Thursday, July 20, 2017

Weekend of Brothers Recap

Last Saturday was the weekend of brothers. In an interesting twist of calendar fate, Eric and I both had the opportunity to see our brothers. Why is this interesting? Well, because I hadn't seen one of my brothers (and their respective families) in 2 years and I think it had been close to that since Eric last saw his brother.

As technology progresses, it is incredibly easy to keep in touch with people who live far away.... such as our brothers. One of my brothers lives in Germany and Eric's brother lives in Texas. We keep in touch using tools such as text, video chats, and emails, but nothing quite replaces the face-to-face time we got with our siblings this weekend.

Over the weekend, Eric and John caught up, chatted (do guys chat??), and played computer games (shocker, I know!) while laughing like they probably did when they were kids playing together. I loved listening to their laughs and good-nature jabs as they played together. They don't get enough time in the same room for the most part, but they really do make the most of what time they do get.

In order to see my brother, I had to ditch Eric's side of the family for a few hours (sorry, everyone!) but there are times when situations like this are unavoidable. Saturday was one of those days! Mid-afternoon, the kids and I piled in my van to drive to my (local) brother's house so we could spend some with my not-local brother. This visit was particularly important to me because it was the first time I'd spent in-person time with my brother since his strokes late last year. I knew he was doing really well and has had an amazing recovery; we text and talk on the phone, so I knew (at an intellectual level) that he had really bounced back from the experience. That said, there was still a great sense of importance to being in the same room with him and really SEEING how well he was (is) doing. I guess there was still a small part of me that worried I'd missed something about his health and only seeing him in person would ease that worry.

So, darn you calendar for giving us our brothers on the same day so we had to divide and conquer to see them, but thank you for the opportunity to spend some much-needed, much-appreciated face time with them.

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