An Ever-Increasing Difference of Blood

An Ever-Increasing Difference of Blood

“I can’t believe we were raised by the same parents!” Larry yelled over the phone.

As we discussed some life choices my brother was making, I could see the chasm between us widening. We had become two very different people, diametric opposites in so many ways. It would seem a wonder that we grew up together.

Although I get frustrated and discouraged by our diversity and the resulting separation, at least I understand why it exists. Larry just gets confused and angry.

In more ways than he may want to admit, Larry’s perspective on many issues is purely reflective of our upbringing. Whereas, my experiences as an adult have converted me completely (or at least as much as I let them) to a different way of thinking, acting, and speaking. My belief system is so integrated into every aspect of my life, it has become a part of the fabric of my identity. If I said those words to Larry, he’d cock his head to the side and say, “What the hell was that?”

This mysterious transformation has resulted in repeated conflicts with Larry and pervading alienation. We’ve argued about everything from jobs and politics to love, marriage, sex, and truth. I never like arguing with him, but I cannot compromise what I believe.

Unfortunately, my desire for my brother to recognize the corruption he embraces, fueled by my confrontational nature, has likely built a bigger barrier between Larry and the truth. He wouldn’t be the only victim of that, in my life. This single truth, Jesus Christ, has made all the difference in me, and between my brother and me.

As kids, we were quite close. We were best friends. I can count on one hand the times we fought. Once, we actually came to blows, of sorts. An argument over who-knows-or-cares-what swiftly became physical. A few shoves and Larry had me in a side headlock. I wrapped my arms around him, lifted him onto my shoulder, and squeezed him so hard he couldn’t breathe. Suddenly and inexplicably, we both started laughing. The fight was over. Our conflicts were so rare, this one sticks in my memory.

We were raised spending a lot of time in bars, from very early childhood. Dad drank a lot of beer. Mom used to drink; but by the time we were teens, she was on several medications, and rarely imbibed.

Mom loved to play cards, especially Euchre. Every Saturday afternoon for years, she ran a Euchre tournament at the bar. She taught Larry and me very well. Often one of the three of us would win. Then we would gamble with our winnings, either Euchre or pool.

By the time Larry was twelve and I was ten, we regularly beat adults on the pool table. We no longer bummed quarters off Dad. That process had evolved from asking for a dollar (coin tables were a quarter per game then), to each of us receiving a five or ten with instructions to “make it last the weekend. No more when it’s gone.” Eventually, we’d end the weekend with more than we started. Together on the table, the Mattice boys were a tough team. We were also each other’s favorite opponent. Every Saturday and Sunday, Larry and I were racking for the first game at 8:00 a.m., when the bar opened. And when it was last call at 2:30 a.m., we were still playing. Because our family were good friends with the bar owner, there were times he’d tell dad, “Don’t go anywhere”. He’d close the bar, lock the doors, and we’d stay and drink and shoot pool all night. Our “normal life” was marathons of pool, cards, gambling, smoking, swearing, and drinking.

Larry and I had a paper route for about a year, so we started staying home on Saturdays. In 1973, Saturday was the weekly collection day (in the days before pre-pay newspaper subscriptions). We interspersed collections between watching wrestling, Japanese monster movies, and American Bandstand.

Influenced by Cheech and Chong and the original Saturday Night Live cast, I had started writing comedy sketches. We did all the voices and sound effects and recorded enough material for our first two “albums”. Larry was “Angelo” and I was “Coco”.The material wasn’t so drug-laden as our role models; it was mostly TV and life spoofs. Our first album was called “Coco & Angelo- Polluted Water”. The second was “More S.O.S.” For those unaware, “Same Old Sh*t”. Isn’t that silly? Why did I bother with a single asterisk? Of course, we never released those tapes. But our friends enjoyed them. I started writing material for a third tape, called “Coco/ Angelo Let’s Solo… Together”. But Larry lost interest. My brother has always been one of the most spontaneously funny people I’ve ever known. Many years later, we made some comedy videos. They are gone forever, like those tapes. They live only in my memory, and not too clearly in my brother’s.

