shishnit.org

Over the weekend my brother in law Doug and his new live-in girlfriend Cindy came to visit for the first time.  Yes, my husbands family does things fast.  He just met this woman and they moved to Daytona, FL and she bought a house on a short sale and voila they are officially shacked up.  Rick’s brother Doug is about 12 years older than him and so I suppose when you get in your fifties and you grasp something good you don’t waste time.

She and I had a brief exchange alone on my back patio whereby she told me that Doug is “patient, quiet, easy going” and that when they met apparently it was like a firecracker going off without noise.  She described it as “I just knew he was different, I felt the impact like a firecracker, but he was calm, there wasn’t any loud noise”.

Now this is hard for me to hear about my brother in law Doug because we have a love/hate relationship. I love to hate him and he hates that he loves me.  Err..or…er…yah *snickers* that’s right.  However, upon hearing her explain this to me I got it.  I really got it.

While Doug is Rick’s half “brother from another mother” something my poetical mind loves to repeat over and over because isn’t that a joke…and yet for this situation it is completely the truth. Doug is Rick’s brother from another mother.  See, I even delight in typing it because it gives me the giggles, but certainly not because I’m being disrespectful. 

Very calmly I whispered to Cindy, “Don’t tell him but he’s my favorite brother in law”.  She smiled.  I honestly hope she did tell him because I’m stubborn and I can’t.  I do have other brother-in-laws.  But Doug is my favorite. And when I say I hate Doug, that’s something I only with an evil smirk tell him, not something that is at all the truth.  I really do love him, but shhh don’t tell.

It bum’s me out that he’s moved to Daytona.  It bums me out because I rather like sitting on the patio chatting it up while Rick and his brother smoke. I will miss those hours.  They are/were much like having a fistful of brand new sparklers on the 4^th of July.  For me, having family drop by unannounced is like winning the lottery.  It’s like buying a six-pack and finding out you have 7 bottles in the bag when you get home.  I have lived the majority of my adult life without family just dropping in.  I’ve had a lot of silence in the compartment in my heart where family is meant to reside.  In fact my own sister was in a pretty brutal car accident and no one told me until I casually called my grandmother to say hello an entire week later and she tells me about it.  My family pretty many bites…save for my grandmother and my Aunt DeDe.  So, in short, Rick’s family bridges a huge gap I have lived with for my entire life.

On February 14^th of this year, my sister in law Robin got married.  It wasn’t a fancy wedding, it wasn’t perfect by any means, but in my heart I truly loved the hell out of just sitting there, completely feeling totally a part of something bigger than just little ole me.  I am a part of that family and it feels so amazing it nearly makes me cry if I allow myself to think about it too long.  His family is not perfect, no one’s is…but it is a family and my soul rejoices at knowing what it is to truly feel a part of one.  Sometimes I want to jump up and yell to all of them when we’re in a group setting, “thank you…thank you for letting me in” because I feel like I won the family prize finally.  I finally know and understand what it is to have an extended family.

Having said all of this….I get what she said about meeting him and how she felt different but how looking at Doug, he was motionless and rather quiet and she couldn’t quite figure it all out but knew it was earth shattering like a firecracker.

I get it because that’s exactly how it was when I met Rick.  It was as if I was completely whiplashed but when I looked at him and knew he was the cause, he was the picture of calm.  Calm like the day turns after a huge storm, silent like a brilliant blue sky on a summer day.  Maybe it run’s in the family…I imagine if that is the case, Rick and Doug’s shared father must have been one amazing man and my curiosity about him will never wane for long.  As she told her story about how they met and ended up living together, my brain flew through a thousand memories of how Rick and I came to be, I heard all of her words but when I think back to those day’s I am always amazed at the warmth that floods over me….that “our” story always feels so much better than anyone else’s.  I always think “oh gee, that’s nothing”.  Even when it might be the exact same story on so many levels.  It occurs to me that when you truly love someone your story is your favorite one.  The one about how real love arrives….stealth like…with an earth shattering calm silence forever rearranging the picture of your life into a perfect frame.