I was barely more than a toddler when he recruited me to dig for earth worms and even though I was scared of the wiggling slimy things, if my big brother wanted me – ME – to help dig for worms so he could go fishing, well then, I’d dig to China if need be. He was my brother Jerry, older by 10 years, and there was nothing better than hanging with my big brother.
Some days he rode me around the neighborhood on the handlebars of his English 10-speed. It was a feat we performed like a seasoned circus team. Me, sitting tight in the lap of the curving metal, he gliding along sure and smooth, occasionally inquiring, ‘You hanging on tight now?’ One afternoon, coming through the backyard in the low light of dusk, he hit the garden hose. I flew off and he bounced right over me. He swore and jumped from his bike to check on me, then seeing I was OK and trying to persuade me not to cry, laughed like it was the funniest trick yet. I cried anyway. I always cried. I was the baby of the family, and the crybaby. Crybaby Lori.
And, in fairness, I occasionally had plenty of reason to cry.
Once, as we played superhero on his twin bed. I backed up for a good run at him, backed right over the foot board and flat on my back onto the floor. ‘Oh shit, kid,’ he yelled. ‘Are you OK.’ Then, peering over the end of the bed and seeing I was breathing and non-bloodied, he laughed like it was funniest thing in the world, all the while, coaxing, ‘Come on, now, you’re OK. Don’t cry.’ Which only made my wailing louder.
Likewise, when he tried to teach me to use his skateboard on the pavement out front, I fell and split my lip. He hurried me inside, not laughing for once, because this time there was real blood. I got butter on my spaghetti that day so the sauce wouldn’t burn my fat, cut up lip. He watched me carefully from across the table, asking, ‘You OK now, kid?’
But sometimes he’d grow impatient with my dramatic tears,and gently scold, ‘Now quit your brootsin’ – Pennsylvania Dutch for unnecessary tears. But mostly, he was my hero.
When my oldest sister, Shelly, one year younger than him, made me sit at the table until I finished every bite on my plate, including the peas or lima beans now grown clammy and old, it was Jerry who swept in, whisked me away and sent me running to the neighbors with instructions to stay there until our mom got home.
And then I was eight and my brother graduated from high school and went straight off to the Navy and not long after to ‘Nam. His letters came on the powder blue U.S. Airmail stationary, usually addressed to our parents, but sometimes just to me or my sister Penny. He told us to do good in school, to mind our parents and that he missed us.
Four years later, he came home, long hair, beard, pissed off, antisocial. But underneath it all, he was still Jerry.
One afternoon, he decided to teach me to box. I weighed in at about 95 pounds; he was probably all of 200. He showed me how to hold my fists, where to place them to protect my face, how to move in to land a punch. And we sparred, lightly grazing each other, mostly pretending to land punches. I moved in to throw a good one, and walked right into his moving fist. It laid me out flat on the kitchen floor. ‘Oh shit,’ he yelled, certain he had killed me. Too tough to cry now (or at least let anyone see) I scrambled to my feet, fists raised and ready. And once again, there was that laugh.
And this is how I will remember my big brother Jerry, the twinkle in his hazel eyes, the ready laughter, the pleasure he took in having me for his kid sister.
Not so long ago, when I learned that my brother was gravely ill, I of course cried. Later, on the phone, he scolded me, a smile in his voice. ‘Now, what are you brootsin’ about?’
“I’m not,” I said.
And I wasn’t. I was crying. Just crying.
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