But even with all the camaraderie, Larry and I were always different in some ways. I have always been a reader, whereas he struggled at an early age and really stopped trying to learn to read before he was out of grade school. Perhaps this contrast has fueled my passion for helping people improve their literacy. Today, Larry seldom reads. I’ve always written- songs, poems, stories, sketches, etc.; whereas, because of his reading difficulty, Larry rarely expresses himself in writing. His second wife is a writer, and he doesn’t relate well with her about it either. When I got serious about music and worked very hard to develop the skill, my brother was supportive, but didn’t share the passion. Larry used to actually have a good singing voice, but he was a dabbler.

Herein lies a core difference between Larry and me. I am a delver. I become excited about something, and I dive in wholeheartedly. Sometimes, I have nearly drowned because of this, but it’s who I am. Larry, a dabbler, samples this and that, generally not committing to anything or anyone. This distinction is a key to understanding our differences. It permeates every aspect of who we are.

In spite of many difficulties with other kids, I liked school. Except the ninth grade, when I faked my way right into truancy court. Larry hated school, primarily because they wanted him to read! He was popular and I wasn’t. He was thin, and I was “husky” (that was really what they called fat back then! I bought pants tagged “husky”!). I remember Larry coaching on some ways that I could gain some acceptance at school. He taught me how to smoke a cigarette and cuss without looking and sounding awkward. He helped me try to train my unruly hair. We would wear nylon stockings on our heads at night to train our hair. Larry had actually trained himself at one point to lay flat on his back and never stir during sleep, so as not to muss his hair. Ironically, Larry is now bald as a cue ball and I don’t have enough hair to care about. Before I entered the seventh grade (the quantum leap from elementary school to Junior High), my brother showed me how guys sit in a manly way and call each other by last names. A slip on these etiquettes could mark a fellow for the rest of his school years!

Dad was a difficult man. During our teen years, it seemed we were in constant fierce conflict with him. Larry and I agreed we didn’t want to be like him. We rebelled in superficial ways.

Our father hated long hair, but we convinced him that long hair was necessary to be accepted by girls, and to avoid being a bully target. He acquiesced, but with qualification: “Just don’t let it get down in your eyes!” So, Larry’s always-perfect locks grew to about his skinny waist. And girls did love his hair. However, my messy mane was below my shoulders and never looked how I wanted it.

Dad was a racist and very opinionated about what he called “hippie drug music”. We smuggled some of the worst hard rock music into the house. He hated it, but it could have been worse in his eyes. It could have been Motown! I remember we were listening to our new Black Sabbath album in our room. Dad came in, enraged. “I won’t have any of that *!@#$%* hippie [more expletives] in this house!” he screamed as he broke the record. Larry retaliated by sneaking into mom and dad’s record collection and breaking some of their “hillbilly” albums. Again ironically, my brother now listens almost exclusively to country music.

Larry rebelled by saying and doing things dad despised. My rebellion had a different form. My feelings and thoughts were tender, the “soul of a poet and the gift of gab” as mom used to say of me. This invoked ridicule when an emotional television show would move me to tears. My father believed that men should never cry. I argued intensely with him over social issues, whereas Larry fought about other subjects.

Mom and dad smoked. They had always told us that they would rather we didn’t, but if we did, don’t hide it from them. At fourteen, Larry just sat down one day in the living room and lit a Marlboro in front of our parents. Mom said nothing, and dad said: “As long as you’re buying your own!” I watched smoking play a significant role in the destruction of my mom and dad’s health. Yet, I still have occasionally smoked. Never in their presence, though.

In the eleventh grade, my brother started missing so much school; he decided to dropout. Dad insisted if Larry wasn’t going to go to school, he had to get a job. After nearly a year of freeloading, my brother and his closest friend, Bill, joined the navy on the alleged “buddy system”.

It was hard to see Larry go. I cried at the bus station (which dad gave me grief for all the way home). When he came home after basic training, my brother was changed. He and Bill had been separated after only two days, and Larry had started becoming independent. After only a couple weeks in basic, it was discovered that Bill was born with a spinal deformity that sent him home with a medical discharge. Larry was on his own in the great big navy, and had to become a “navy man” or else.

Apparently, being a navy man meant sometimes months between calls and letters home. It seemed to mom and dad (and sometimes me) that Larry no longer wanted to be part of the family. For my brother, it seemed that being a man meant breaking the ties with the people and things of his youth, except pool. I don’t know if Larry consciously and deliberately splintered from us, or if it just happened that way. Dad’s tendency to shower us with an abundance of unsolicited criticism further complicated matters. He often treated us like not-overly-bright children even into our adulthood. Larry handled it by staying away.

