Brother, Oh Brother!

I was sitting this morning in the living room watching one of my all time favorite movies, "A River Runs through it".  You have to understand, I am a total sucker for brother movies.  Some of My favorites are "A River Runs Through It" (way at the top of my list) but there are a lot of others on it too.  "Saving Private Ryan", "La Bamba" (I reluctantly admit to crying at the end when Richie Valens' brother screamed his name), Mortal Kombat (I always understood how Lu Kang felt responsible for his little brother) and there are a few others on my list. I never did get the movies where the brothers hate each other and are always out to destroy each other...it never fit.

My brother and me grew up in a pastor's home.  Worse than that, it was a missionary home.  We homeschooled.  My only competition at school was my brother...and he was four years younger than me.  Growing up we fought like cats and dogs but it never lasted...we were all we had.  My brother was more than my brother, he was more than my best friend...he was my only friend.  I never did nights over at other people's house, my parents never allowed that.  My nights up playing in the dark with a friend were all spent with my brother.

We are both stubborn.  We both have foul mouths...though he is the only military man out of us.  My health kept me out of the military...and he became one of The Few, The Proud, The Marines.  Growing up we always played together but it didn't take us long to grow out of the G.I. Joes we had and instead we played imaginary games.  We had a long running game, his name was Eagle and mine was Falcon...and we played it for years.  We were princes, kings, generals, pilots, cowboys, warriors, swordsmen and so many other things.     We played basketball and had this hoop set low and we were Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins and Shaquille O'Neill.  We talked at night about everything.

As we grew older we took different paths in life.  I got married, had kids and took a job.  I worked a job as customer service and I pastored a church.  He went into the U.S.M.C.  I look back and can so see how we ended up worlds apart in our world views.  It really is a study in life when you look at us.  My path started close to faith, church, the Bible and God and he was indifferent. Life worked its changes and his life in danger and close encounters (of the fourth kind lol) with the enemy and death and while he is far from religious he is more "in tune" (for lack of a better way of putting it) with his spiritual side than I am.  I won't whine about my life but let's just say it was not conducive to faith...and I will leave it at that.

I am a liberal...unabashed liberal...he is a conservative....very conservative.  We are opposites on so many things.  If we were not brothers we would probably hate each other.  He has no problem calling me a bleeding heart, tree hugging liberal and I have no problem calling him a stick in the mud, opinionated @#$hole.  But in the end of the day...he is my brother, my best friend and in many ways my hero.  I don't agree with him most of the time...hell...I hardly EVER agree with him.  But I still love the butt head.  Too often he acts like he is the big brother...until he needs help with a paper.  At the end of the day he is my little brother.

Nowadays we talk school and World of Warcraft.  He is a tank and I am a healer.  People in game know if they get one they get the other....we come as a team.  We are loyal to each other regardless of our disagreements and mutual insults.  We can do that...He is my Brother... I know I have no choice on my family, on my brother, but in the final analysis....I couldn't and wouldn't change the man I know as My Brother...

As I finish this post...my movie is ending...and I love the ending quote....

"Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.  On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters."