Today. Friday the thirteenth. July 13, 2007. Happy Birthday to my brother & my best friend.
My older brothers' birthday.
I have two brothers, one about a year and a half older than me and one about a year and a half younger.
Growing up my brothers' were my constants in life. They were my best friends. They were also, at times, my biggest enemies.
I have learned so many valuable things from them, some things that I fear would have never have just come about naturally to me...
Living in the foothills of the Appalachians about twenty years ago with my older brother & a couple of other room-mates, we found the winters to be a bit more severe than they are of years more recent. Back then, it seems, that each winter brought us freezing rain, sleet and/or snow.
I had a green 'Hess' jacket that I had acquired from a male friend, who was a mechanic. Needless to say the jacket coat was toasty warm, as it was designed for a man to be able to work outside. But it was also terribly & permanently stained with oil, oil, and more oil. I used it as I needed but as soon as I saved up enough money to be myself a more attractive & fitting womans' winter coat, I did.
The green Hess coat went into the hallway closet.
One day, my brother plucked it out. It seems he had given his leather coat to another girl who found herself in a similar situation as me... moving up from from warmer territory to this surprisingly much colder area and living without the immediate means to provide a warmer coat for herself.
For months, my brother wore this nasty, oil-stained, frayed seamed & unsnapping Hess coat. It worked. For Christmas, we headed down South to spend the days with our family. One of my brothers biggest Christmas gifts that year was a very nice winter coat. One that was lined & water resistant. One that had zippers and snaps...all working. One that had no stains & no automatic stench about it. One that wasn't frayed around the arm holes and the waist.
Being young and hungry for life, we left the family on Christmas day with plans to make it home in time to work on the 26th. Sometime in between ten and midnight Christmas night, we found ourselves quite hungry and nothing was open anywhere to eat. Driving through Atlanta, we were pleased to see that a McDonalds was open. We stop to eat.
Sitting inside eating sea kelp for burgers, I notice a homeless man stumble through the parking lot. The wind is picking up, the temperatures are dropping and the rain is beginning to slash through the nights sky.
He stumbles through the parking lot and past our car. I point him out to my brother.
He stumbles back towards our car & then opens the back door of our car. I gasp & stand up ready to bolt.
The man reaches in and plucks my brothers' brand new Christmas coat out of the backseat.
My brother watches.
'Sit back down Paiger. He's cold, hungry & homeless.'
'Yeah, but that's your brand new...'
'Yeah, well I got a roof over my head when I get home. And I still have that Hess coat. All he'll have is that coat to call home. Let it be, sister.'
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