In retrospect, my father’s harsh criticism was a motivational force in my life. Mom was always supportive, but dad was impossible to please. This produced a two-fold ripple in my character. I pushed myself harder, naively believing that I could someday be good enough to make my dad proud.

That day came very shortly before dad’s death, when some friends and I did a little concert for the nursing home dad was in. We had chosen songs that would generally appeal to the elderly, but more specifically the songs I knew to be my dad’s favorites. Afterwards, he told me he never knew I was that good.

The other side of this concept embedded in my sense of self-worth is the belief that I’m not good enough. When a child is always told he’s “like a bull in a china closet”, he becomes clumsy. I developed a fear of heights because my father said I was “uncoordinated on ground level”. Dad instilled a fear of water deeper than neck-high because he told me I couldn’t swim. These deep-rooted insecurities have affected my life on a broad scale. The stories of overcoming them is for another chapter though.

The drive to gain my father’s approval made the delver in me strive to exceed beyond Dad’s insurmountable expectations. To the brink of obsession, I have worked to hone my raw talents into abilities, and develop and discipline them into skills. I eventually accepted that these gifts of mine were alien to my father. “Creativity”, to him, was building something. Nonetheless, exercising my gifts has given me great satisfaction.

I am not suggesting that Larry is ungifted. To the contrary, he excels at things he truly cares about. When he was stationed in Pensacola, Florida on the USS Lexington, his pool playing prowess made him legendary in the south. Some of the best players in the country would travel to Pensacola to challenge “The Swan” .

I’ve got to tell the story about The Swan. Because my brother was graceful as he moved around the pool table, and also was an excellent dancer and roller-disco king, he was dubbed “The Swan”. Funny thing about nicknames, you can’t effectively give yourself one. Someone else has to do it. While on shore leave in New Orleans and under the influence of acid, Larry got two tattoos- one was a snake wrapped around a knife (he has no clue why) and a swan bearing the moniker “The Swan”. Now, all these years later, he hasn’t been called by that since the navy. The tattoo is faded (as tat’s will do), and has no relevance to his life. Aren’t permanent markings wonderful?

In his late forties, Larry discovered a passion for woodworking. He invested thousands of dollars in equipment and supplies. He had a natural knack for designing and building impressive projects from scratch. If permitted to start a conversation on the subject, he could go on forever, so great was his love for the craft. So powerful was his passion that two table saw accidents within a year cost him three fingers; and yet one day after the second accident, he was talking to me about completing his current project as soon as his hand healed. I suggested he should sell his equipment, but a friend saw his work and told him he was “too good at it and it makes him happy, to quit”.

Our sex education came at very early ages under the tutelage of a babysitter and her sister. It was unknowingly followed-up with dad’s counsel, even before we were teens. Our father instructed us on the actual procedure, and then suggested that we should have sex “as often as possible, with as many girls as possible, never tell them [our] real names, and if [we] should happen to catch anything, come to [him] right away, and we’d go see a doctor”. In those days, STD’s were curable..

For several years, that’s how my brother and I lived our lives. Sex was unencumbered by the responsibilities of relationship. It was an irresistible drive. Furthermore, there was no reason to resist it. Sex was the main reason I started playing guitar in the bars and clubs at thirteen. Women really liked the guys in the band!

While Larry was in the navy, I graduated from high school and entered the legitimate work world. Oddly (perhaps), I started dating a sixteen-year-old from my high school. Let’s call her “Raven” for no particular reason that comes to my mind. She was a gorgeous blonde. My attraction to her was two-fold: She was by far the loveliest girlfriend I’d been with up to that time; and secondly, I was rejected by so many girls when I was in school. Raven represented a victory for me, a trophy.
It was autumn, and time for the homecoming football game. I was supposed to bowl in a league that night. Since Larry was home on leave, he volunteered to take her. I felt my girlfriend would be safe with my brother. However, they never went to the game. They went to my house, sat on my bed, and smoked pot. My bowling was cancelled, so I brought mom and dad home (they had come with me to watch me bowl). I remember being surprised to see Larry’s car there. As I unlocked and began opening the door, my brother rushed to the door and pushed it closed in my face. As soon as mom, dad, and I walked in, the unmistakable odor was evident. Larry took Raven home, and when he returned, he lied to our parents, saying that Raven had the marihuana, and once in the house, she had just lit up. Larry didn’t understand why I was so angry with him. My immediate reaction was fury. I not only lost my girlfriend that night, but I felt I’d lost my best friend, my brother.

