HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY BROTHER!

 

 From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist

April 5, 2021

 

“This is where and when my clearest memories begin: you and I posing for Mom’s little Brownie Camera in front of the big snowball bush in the yard of the farm the summer Mommaw and Poppaw took possession of it. You were your usual wriggly, balking self, impatient to get it over with so you could go exploring—digging for fossils; chasing down spiders and snakes; shouting at birds on the wing to come back and take you flying; studying the trees, the wind, the sky; in essence trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. And I—I shushed you, fixed you to my side with my arm on your shoulder, and ordered you to smile. This was the nature of our relationship, and continued to be until the day of your death. Maybe it is no different, even now.

          “Sometimes I wonder if you were in too much of a hurry to know what God knows. Is that why you left us so soon? Are there such wonders there where you are that it was worth the going? Is there anything there more wonderful than the roar of the rivers in Earth’s center, the silver tinge on the leaves of Earth’s birch trees in the moonlight, the gay burst of intrepid little flowers through Earth’s hard crust in spring, the shenanigans of Earth’s hectic squirrels scaling treetops and rooftops? Do you look down on Earth now, filled with longing?”

          “Oh, Lin, as usual, you are such a skeptic!” I hear you retort in my mind’s ear. “I am here and there and everywhere. I dig in stardust now. Like Saint Francis, little critters ride on my shoulders and tuck into my hands. Saint Joseph and I fly across the universe together almost daily. And I am there in the ripples of the water, in the scent of the plants, in the chirping of the creatures.”

“I will plant a tree this spring in your memory, and look for you on its leaves in the moonlight. If you manifest there, then I might understand. In the meantime—Happy Birthday, my brother!”©

 

Photograph: Linda Lee Greene and David Marlin Greene, Summer, 1948

 

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