Oh Brother(s)

When I was in elementary school, they brought my brothers’ school pictures to me because they weren’t in school; my mom had brought them to the preschool picture day. Chris Nosworthy sat across the aisle from me and demanded to see what I’d been brought. Chris Nosworthy was bigger and taller and stronger than all the other boys in the fifth grade (he’d been held back a year), he was athletic and handsome and sort of a trouble maker and none too bright and all of these in fifth grade terms add up to a big success. He was the most popular guy in our class. I showed him the pictures. He said, “They’re cute.” It was quite a compliment for me. Usually his interest in me only extended to the answers in my reading workbook. I was the un-athletic smart girl with glasses and in fifth grade terms that doesn’t bode as well. Nerd city and I was the mayor. I’ve never been anything but proud of my brothers though. My connection to them has always elevated me to a higher place.

My brothers are all three tall and handsome and charismatic. They’re successful and smart and witty. Any girl would want them for brothers. The really amazing thing about them though, is that they turned out as well as they did. See, I’ve known them for a long time. I knew them when they wore patched and re-patched jeans and built roads in the dirt and always had grubby hands.

I remember, along with my sisters, tying one brother up with jump ropes when we babysat him. Now I ask him for financial advice. My brothers used to bug us when my friends came over, always trying to be involved and show off a little. Now, all at least six and a half feet tall, they talk over my head and I try to be taller, to be part of things too.

And my brothers are forgiving. The brother I used to hit with a wooden spoon sent me a $150 gift card for Safeway when Adam lost his job. One brother moved into my room when I went to college. When I came home for Christmas, I gathered up all of his things and threw them on the floor in his old room where the other two boys slept. (Yes, I am still ashamed.) This same brother now gives my kids rides on his horses and encourages me endlessly to do the things that are important to me.

And I knew them when they were teenagers.

How is it that the brother who rigged his truck up with such big speakers that the seats shook and the bass was physically painful, could now cradle his small sons so gently in his big arms? How could my dyslexic brother who always struggled in school and didn’t seem to even mind all that much, speak Korean on his mission? And then become a college graduate? The same brothers who used to stuff me in a closet (which is humiliating when they range from 5 to 10 years younger than you) now own homes and cars and trucks and have wives. And their wives! The same brothers who dated girls that caused their sisters to sigh very deeply, found amazing women to marry. Women those sisters are thrilled to add to their circle.

How did it happen?

I wasn’t around as much to witness my youngest brother as a teenager, so his manhood is sometimes the most startling to me. Somehow he morphed from a little boy, shooting baskets into a hoop standing on an upside down 5 gallon bucket to a college kid clearing a 6’11” bar in a high jump competition. He used to build bridges out of popsicle sticks and now he helps design concrete forms for parking garages. How did that happen?

I’ve never been taken aback by the women my sisters are. I don’t know if it’s because we were invincible teenagers together, sassing our mother and not noticing when we were being brats. Or if it’s because I know them so completely that I always knew their hearts and I knew who they were and who they’d always be.

Sometimes I worried about my brothers though. They were popular which is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a kid.

I really shouldn’t be so surprised by how they turned out though. They were becoming the men they are all along. They taught us earnest Family Home Evening lessons on flannel boards. They drove too fast, but to seminary and they all served missions. When I didn’t want to drink the milk from Enoch’s milk cow, preferring “real” store bought milk, he’d leave me Drink Milk propaganda on my pillow. Now he convinces people to invest in his real estate deals. Enoch used to push me out of snow banks when he was a seventh grader. Tabor used to make me laugh so hard that it hurt and he still does. When I was a new mother and he was a teenager he gave me advice that was so wise and valuable that I know his now pregnant wife is a blessed woman to have him. Ammon, everyone’s baby, survived having four mothers somehow and survived being the youngest with busy siblings. He used to play chess alone sometimes when no one else was around or willing. He still is one of the most independent people alive. Skillfully navigating his life and avoiding the missteps his older sibling made just as he’s always done.

So my brothers. In my mind they’ll always ride around on stick horses. I’ll always be a little shocked every time I see them unfold their long limbs from their big trucks and unload their young families. I’ll be grateful that I knew them when they smelled like sagebrush and dogs and wore smashed up cowboy hats. And I’ll be grateful I know them now.

And what would Chris Nosworthy say?