I knew Larry. If we had not come home and caught them, he would have made sexual advances on my girlfriend (or perhaps the reverse). There would have been betrayal, I’m certain. Dad said Larry did me a favor by revealing what kind of girl Raven was. My brother echoed that sentiment, of course.

But looking with objectivity borne of years of that event’s irrelevancy to my life, I recognize a deeper reason for my anger. For the five months Raven and I had been dating, she had met my parents, but never been to my house. Our humble abode on Chenoweth Road was indeed “humble”… simply, it was a dump, poorly constructed from the onset. The house was always unkempt and the walls bore the unrepaired witness of two rowdy boys. Moreover, Raven’s prosperous family dwelt in a perpetually immaculate palatial home. I was an eighteen-year-old fool trying to impress my hot girlfriend. I had lied to her. However, my façade collapsed when Raven came to my home and sat on my cot (I didn’t even have a real bed), and looked directly into a Mike-shaped hole in my bedroom wall. Nobody likes to have their lies uncovered. She didn’t seem devastated by our break-up. I think Raven saw my lies, but more importantly, she saw the chasm between our “classes”. Even with this epiphany years later, I could never confess this to my brother. For one thing, it really hasn’t mattered for a long time.

I only write of it now because it was a pivotal point in my relationship with Larry. It also reveals something of my true character. Truthfully, I have lied to everyone I’ve ever known. Sometimes, it was to avoid the consequences of my actions. More often though, it was to embellish my life. This autobiography is laced with such exaggerations and embellishments. I make no apologies in this case, nor do I offer means for you, the readers, to distinguish fact from fiction. That’s part of the fun of telling the story. All of our memories are somewhat fictionalized. Where there are gaps and flaws in our recollections, imagination steps in to fill the gaps, tie things together in a sensible way, and become just as important in the memory as facts.

In some ways, Larry is more honest than I am. He can be blatantly offensive and waving his banner of self-important ignorance proudly. He is straightforward about it. Larry doesn’t try to be nice and get along with people.

By the time he finished his active duty stint, I was a married family man. Although he repeatedly tried to draw me into his bachelor life, I hated the resulting conflict with my wife. My brother used the one thing we still had in common, pool. When I was struck with painful twinges of responsibility, my brother would accuse me of weakness and letting my wife run my life. Both were true of course.

Nobody in the family liked either of our first wives. Larry’s first wife didn’t like any of us (or Larry all that much either), and tried to keep him apart. Interestingly, a pattern he’d already been living for some time. She was a mean drug addict who kept Larry poor and desperately unhappy.

My first marriage was short, about five years, and when it collapsed, I was the one trying to pull my brother away from his miserable marriage. I lived with them for about three awful months. Every time they would fight (which was often), I would suggest to Larry we go have a few drinks and play pool. I didn’t care so much for the drinking part, but adored the pool.

Sometimes in telling a story, I get caught up in a particular point and sequence becomes inconsequential. Now that I’ve given my excuse, I want to back up in the story to relate the single most significant event in my life, and it is the core of this story…

It was 1982. My first marriage was dangling by a weak thread. I was unable to walk for about six months, and deep in depression. (the details of this event are in the chapter “I Could Not Say It”). I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, was healed, and born again. Being a delver, my whole life was changed. And immediately, my wife and my brother were alienated.

It was a journey that had begun in the late sixties in a garden and a back porch. Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Caldwell, was a nice “old South” man in his seventies. Larry and I would help him work his garden and he would share his produce with us. After working in the garden all day, we’d sit on his porch, drink homemade lemonade, and he’d tell us Bible stories. The old man was not well-educated, and as I remember some of his versions now with the benefit of my biblical study, accuracy wasn’t his strong-suit. But we didn’t know any better. We had no biblical knowledge. We asked dad if his stories were true, and dad told us Mr. Caldwell was “an old religious nut”.

Some neighbor kids invited us to attend vacation Bible school at their church. We encountered a money-centered ministry where they kept score throughout the week how much money each child donated. It was a competition with a scoreboard and prizes. Not only were we poor, but Larry and I didn’t understand about giving in church. It was humiliating. But, my brother and I had very different reactions to the same experience.

