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The ruckus came from the "purple room", a room that was painted a deep plum color when we first moved into our house but has since been painted a more neutral color. I peeked my head around the corner to investigate what was causing all the commotion. Fighting imaginary villains and henchmen, my boys were a a flurry of arms stretching out to shoot lasers and fireballs, and legs performing shin-high karate kicks. My boys were playing superheroes, the images from their comic books, and characters from their cartoons were coming to life and I couldn't have been a prouder poppa.
I can't say my kids current exploration into being caped crusaders isn't somewhat influenced by me. After all, if you've seen the Super Cecils trailer I created over Spring Break, you might assume playing superheroes in our house is encouraged...which it kind of is. What really struck me is the way that E, aka Master Blaster, encouraged his little brother and more or less invited him into his super hero fantasy world. I think E was assembling his own little super team. In the movie trailer we made L wanted to be called Monster, since joining the ranks of E's superhero squad, his character has mutated into Power Boy. So there in our once purple sitting room, Master Blaster and Power Boy were fighting the forces of evil and the occasional dragon, completely unaware that I was watching. Lost in their imaginations and playing as brothers and friends.
My hope is that these boys will in some way maintain this bond throughout their lives, that E will always encourage L and invite him into whatever it is that E is doing. I hope that L will always relish the role of sidekick to his big brother.
When I was younger, I got into a bit of trouble after chasing my older brother Nathan around the house with a butter knife, hell-bent on exacting revenge for what I perceived as his cheating at Skip-bo. In reality, he was probably just better at it than me since I was only 5 or 6 and the intricacies of the card game were lost on me. Handling a loss was never my strong suit. On another occasion, I recall throwing a brick at my brother as he jumped on the trampoline. The trampoline was sort of my domain, it was were I practiced my superhero/ professional wrestler moves. He must have kicked me off for some reason or another, and I responded adversely.
Growing up, my brother and I weren't overly close. We played together more out of a mutual need to pacify our boredom than any genuine affection towards one another. It was not that we disliked each other, although there was the typical picking on each other that is prevalent amongst siblings, our disaccord more often resulted from having disparate interests. Where I preferred comic books, professional wrestling, rock music, art, and contact sports; Nathan preferred 4H, country music, golf, fishing, & excelling at school.
While we, more often than not, tended to mutually exclude each other form our own activities, I do have a bunch of fond memories of growing up with a big bro. I can remember playing baseball at our friends' the Boyd's house. I was in the infield and my brother in the outfield when the opposing team hit a shot over my head. I jumped up fully extended to snatch the ball from the air. My full extension caused me to also lean back, putting me into a position where my feet were no longer beneath me. I landed flat on my back which either knocked the wind out of me, knocked me out, or a little of both. I can't imagine that I had the grip strength or mental acuity to close my mitt and complete the catch. However as I came to my senses with he other players around me, it was revealed that I had indeed got the batter out with my golden-glovesque play. I have my suspicions now as I did then, that my brother unbeknownst to me placed the ball in my glove as I lay motionless on the ground to trying to recover. Whether it was out of pity or some form of admiration at my effort, I don't know. What I do know is I was thankful for it then and respect him for it now.
On another occasion, when we were very young, I remember playing war, or guns, or army...whatever we called it, with the neighborhood kids. I being 5 or 6 at the time was convinced that my camouflage pants and shirt lent me a level of stealthiness that bordered on invisibility. My big brother was on the opposing side as we battled over some unknown grievance between our factions. In the middle of an open-field skirmish that was to be the climactic firefight of our neighborhood game, I crept out of my team's fort. Belly crawling towards the enemy, I hoped to establish a superior vantage point from which I could pin the opposition down with my unseen bullets. My foes were many, and none were fooled by my tactics nor blinded by my camouflage outfit. My brother on the other hand pretended that he did not see me or notice that his entire team was peppering the crawling camo kid with gunfire. As I popped up out of the grass, which was likely fresh cut, I managed to take down my target with one well timed kill shot. My brother acted surprised when his kid brother sprang up buzzing his lips to emulate the tumult of a sub-machine gun. He fell to his second or third death in that day's game of war, seconds later I succumbed to his team's retaliatory fire. There we lie on the battlefield of our backyard, two brothers bonded in war by death...for at least the next ten-Mississippi seconds until we could regenerate. I wonder now if as we lie there on the ground, my brother knowingly accepted his mortality because he understood that I wanted to feel special and heroic using my camo to create a sneak attack. I know that when I popped up and saw that my plan "worked", I felt pretty cool.
My childhood is punctuated with moments of closeness and distance with my brother. As I became a teenager and young adult that distance grew as my teen angst, moodiness, and self-centeredness grew. As I've grown older, I understand that the angst of my youth was silly, my moodiness was born of a need to be different, and my self-centeredness was and is a cancer that eats away at the real relationships that matter in life.
Not long after I graduated college I found myself working a sales job that I absolutely hated and wasn't very good at. I quit that job to pursue a music career...I quickly found myself broke. My brother ended up buying an old guitar and amplifier from me even though he had no intention of playing it. He never said it, but I think he gave me the money because he pitied me and understood what I was trying to do. I was trying to figure out who I was, I was trying to become a man.
A few years later, when I married Jami, I asked Nathan to be my best man. I could think of no better term for him even now. Best Man. He is the best man I know, I admire him and have a profound respect for who he has become. We are much closer now than when we were younger. When our families get together our kids play together, our wives talk, and Nathan and I try to get our dad laughing so hard that he wheezes. He went from being a CPA, to going to seminary, and is now the CEO of Center for Global Impact, an organization that works in Southeast Asia to help young girls find freedom from the darkness of the sex-slavery industry. This weekend his organization is having a 5k race to raise much needed funds. One aspect of the race is that participants are encouraged to dress up like a favorite superhero. I, however, won't be dressing up as my favorite superhero because they do not make a costume of my big brother (If they did it would be a pair of khakis pulled up to a questionable height and a polo shirt tucked in, real business casual).
To E and L I say:You have something special. You have a brother, a life-long companion. Friends will come and go, but your brother will be there forever. Don't take that for granted, especially in your younger days. I did, and regret it.
To Nathan I say: Though I rarely speak it aloud, (because it is not the way of Cecil men) I love you bro.
