Wouldn't Wish This On My Worst Enemy... Besides, I Have Something Else Planned For Him

Date: August 2, 2008
Time: 11:11
Place: Home

Yesterday, while I was at work, I suddenly became very angry, and I couldn't understand why. I had no idea what was making me angry, or if anything actually made me angry, I was just angry.

And then I figured it out, it's August. August is when my brother was born, it's also when he died.

My brother Joel was born on August 13, 1961. There were times, and that was most of the time, when he was the biggest pain in the ass you never wanted to meet. Whenever he made plans with me to have lunch somewhere, he was never on time, he was always late. Then, when he would finally show up, lunch was never simple, we would go to someplace to eat, we'd have an appetizer, and then he'd want to go somewhere else! Drove me nuts. Although when he adopted a Kosher lifestyle, we'd only eat at one place as there aren't many Kosher restaurants he wanted to eat at, or could find.

Let me give you a better example of his, let's call it "tardiness".

Many years ago, he decided he wanted to go live in Israel. On the day he was supposed to fly, he goes and tells my father that he has no one to drive him to the airport. The friend that was supposed to do it, bailed at the last minute. My brother imparts this information at 9:30 that morning. The flight was at 10:00 am! And worse, he wasn't even packed!

Another way he was late was when we would go out somewhere as a family. This didn't happen often, but this is what would occur when it did.

We'd be all ready to go, the taxi was called, and no sooner do I put my hand on the doorknob than Joel cries out "Wait! I have to go to the bathroom!" And it didn't matter where we were going. We could have had tickets to the Inaugural Ball, the President's limo could have been waiting downstairs, and we're stuck waiting for my brother. One of the times this happened, I just left the apartment. I figured I'd rather wait downstairs in the fresh air than in the apartment while my mother comes to a boil and starts yelling at him, at my father, and anyone else in range of her mouth.

It was this particular annoying habit that prompted the following conversation between me and my mother. My brother had contracted HIV, and when I had gotten back from London, he was in the hospital. After visiting him one day, I called my mother to vent, well actually I called my parents but my mother was the one who usually answered the phone. So we're talking, and I said "Y'know ma, it would be just like Joel. The Angel of Death comes for him, Joel looks up at him and says "Wait, I have to go to the bathroom first!"" My mother burst out laughing for a good five or ten minutes. She told the leader of the PWA group they belong to (Persons With AIDS), and the leader says "That's good, he's using humor as a defense mechanism."

My brother died on August 2, 1995, 13 years ago today.

When we got to the cemetery, his coffin was already there. It was the only time he was ever early.