One brother is all I had yet I drank in the experience of sibling love. Perhaps it’s because my sibling was an older brother, nearly 5 years ahead of me. Or maybe it was because we spent time often as a family and we had no one else to talk to or plan daily adventures on our trips abroad. It could have been that he lived only through his nineteenth year; I’ve heard many a one say that it seems like the good ones get gone. Though likely a lovely combination of things, my most special is the memory of the love he bestowed upon me.

Before I can even remember, I know I was loved; my mother lived to tell the story of how Adam slept under my crib the first night I was home from the hospital. From the very beginning, he was my protector and I was his most fierce admirer. His adoration was tangible in the old photos, stuck behind clear sheets in paisley photo books; proud big brother holding a newborn, playing in the baby pool, riding on the boat, dressed up for school spirit week. Yes, the memories flow over me like the incoming tide on a shrinking sandbar. I don’t even have to close my eyes and I can be awash in the overwhelming sea of remembering, my senses acute and I travel back in time.

Happy birthday, Adam. Today would have marked your 45th year and I like to think that we would have been together, our families mixed up and happy, a late afternoon on the beach or boat, a festive dinner of your choice made by Mom. I miss you always and miss what we would have been; I’m so thankful that you taught me what love between siblings should be as I guide your niece and nephews to love as fully as we did.