One to Remember....

Jack

My oldest brother. The one who always knew best and was first to remind you so. The one who was perpetually "older than you" and therefore could hang out with friends longer, stay up later than, got more playtime in the snow, you'll understand when your my age, big brother. I am sure as the eldest child he caught the brunt of my parents mistakes, in fact I know he did (more on that later) but from my vantage point on the other side of the age spectrum, all I noticed was the gap that caused us to never quite be equals.

The gap closed just a little bit the year Jack began to drive. I still remember how excited he was when my parents gave him his first car. It wasn't anything special, but it was a big deal for him. Your first car is indisputably a major milestone, one that ushers in a new era in ones life. And while all of this was true for Jack, it was for me as well. This was our first taste of freedom during our sheltered childhood, and it tasted sweet. I remember countless evenings when we'd all pile into his car, just us kids, alone and free to go wherever we wanted, but not really going anywhere. Just driving aimlessly, our heads pinned against our seats like the gas pedal to the floor. The CD player would be blaring some song from Firehouse or Michael W. Smith, but mostly I remember Bryan Adam's "Summer of '69". In this car, and with Jack behind the wheel, everything that made up my world dissolved and anything was possible as long as he would just keep driving.

Not too many years later, our parents were incarcerated and it was just us kids, all of the time. It was in this very same car that Jack would take us out for a ride when nothing else made much sense. Sometimes we would just drive across town. Other times, when the hurt was just enough, we would keep on driving all the way into the next state, with heads to the seat and pedal to the floor. Trying to hold onto what was left of the belief that anything was possible.