The story of why it took twelve years for our son to meet his full-blooded brother for the first time is a long one that will be written on another day. But on this day … this sad, horrible, unfair day … I remember a different time.
They met at Great Adventure Theme Park in New Jersey. It was July 2007. Max was twelve years old. Max wasn’t an amusement park guy, but he loved water parks. Brian and his mother, Denise, were already there, waiting in the parking lot, when Laura, Max and I drove in. It was Brian who saw Max first. The story later on was that he said to his mom, “There he is. Right there. It’s obvious.” Nobody knew who anyone looked like. There had been no exchanging of photos before hand. But Brian was right. There they were. Max and Brian … Brian and Max. Brothers. Obviously.
Twelve years old. A strange age to meet your brother for the first time.
They both had long hair. Both stood with a relaxed, weight-on-one-hip non-chalance. Both had this you-know-I’m-enjoying-this-there’s-nothing-fake-about-it smiles. They both talked to us, their parents, with utter, supreme confidence—a connection with an adult world that came quicker than with most children—as it does with an only child … or an adopted one.
But it was the walk we all noticed. We’d hung out as a group—Max, Laura, and me; and Denise and Brian (we’d meet Brian’s father, Bruce) later—for a short time. Safety in numbers. A protective bubble for the kids. But soon it was clear that it wasn’t necessary. The adults found some chairs and the shade of a canopy, and Max and Brian left on their own to ride the tallest waterslide in the park. “The Perilous Plunge” or “The Huge Luge” or some such typical theme park waterslide name.
And we watched them walk away together. Their strides perfectly matched, their posture exactly the same.
Brian, almost three years older, was a head taller than his younger brother. Max’s growth spurt was a year away. I swear I felt an air of protectiveness coming from Brian—like static electricity in the air—an older brother’s willingness to step up for his sibling if he had to. And just as much I felt the cool assuredness of safety blowing off of Max and back to us. As if he was saying, “This is good. This is a connection. I’ll be fine. I’m with my brother.”
***
This is a hard, horrible day. And the days and weeks to come will be even harder … when those moments when we haven’t thought about it for a while suddenly return … and plunge ice-cold into our hearts. I want them always to be walking together. Here. Not in some memory I have to conjure. Here. On this Earth. Sharing what brothers share. Max and Brian. Brian and Max.
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