Larry’s reaction echoed dad’s. He wanted no part of “that whole church thing”. Whereas, I realized I had no idea what Christianity really was, but I was certain what we had witnessed at that church was not it! While it made my brother an atheist, it drove me to seek.

These diverse reactions to the same experiences shed light on a primary difference that has always existed between us. Larry is a natural man who thinks in tangible terms. He rarely has shown comprehension or even interest in intellectual or spiritual matters. I’m not suggesting my brother is unintelligent. He is smart in many ways, all consistent with his nature. That nature has directed him into materialism. Larry has anchored his identity for most of his adult life in what he does and what he has.

Unfortunately, jobs (even long-standing careers) can abruptly end. At forty-nine, Larry lost his job of many years. After two heart attacks, he had a defibrillator put in his chest. Later that year, a table saw accident permanently damaged his left hand. Within a year, that same table saw in his garage claimed the ends of two fingers on the same hand. Unable to work, perhaps for the rest of his life, Larry has sunk deep into depression. As I see it, herein lies the problem with my brother’s “natural man” ways. Possessions, jobs, money, and even our health- they are all temporary and fleeting. They inspire confidence and the illusion of permanence.

As much as Larry is like Esau in the book of Genesis, I am akin to Jacob, his brother. Jacob valued relationships above material wealth (not that he didn’t desire his father’s great riches). He took advantage of Esau’s lack of regard for the spiritual blessings of being the first-born son of Isaac, and acquired it through deception. Jacob was clever and a manipulator, until God humbled him. The Angel of the Lord then gave Jacob (his name literally means “supplanter” or “heel-catcher” because he was constantly striving to be first and best) a new nature, and a new name- Israel (literally, “Prince With God”).

Bible lesson over, for now. I have always valued relationships, intellect, imagination, and emotion more than the concrete Larry has embraced. This nature has led me into creative expression through art, music, and writing. It has awakened the teacher in me. And it has driven me on the quest to understand things beyond the natural.

So, in May of 1982, I found what I had been searching for. When I told my first wife the good news and she saw me walking, she said, “That’s good. Just don’t get carried away with it.” Could she have possibly exhibited less understanding of who I am? As I’ve said before- I am a DELVER!  It was unimaginable to be tepid about my new life, which coincided with a tremendous physically-and-emotionally healing touch from the Lord. I was zealous to grow spiritually and serve my God. My fire frustrated her, but really opened a chasm between me and Larry.

He didn’t understand my testimony of healing and how I was now “born again”. As of this writing, he still doesn’t. To him, it’s a matter of going to church and obeying a restrictive list of rules. I’ve talked to many unbelievers who feel that way. Unfortunately, there are many Christians who perpetuate that image.

After mom’s death in 1984, I felt an urgency to try to lead dad and Larry to Christ. In retrospect, this was likely fueled by my uncertainty about mom’s eternal destination. I have always hoped she is in heaven, but we had never discussed it. I was certain I could deal with dad or Larry’s death better if I knew of their salvation. The story of dad is for another chapter.

So I pressed in desperation. I played all the emotional cards in my manipulative deck. The natural reaction to panic-driven manipulation is recoil. As would be expected, they were both offended and uncooperative. I wrote a letter to each of them, explaining what Jesus had done for me. I wrote of my hope that mom was in heaven and I would see her again someday. I asked if they wanted that too. Most importantly, I promised in these letters that I would never again bring up the subject. If they initiated it, I’d gladly discuss it with them; but otherwise, they’d never hear it from me.

For over a quarter century now, I’ve been faithful to that promise. I decided to let my life be the evidence of what Jesus has done for me. Although I have fallen many times, I’ve tried to show, without words, that being a Christian is not living a perfect moral life. It’s walking in the grace of God.

Because family members know us and are intimately familiar with our failings, they can be the least receptive of our witness. Jesus could not minister in his home town, because these people knew Him as “the son of Joseph, the carpenter”. The world, in general, seeks cracks in the armor of the Lord’s soldiers. Family know where the cracks have always been.

Armor is only as strong as it’s weakest point. I believe Larry has unknowingly been a weapon against me. I say “unknowingly” because I’m speaking of spititual matters, which he doesn’t recognize. My first reaction was that he has been a weapon in the hands of my enemy, exposing my weaknesses and giving my brother cause to scorn the apparent ineffectiveness of my faith.

