This accident with Bruce has really shaken me up. I keep thinking about DJ and what I would do had he gotten into that accident and it freaks me out. Life does funny things to you. Now that I’m leaving for a year, I’m ultra emotional about all things important to me – my family, Andrew and my friends. I really want to maximize quality time with them. Sometimes it feels silly because I know I’ll be back in a year. It’s only a year!! Little Ms. Sentimental is rearing her ugly head.
But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Deej. We’re three years apart and he grew up with a completely opposite disposition from me. Whereas I was the worry wart, the controlling eldest child, really private, proper and polite – he was carefree, adventurous, very social and stupidly curious. He’s the kind of younger brother who nearly burns the house down and proudly talks about it years later. He loved fires, burning ants, playing in snow, bikes and anything to do with dirt and stinkiness. I was wondering the other night how many concussions he probably gave himself without anyone knowing it. All I can remember from our childhood in Calgary is him coming home sweaty, bruised, dirty or bleeding. In the winter he’d bury himself in a failed igloo project in our backyard. Come summer he’d roam the whole neighborhood on his bike for 12 hours, collecting bugs, building wooden jumps, going who knows where and with whom (while I sat in my room and devoured a novel a day – this is likely why I’m the more albino child between the two of us).
We’ve always been super close – I think that three years is a good gap between siblings. If I were to die tomorrow, my brother would be the one person who could truly say he knew all of me. He knows my tomboy tendencies, the insecurities that no one else can see but him, all the nasty little secrets I shared with him during our teen years (wow, we are BOTH in our twenties now! How the heck did that happen?!?). I’ll miss him much, especially now that we’re older and get along so well. We actually enjoy hanging out together (and I think he has finally forgiven me for all those times I tricked him into fetching things from me around the house as fast as he could because I was timing him! Hee hee!).
I’m so proud of him. He’s a sharp one, this kid! He’s got amazing business sense, is compassionate, family oriented, smart and is almost as good at reading people than I am (but not quite!). He’s intuitive, analytical, artsy, emotional and passionate. Watching him grow up has been a trial and a treat (but mostly a treat) and I’m excited to spend our adult years continuing with the stupid curiosity that fueled things like crazy carpeting down the basement stairs or Lysoling every hard surface in our house. There was also this one time when we somehow manage to lose a whole jar full of spiders… maybe that’s why he hates spiders now. We’re lucky Ma and Pa worked all day during the summers. I don’t know how we got away without breaking any bones!!!
