Wingman

My only sibling’s birthday was on Halloween. I am going to celebrate this occasion by telling you about him and our relationship.

My mother didn’t want him to be born on Halloween and share his birthday with another event. It didn’t work out that way. He arrived just before midnight on the 31st. He was a blond-haired blue-eyed cutie who my mother called ...”my angel sent from heaven on a witch’s broom.” Imagine hearing that about the sibling who upended your preferred status as “the only” after five years. I couldn’t help that he was jolly and slept through the night and I was colicky and had to be burped and walked around and around before going to sleep. Some of us are more particular.

Personality differences followed us into adulthood. It is easy for him to talk to anyone, anywhere, and find commonalities. This served him well in his career negotiating contracts for the government, sometimes with other countries. I am a good talker too, but I prefer a manuscript. He is versed in many practical matters. I think more in abstractions. My mother, who was on the quieter side, used to say, “How did I get two children who talk for a living?” At a family occasion years after our father had passed away, my mother told a joke that made everyone laugh. This surprised me and I said, “Mom, you’re funny!” She retorted, “I can finally get a word in edgewise.”

I achieved a bit of revenge when he had some of my same teachers over the years. He said ruefully they would say, “So you’re Linda Hart’s brother.” As a more well-rounded athlete and well-liked good guy, he felt the weight of unrealistic academic expectations. He won his own accolades by learning to juggle and ride a unicycle for his senior high school play.

College, graduate schools and our professional lives took us in different geographic directions. He went to college in West Virginia and law school in North Carolina. I stayed in the greater Philadelphia area for college and in New Jersey for seminary. He joined the U.S. Air Force at the conclusion of law school, married and began his required service of five years, which stretched to more than 30 years. My ministry positions were in New Jersey and Massachusetts. He was sent to Germany for three years, which wound up being 10. He went there with two sons and returned to the States with four sons. Throughout those busy years, we enjoyed long-distance visits for vacations both in Germany and in our beloved family vacation spot of Cape May, New Jersey. That is not the same as daily or weekly interaction, sharing meals and vehicles, and teasing.

Even though geographic distance was a factor, I always knew I could count on him. When our mother’s health became fragile in her final years at the same time my husband's health crashed, I needed help. I placed a tearful SOS call to him in Ohio. Fortunately, he and his wife had already chosen Amelia Island for their eventual retirement destination. They came down and helped me in ways too numerous to mention. He became the favorite of the staff at our mother’s assisted living residence. He pulled in noisily on his Vespa, greeted everyone and visited with her. He joined the ROMEOs breakfast group and went the extra mile, literally, to pick up my husband and take him to the meetings even when he was difficult to manage.

When my art partner and I needed work done at our current gallery location, he was — and is — our unofficial handyman. When he and his wife shared my house, he was our repairman and yard guy, even building me an arbor for jasmine that I had long wished for.

A bittersweet memory is sitting with him in the parking lot of Oxley Heard funeral home while our mother’s remains were being cremated. It was a beautiful day. We sat in the car with the windows down in the shade of majestic oaks, talking quietly and listening to birds, which she loved so much.

I am very fortunate to have a good relationship with my only sibling. Family dynamics being what they are, it can be very hard to maintain relationships. Generations are far more mobile in our times than in the past. Having someone with whom you share history can be an anchor. Our personal lives and the world can throw us curves that are hard to negotiate.

My brother’s retirement ceremony from the Air Force was held at the Pentagon. In his retirement speech, he used an Air Force analogy to describe our relationship. He called me his “wingman.” I treasure that role. And he is mine. We all need someone who knows us well, faults and all, in whom we can put our trust no matter what.