He was a master at converting tense moments into comedy. Our family had plenty of both. He delivered perfect mimicry in voice, gesture and walk. His inventive mind directed his whole body, and he used everything he had to keep us laughing.
He’d perfect the walk of the person he was imitating with his long legs. My brother’s legs were gorgeous. Longer than anyone’s in the family, with nice calves and narrow ankles.
It’s hard to admit that your brother has better legs than you do. But it happens.
After he died, it was hard when his belongings were detached from the one they belonged to. The pants, the shoes, the beautiful shirts, the eyeglasses. The dead have no use for them. And while the living struggle to let go, we cannot carry such heavy cargo.
Twelve years after his death, I still think about my brother’s personal items. The minister in Omaha that wears all his meticulous shirts. My brother would have loved that his things are being used by others.
Most of all, I think of the man who got his femur. He had a lovely femur, taken from those long lovely legs. You don’t recognize your brother’s femur when it belongs to someone else, but you feel good knowing someone else has it. But you wonder how all of it comes to be. The need for a femur? How do you match a femur?
Several years after his death, I was waiting for a long car repair to come to an end. When the service manager appeared in the waiting room and told me my car was done, I noticed he had a bad limp. He told me he had been in a motorcycle accident and his femur was crushed, “But I got a new one,” he said. “From a cadaver. The guy was just 40, I’m 53, so my femur is younger than the rest of me.”
Hmm, my brother was 40 when he died, I thought. So that’s how it happens. How someone gets a femur from someone else.
“That’s wonderful,” I said, “But that cadaver belonged to someone and that someone may have been someone’s brother.” Then I realized that he meant no offense, and I really was happy for him. But I still cried all the way home.
And you know how people tell you, “grief gets better with time.” It’s not true.
I miss him more. Lovely legs and all.