I Don't Really Know Why

I don’t really know why.

A cricket bat. Signed by each of the living Australian test captains at the time. It was presented to ”The Family” by my brother-in-law a few years ago. None of us had played any serious cricket, and we’re not even big fans of the game.

I guess it showed he didn’t really know us very well.

He had been married to my eldest sister for over twenty years at the time he died.

I had always thought of him as a bit of an oddity. A real know-it-all, equipped with a personal anecdote for every occasion. I never knew if his stories were true or if they were bullshit. I still don’t.

I’ll always remember his funeral. A good number of family members and I traipsed down the South Coast to say our farewells and support my grieving sister.

My eldest brother couldn’t make the funeral and asked for someone to read the eulogy he had written. I volunteered. I don’t really know why.

I tried to read it as my brother would have read it… with great humour and real affection. It was filled with stories of their times spent together over the years. It spoke of our brother-in-law’s penchant for a beer and a smoke, his love of Australia his adopted home, and playful times with my brother’s kids. It spoke of his persistence in winning an argument, his fondness for trivia and a knock down, beat-‘em-up game of Scrabble.

I couldn’t read it the way my brother would have read it… for it dawned on me as I was reading that I had so few of my own stories to share. My own kids barely knew him and I’d always avoided Scrabble… he seemed such a competitive bastard.

To me he was just this odd, half-English bloke who, for all his apparent flaws, loved my sister dearly.

She misses him terribly… I think I miss him too.

I don’t really know why.