Hardship Proves To Be A Gift
In the Easter morning video the girl, almost 6, benevolently leaves the easy-to-see colored eggs for her 3-year-old brother to collect. When he has difficulty finding some of them, she guides him with hints and sometimes a pointing finger. In the end, his basket has the bulk of the bounty compared to hers.
In many ways, the scene encapsulates the two decades that have followed: the big sister has always looked out for her little brother, even after he literally became bigger at 6-foot-3. Indeed, it is often the case even after we become adults that we remain locked in our childhood roles among family.
A week ago, a crisis struck. Let’s just say the bottom fell out of an Easter basket, spilling and breaking the dyed eggs. The girl, now a young woman, phoned from 2,200 miles away; “distraught” falls far shy in describing her emotional state.
It is times like this that a daughter needs her mother. However, because the latter was in a deadline vise at her work, the girl insisted she could manage and that Mom stay home.
Similarly, the daughter demanded that her dad also remain at home to help care for his own father – her beloved “Gramps” – who had just undergone knee replacement surgery. Briefly, the roles had been turned upside-down as the grown son became the father and the father became the son.
Lastly, the girl’s younger brother could surely not fly out to be by her side because he was physically and mentally exhausted, having arrived home the night before the crisis struck after traveling for 20 hours across 12 time zones following a five-week sojourn halfway around the globe.
While the parents discussed matters, the son went on-line at 10 p.m. and booked himself a flight; the last-minute ransom pricing causing him no pause. “She needs me,” he said simply, emphatically, as he hurriedly packed. In bed at midnight, he rose at 3 a.m. to make his 6:15 a.m. flight. Upon landing three time zones east he took a long bus ride and then a short taxi trip to her doorstep at 6 p.m.
To this sentimental fool it brought to mind the closing scene in “It’s A Wonderful Life” when Harry, a Navy pilot and war hero, leaves in the middle of a banquet where President Truman is presenting him with the Congressional Medal of Honor to fly through a blizzard from New York to Bedford Falls because his big brother George is in a crisis.
Despite the three-years age difference, it is not rare for people being introduced to the sister and brother to inquire if they are twins. Beyond appearance, they have always shared a twin-like bond. But perhaps never were they closer than during this tribulation.
“He’s the best gift you and Mom ever gave me,” the daughter said on the phone the night he arrived.
Over the next seven days, the brother proved to be penicillin for the ailment. He tackled the crisis head-on, providing leadership and labor, wisdom and support, loving words and a shoulder to cry on, all on his own, all on little sleep.
Sometimes the son becomes the father; certainly the young man became a man, period. Or, as the girl noted: “I have always been the big sister, but this week he has become my big brother.”
Asked how he was holding up midway through his rescue mission, the son quoted former Navy Seal Eric Greitens, who wrote in his best-selling book “The Heart and the Fist”: “When a task is necessary, its difficulty is irrelevant.”
When his sister needed help, everything else was irrelevant.
“She’s the best gift you ever gave me,” the son said, repeating what his big sis had said of him only days earlier – words that are the best gift a parent could ever hear.
And so in many ways, like a favorite old Easter morning video, I cherish the crisis that has now passed. Indeed, to other parents I wish them their own gift-wrapped hardship if it will reinforce their kids’ sibling bonds.
— Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star. You can contact him at WoodyWriter@gmail.com or through his website at www.WoodyWoodburn.com