However, it has of late occurred to me that this technique of revealing my weaknesses could be the work of God. It would be like Him to do that. Satan would expose the weaknesses and then destroy me (he can’t kill me, but he can try to bleed my faith from me). My heavenly Father, on the other hand, would show me my weakest points for my benefit. The first benefit would be to keep me humble. I know I need to be humble, but I don’t like it. Like the apostle Paul, I say: “In my weakness, His strength is perfected.” This brings me to the next benefit. When the weakness is recognized, defense can be adjusted to compensate, and repair addressed, resulting in stronger armor.

Of course, all this occurs without Larry’s awareness. This sort of spiritual warfare is not in his realm. His realm revolves around the solid hands-on world. In this realm, and therefore Larry’s perception, I am a failure.

My entire adult life has proved unstable. I have failed in two marriages. Financial hardship has been my close companion. I have had MANY, MANY jobs, three-and-a-half years being the longest duration. I have never acquired or kept much material goods. Repeatedly, I have been without a car for extended periods of time. And when I have owned vehicles, they were junk. Four-and-a-half years of college resulted in no degree and a mountain of debt. Unlike most Americans, I am not in credit card debt. That’s because I would have to assume a false identity to get plastic. No, my mountain is comprised of defaulted student loans and years of medical expenses. I have been homeless several times, either due to marital disaster, or financial quake.

Jesus took the smallest object at hand that moment, a mustard seed, and held it up, saying to all (which includes me): “If you have faith the size of this mustard seed, you can say to this mountain (implied that He directed our attention to the largest “immovable” object) ‘get up and jump into the sea’ (implied “be gone!”) and it will obey”. My interjections into this paraphrase of Scripture reveal that I’m a conceptual sort of guy. I believe the concept herein is so much deeper than the literal interpretation; and bear with me on this… it is relevant to my point!

I occupy my everyday life in the shadow of the mountain of my debt. I know it’s there. But, apparently my faith is far more miniscule than a mustard seed, because I feel powerless to do anything about the mountain. Instead, I work on “little faith exercises”, trying to increase my faith on a daily basis. I face hardships as I walk around the base of the ever-increasing mountain, and attempt to be un-phased. Yes, I get fearful, frustrated, and even angry sometimes. I can’t even see the mountain top, but I envision it as a seething volcano. One day, it will erupt and lava will consume me. I just don’t seem to have faith in the mustard seed size!

But my brother sees all of my instability, failures, and troubles. He knows how he would react. He becomes frustrated because he loves me and hates to see me go through such woes. Yet, he doesn’t comprehend my reactions (at least most of the time how I respond). When all sorts of troubles befall me, I tend to get spiritual. It’s my way, I guess, of hanging on, not giving up. Sometimes when he gets confused about my response, I can hear old Job’s wife and friends saying, “God must hate you”, “What have you done to deserve such wrath from your God?”, and the coup-de-gras: “Why don’t you just curse God and die?”

Nothing in this life can cause me to renounce my faith in God. The disasters of my life do not invalidate His love for me. My weak faith still sustains me, because it’s not placed in myself nor anything in this world. My life doesn’t have to be stable. My God is.

In the course of telling the story of my relationship with my brother, I have lapsed repeatedly into what has probably seemed like preaching or Bible teaching. But you see, that is my point! My faith in Christ is the foundation for my understanding of this life. I am constantly seeing the world, people, and my life through these spectacles of Scripture.

To Larry, my faith is a mystery, serving only to make me unrealistic. My efforts to walk above the crashing waves of the stormy sea of circumstances is a foolish attempt at the impossible. By natural means, he’s right.

Hence, the ever-increasing difference of blood between us. By natural birth, we share the same blood, the same heritage. But I have acquired a new birth and bloodline. I am a child of God. Though my actions and attitudes don’t always prove it, I have a new nature, perhaps even a new name that I don’t know yet.

At this writing, Larry is fifty-one and not healthy. I’m forty-nine and have health issues as well. We are both painfully aware that the majority of our years on this earth have passed. Of course, we don’t know how long we will live. Mom died at sixty, and dad was seventy-five. But I think we are both agreed that we don’t want to grow very old and become a burden on others.

I love Larry with a brotherly love, but also with the love of the Lord. This love has enabled me to give him grace when he has hurt me. Of course, I still desire that he would know the love and forgiveness of God before the end of his life. It would be one of my greatest joys.

A bitter-sweet joy though. For so many years, this single issue has come between us, robbing us of the closeness we once had.