is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
On a dark and rainy night 32 years ago
Friday, September 26, 2008 
I was 4-1/2 years old, just a few months older than my son is today. It was dark and raining and I was in the gold and white Dodge van with my parents.
Because it was the Seventies, the back seat was latched in sideways to make extra room for Christmas trees and for kids to play on the floor during long road trips from our Lincoln Park apartment to the "farm" we shared with four other families in Indiana. Because it was that decade, we didn't wear seatbelts and I sat in the passenger seat on my mother's lap.
Rather, I sat on my mother's knees. Her pregnant belly took up the rest of her lap and soon that space would be occupied by a baby. She held me as close as she could as we drove downtown to my aunt's Gold Coast apartment.
My mother was in labor and I was going to spend the night in a big bed full of luxurious pillows and white sheets to wait out the arrival of a new baby brother or sister. We pulled up and through the sheets of rain, I could see my aunt waiting to take me by the hand, from the van and up to her place above the city.
My parents drove on to the suburbs where my brother came into the world many hours later. The story goes that my aunt took me to FAO Schwartz to buy him a gift and I pleaded with her to just buy something for me. It worked (sort of) and we chose a little something for him and (I'm sure) a sparkly something for me.
I wasn't even a kindergartner and I was already resistant. As time went on, there was naturally a lot more of that resistance. You know, sometimes, as every sister knows, it's hard to
give up that space on the lap or knees or as the recipient of all
things wrapped and shiny. It can even be hard when it's also fun to have another person to slide around with seatbelt-free in the back of the van.
But really, the gift -- the one of having a brother, not of whatever sparkly thing I got from FAO Schwartz (with the exception of when he held my bouquet on the altar as my Maid of Honor, he's never been very sparkly) -- has only grown greater and more valuable with each year.
We've been through a lot in our own lives and we've been through a lot together. And whether we're talking about those times over a coffee or in a hospital or airport or on the phone, I am always grateful for the person given to my life that rainy night in September 1976.
Happy Birthday to my brother, the good man who was once a baby on the way, who has brought a lot of crazy sunshine into the dark and rainy ever since.
Reader Comments (3)
I have a younger brother and feel exactly the same!
Hope your brother had a good day!
I sure hope my brother and/or sister is thinking this about me today too! Although, they're younger so maybe they should be grateful I didn't beat them up too often. lol