And then there were five

I was the second child. My older sister died 6 hours after she was born so when I arrived, I was, by default, the oldest child.

Five more followed me, six if you want to count the youngest that my mom lost before birth. But in the end, we were a family of eight - mom, dad and their six kids.

The house was always crowded and we had a constant stream of activity. How my parents did it, I'll never know but they did do it and despite our collective touch of insanity, they managed to get us all to adult hood with only a few major incidents.

I was the first to leave the home and my relationship with my younger siblings lessened as I made my own family but it was still a relationship and we always got together at the appropriate times. After dad died, mom became the glue that held us all together.

Eventually the rest of us, save one, made their way out of the nest and into the world. The one who remained kept telling us, "I'm never gonna leave mom. I'm going to stay right here and take care of her!"

And stay he did. He took care of the house and mom took care of him.

Eventually he decided that living with mom was hampering his lifestyle so he moved out but not far away and he remained close to mom.

When mom was diagnosed with a disease that would slowly pick away at her brain and her body and it became obvious that she could no longer maintain her home, we moved her out of the house and into a place that was more conducive to her needs. As the disease progressed and she required more care, me brother stepped up to the plate and basically moved back in with her to take care of her, becoming her primary care giver.

When mom passed, he moved back to his apartment where he spent his winters. In the summers, he spent as much time as he could at our sisters lake house where he taught his nephews and nieces how to fish, drive his boat and basically live a happy life.

He had his demons but now those demons are behind him. He is once again with mom and they are taking care of each other. Dad is with them and I can imagine my brother and my dad are in a heated discussion about who is the better football team, the Giants or the Patriots. (Dad grew up a Giants fan, my brother grew up a Patriots fan)

We are now numerically "five", but we will always be six. That is how we lived, it is how we were raised and I see no reason to change that now.

⧫

I'm burned out so no links today. I'm going to put the ball game on and fall asleep in front of my TV.

Catch you all tomorrow.