Brothers

I have one brother.  My husband has one brother.  My sons each have one brother.

Life with brothers is complicated.  Love and fury alive in one body, sometimes in one moment.

Upon the birth of our second son, a wise friend and colleague (and veteran father of 2 brothers himself) told me that the greatest mistake I could make as parent is to intervene too quickly when the boys are in conflict with each other.  I took this slightly premature advice to heart, especially seeing as his boys, now in their 20s, seem like responsible, respectable, respectful members of the adult world.  And as a mediator, the concept is kind of obvious.  I had no idea, however, how hard it would be to live.

I need to say that it is truly amazing, the yowls and howls that I sometimes hear roaring up through the floor boards as the boys play (and by that I mean fight) in their basement playroom.  I have worked hard over the years to steel myself against my strong inner need to immediately run and help, to rush to the rescue like the super-mom-hero I'd like to think I could be.  But I've learned to make myself wait, one ear at the top of the stairs, listening to them work it out... or not.

The boys know that if they need help solving a problem that they can (and should) come to me or John and we will drop what we are doing to help them with what is going on.  But more often than not, they don't take that trip up the stairs.  This is probably because they know that a long boring conversation will inevitably ensue which is seriously undesirable from their perspective and therefore must be avoided if at all possible.  I'm not always sure how they do it but most of the time they find a way to manage the mess and get back to the very serious business of lego building (or whatever they were doing).

The complexity of emotions that live inside each of us and weave sometimes intertwined and enmeshed with the inner lives of others is something that I find totally amazing.  Watching brothers share a joyful, playful moment that can, in a flash, travel down the various pathways of bitter spite, furious self-righteousness, woeful hopelessness, practical resignation and sometimes even honest forgiveness feels tantamount to a miracle.  And perhaps it is.