It's good to have a good brother

     My brother Mark is three years younger than I am, and we have an unfortunate sister trapped between us.  We had the usual love/dislike relationships growing up, and there were times when I was unkind to him, which I sorely regret.  He was usually better to me than I was to him.

     Mark came up with all sorts of lunatic stuff.  At one point in our childhood, he made a rule that if someone was hurt inadvertently while we were playing, someone else could say, "Laugh, my child!" and the injured party had to laugh, which usually set things back on track.

     He convinced our baby sister that there was a secret rail system in the attic by which we could be transported to the neighbor's house, but that she couldn't use it until she was six.  And on and on.

     Mark has always thought bigger than me.  I had a minibike, he had a Yamaha dirt bike.  I had the ratty old VW Beetle, he had the ratty old Triumph Spitfire.  I have five kids, he has eight.  I was an OB-GYN, he was an orthopaedic surgeon.  

     There has been somewhat of a fun arms race since we've grown up.  We had always ridden bikes, but he got a nice one in residency, so I had to find one also, and we've had some classic rides together since, and while I've done a lot of 'century' rides (100 miles), for a while he was doing 'double dimes,' meaning 200 miles at a throw.

     During residency in Philadelphia, Mark noticed someone windsurfing at a nearby park lake, and he had to do it.  That meant that I needed to figure it out also, and we had great fun windsurfing together for twenty-five years, all over the East Coast and even internationally.

     Scuba diving slipped in there somewhere, along with underwater photography.  

     We shared whitewater kayaking with our sons, and did many of the great and challenging rivers in the East, though again, he was always up for bigger stuff than I was.

     From what I've said, you could think that it was all fun stuff.  Mark has become a solid pillar in his community and the Church, and we have paralleled each other in many assignments and activities.  

     The latest chapter in the fun category has been kiteboarding, which we picked up at the end of windsurfing a dozen years ago or so.  We've had a lot of laughs doing that together, though as usual, Mark gets 25 foot jumps while I'm lucky to land fivers.  

     It's great having a good brother.  He's always someone I can bounce DIY engineering plans off of, or revel with about some new activity, or use as an excuse with my long-suffering wife; "Well, Amy let Mark do it!"  Doesn't always work, but it's worth a try.  

     I hope that your siblings are anywhere near as good as my kid brother.

David