30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 27: Talk about your siblings.

I imagine they are all scared at this moment. lol.

This is an interesting one because many of the friends I’ve come to know and love over the past 10-20 years have little or no knowledge of my brothers and sister. I was born the youngest of four children. My brothers, Tim & Terry, are twins born seven years before me. My sister, Jody, is two years older than I am. Like many families, life has scattered us to different places. We see one another, and talk to one another, far less that I’m sure we all desire. Nevertheless, there is always plenty of love and laughter when we are able to gather together.

It’s hard not to begin the discussion about Tim & Terry without talking about them as a pair. They are twins, after all, and most people would find it hard to tell them apart. As a kid I idolized my brothers and was the pesky tag-a-long that they put up with more graciously than I think I would have. When they were lifeguards at Birdland pool for the summer they would take me along and let me hang out at the pool all day. They let me jump in the back of their ’66 Chevy Impala hardtop and accompany them to the bowling alley to hustle a game or two of foosball. Because of them I became a swimmer and because of them I have a knowledge of, and an appreciation for, a wide, eclectic range of music.

Terry is my oldest sib as he beat Tim out of the womb by a few minutes. He is one of the most gracious and gentle spirited people I have ever known. Some of the fondest memories I have of Terry go back to my formative adolescent years when Terry was living in Des Moines and going to Grandview College. I always appreciated that he made a point of showing up at my various events and was always open to letting me hang out with him. Of course, I can also remember him dragging me out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to help him deliver the Sunday Register on the multiple paper routes he kept to help pay for school. I’ve always appreciated Terry for a deep loving-kindness that flows from deep within him to everyone he meets, and I greatly respect the exemplary way I’ve observed him love and serve his wife and daughter.

While Terry hung around home during his college years, my brother Tim went off to Iowa State and then moved to Texas for an engineering job right after school. As a result, I didn’t see Tim as much for several years, though he did make a point of letting me hang out with him from time to time. One of my favorite memories is of Tim letting me spend the weekend with him at ISU. He took me to a keg party and when girls would notice the “cute little kid” in the room Tim would introduce me as his genius little brother who was attending ISU as a 12 year-old. One of the things I appreciate most about Tim is his gentle, contemplative spirit. Through the years Tim and I have shared long, life-giving conversations as together we’ve tried to grapple with some of life’s core issues, to understand how our family system has molded us, and what it really means to be a man.

With Tim & Terry being the older pair, my sister Jody and I naturally banded together to become the younger pair. Jody and I were closer in age and we became playmates, confidants, partners, and friends. We worked out secret deals to tell one another what mom and dad were giving us for Christmas, and fought like cats and dogs (until I got bigger than her). Jody and I started our respective faith journeys on the same weekend when we both committed our lives to Christ. We went to college together and hung out all the time. Because we have been so close, I sometimes think that Jody and I have the ability to feel deeper sibling love and more intense sibling anger depending on the moment. Anyone who gets to know Jody comes to love Jody, and I laugh to think that Jody was at one time frustrated at always being known as “Tom’s sister” because most of my adult life I’ve been pegged “Jody’s brother.” I appreciate her unquenchable joy, her contagious laughter, and her sincere faith which I find to be at once simple and infinitely deep. Jody is currently winning a courageous battle with lymphoma which has served to reveal to me even greater depths of her fragility and her strength.

I’m blessed with great siblings .  We share great memories of a really good childhood and I’m fascinated to see how our respective journeys have created strong intersections while remaining very independent.