Brotherhood

Task 3, January 17 to January 24

From Mike, my partner in crime:

"Listen, I don't mean to be a sore loser, but when it's done, if I'm dead, you kill 'em all", Butch Cassidy to the Sundance Kid (var.)

It was 1958, and my brothers Steve, Jim, and I faced a harrowing dilemma. We lay well concealed behind a fallen pine tree in a mountain pasture of our parent's ranch in Eastern Washington, cradling our cherished Daisy BB guns in our arms, our horses tethered unseen in the trees. We were locked and loaded, patiently awaiting the cattle rustlers, or was it bank robbers, who we imagined were galloping towards us.

Such was our boyhood life on the ranch, where our imaginations were as boundless as the vast land where we lived.

Those were magnificent times, growing up wild and independent on a remote ranch, sharing every moment with my brothers, learning all of life's many lessons together...... obviously we didn't yet have a clue about what life had in store for us, but at least for those few years when we were young, ten feet tall and bulletproof, sharing a childhood that would spawn a lifetime of memories, we thought we knew it all and had it all. Of course, things were bound to change.

CHECK OUT OUR PODCAST, OLD PEOPLE THIS WEEK, ON YOUTUBE, SPOTIFY AND APPLE PODCASTS

Inexorably, predictably, Father Time and the realities of growing up to make individual lives for ourselves would test and periodically strain our childhood bond. We each went our separate way to college, careers, marriage, divorce, marriage again, kids for them, none for me - and along these divergent paths we simply lost touch of and with each other.

Dad was the first to pass, followed a few years later by my mother. In the interim between their deaths a lot of second-guessing, judgmental opinions, and animosity emerged regarding Mom's care, her subsequent marriage to a guy we all hated and who ultimately stole all her money. Not surprisingly, these developments conspired to nearly break what was once an inviolate, unbreakable brotherly bond. And that break would have been irreversible had I not made the conscious decision to reclaim, nurture, and solidify the bonds of our youth.

I started with the arms-length approach of texting my brothers and their families on holidays, then birthday greetings on a regular basis, eventually working my way up to the occasional phone call just to check in. Then I moved more boldly to inviting them to visit (as yet, unanswered), and finally to asking for their advice on certain matters even if I didn't really want, or need, an outside opinion. But the effort that mattered–at least to me–and it has started to pay off, as I now get regular phone calls and texts –small steps, to be sure, but gratifying none-the-less.

TASK:

Take an honest inventory of your family relationships, whether it be parents or siblings; catalog that which is right and healthy, as well as that which is broken and needs mending. Then, build on the strength of the good things, and do your very best to repair the fractures. Do your best possible work here, because as life's runway gets shorter and shorter, you want to make that final landing in the arms and hearts of those closest to you. Make the leap. Don't screw this up, it's just too important!