Seeing the house renovation unfold here over the last 15 years has been a pleasure, though I’m sure burglars will look through the front window, see all of the antiques, the sconces on the wall, no big flat-screen TV, and they’d probably walk away thinking a pair of 80-year-old luddites live here. Though the kitchen cabinets were completely rebuilt, the walls re-plastered and painted, it still looks like a 40s kitchen. The only newer decorative bits are my mom’s Swedish horses and a jar of marbles I found in my brother’s childhood bedroom, the ones we played with for years as children, crouched down like small gargoyles perched on the edge of the earth.
My brother and I were quietly and fiercely competitive, and a game of marbles, like any game, was approached like an act of war, though not as intensely, with the only fire being friendly.
I can still recall his pale hands gently grasping the larger marble, poised for movement, while I watched like a hawk, to see if I could discern by draw of breath, by the pace of breath, by the dart of an eye, his intention. There were times he was so intent on the task; it seemed as if he ceased to breathe; only the sun is glinting on the marble in his hand, letting me know that time had not stopped.
The sun still glints on those marbles as you walk through the kitchen into the living room. As I look around, I note that the time could be the current year or it could be 1935. I like that sense of timelessness as I spent my work years dealing with the machining of lives and law.
By the time I would get home on some days, I would be breathing slow and labored, like a man with a large weight on his chest. I walked into the house, made some tea, put on some music, and lit a lamp, and the air would go out of my chest in a gentle whoosh. In that instant, I cared nothing for politics, for work, or what was outside, only the slow dance of my evening with my husband.
Still, at times like those, I missed my brother. He was family, and I loved him as deeply as he loved and defended me.
I remembered back to when my brother’s home was readied for sale, and his things were organized after he died, as we sorted through those mementos we wished to keep and those things that could go to charity.
His home had no home computer and no TV. The furniture was old and much of it was hand restored. The house was in need of updating, but he preferred to do that himself, on his schedule, rather than pay someone with the fruits of his labor for tasks he could easily learn how to do himself. There, beneath a stopped clock, responsive now only to the last stroke of eternity, sat some tools for yet another project he’d never be able to wield them for to finish.
But despite the lack of modern conveniences, there was one large 80s tape player and a stereo, with both vinyl and tapes to go with it that he bought at a yard sale. In the last year of his life, he played music almost all day, everything from big band to 70s rock. All of those tapes were bundled up in the boxes and boxes to be sorted through after he was gone. Some of it made me cry, some of it made me smile, and the first thing I am going to ask him when I see him in Heaven is why he had a live flare gun on his nightstand.
That last night as we gathered up his things, I realized, that as different as we were in some ways, he being the fellow that always had a hundred friends, I being the one that only allowed a handful in close, we were very much alike, strong-willed and sometimes stubborn. I could almost smell the white smoke of the cigarettes he refused to quit smoking, even as cancer ate at him, watching it burning in the ashtray by his fingers, the smoke trailing out the window into the tattered, tumbling midnight.
My brother spent his brief adult years in service to his country, something he was very proud to do even as he sometimes disagreed with its leadership. He was quiet in his public opinions on such matters, but in private, with one another, he would discuss with a great passion those fails and omissions of those we as a country put in power, as well as our staunch support of those rights that would keep us from forced servitude. For he knew that with enough power, this carefully built world still contains within it the command to be seized, and we’d make sure we did all we could to lawfully keep that from happening.
His car bore an emblem of the US flag, and his shelf the Bible, and he refused to apologize for either. He had little interest in promotions to higher command, as he realized that although command was sometimes magic, it often contained an atmosphere of officialdom that seemed to staunch human endeavor and he was happier as a simple machinist mate, preferring his hands bloodied or dirtied to the false supremacy of paper and ink.
I’m glad I had those days and those memories; for my brother left an imprint of his life behind, one that’s so similar to mine, that in the recognition of, I sometimes feel closer to him in death than our deep bond in life.
As my tools were put down as darkness was long upon us, I looked up at the heavens before heading to bed. What captured my gaze were the unsteady stars, that if blown upon would tumble like large marbles in the sky and then brighten to small specks of light in a wet sheen, that I realized was the view through my tears.
With each small thing of his that are now part of my house, I realize that for all of us, midnight will come.
However, I’m not going to let midnight be flung down upon me. I’m going to drag midnight along with me for the ride, as hammers are swung, and boards are bent, and God is our only salvation. In the end, it may not be done, but it will be started, and that, with the rest and the little death of sleep will be my escape and my reward. Then, when my body is finally free of sweat and the house is quiet, I’ll sleep. It will be sleep without regret, in a slightly worse for wear home in which my God watches over me, and my defender lies quietly in the nightstand, a round in the chamber.
