancy lunch in Houston.
I called her boss, Mr. Angel, and asked if I could whisk her off to Houston for a day of fun. Of course this was all a secret to her. I didn’t tell her that Mr. Angel was more than ok with her taking off. It was a surprise day of playing hooky. We were going to “skip school”.
I got Mr. Angel in on the game. At my request, he texted my mom the night before. “Please dress nicely because the principle and other administrators are going to drop in to review a class tomorrow….
The last few weeks, I had been driving my mom to school. The morning I was going to take her to Houston, we got in the car… She thinks she is going to the high school… What happened was “Mrs. Andersons’ Day Off”.
If you haven’t treated someone you love in the last week or two, make sure you immediately put it on the “to do” list. Show them you love them. You might only have today. Make now count.
OXLAEY