A Road Less Travelled

Gabrielle and I collect brothers. Call it a knack, a habit, or just an unusual providence, but it seems to be the case for both of us. Specifically, we seemed to collect older brothers–until we joined Providence. Suddenly we were confronted with a slightly unexpected new species: younger brothers. It might have applied to several people, but specifically Colton and Samuel E. were in that perfect age range of old enough for intelligent conversation–indeed, I’m quite sure they often have to bring their conversation on subjects such as military history and weapons down to the level where I can understand it–and young enough to be safe to talk to. (I don’t have to explain that any further, do I?)

We agreed that we rather liked this whole little brother thing. Indeed, with their uncanny ability to turn up whenever a crockpot needed to be carried and their reliable determination that girls were not fair targets in whatever game happened to be going on, I mentally noted that I was getting rather spoiled having them around. It was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. Then we found out they were moving away, and I started to wonder if it was more true than I’d thought.

I mused along the changes there would be. No one was going to care anymore if I played ultimate frisbee–I mean really, who else would track down one of the worst players and insist that she should play? Jacob was just getting to the age where he would join our conversations, and I wanted to watch it happen. Gabrielle and I would once again be the only ones who would notice the world-altering reversal if I happened to wear a brighter color than she did. It seemed like dumb stuff I really shouldn’t care about. And then I realized, being a little slow as I usually am about these things, that somewhere along the line they’d moved from just ‘little’ brothers to friends, and I hadn’t noticed when it happened.

And the rest of the family, of course: The one of my elders that I was pretty sure had an idea how freaky odd I really am (and no, hadn’t started avoiding me yet). I also hold to the personal opinion that everyone should have an elder who reccommends the Terminator style of pumping a shotgun. Kim, who just understands. I should have better words than that, but that’s all I can come up with right now: whatever it is, she understands. And Gracie, and Levi, and Jedidiah… And Faith who wrinkles up her nose and says, “I don’t like it.” in this growling monotone. Seriously, you have no idea how cute this is until you’ve heard her do it. And walking into church on Sunday and seeing them all sitting there in a row in the back…

People keep saying things like, “God’s calling them someplace else” and though I intellectually assent, it’s just a phrase. This is what I can wrap my mind around: They’re being transferred to a different unit and redeployed at another base of operations, and while we hold down the fort here, they’re needed to go conquer ground somewhere else. And somehow that helps, even as I’m sitting here crying because it still hurts like Tennessee really is the ends of the earth. Because even though I don’t understand the military strategy I know our King’s strategy always works, so maybe this brings us one step closer to victory. And that brings us one step closer to Heaven. And Heaven is where you never have to say goodbye again.