TheBanyanTree: Spring and Vague Relatives

[Monique Colver]

It's another sunny day, and I'm stuck in the office, for a little bit,
before I get to go have lunch with my cousin, but after that it's back to
the office, because I'm way behind on my work anyway and where else would I
go?

Spring fever comes upon me when the sun is out, and when it does it's hard
to reconcile sitting in an office with what's going on outside. I want to be
out there somewhere, doing something, but don't ask me what, because I don't
know. I've been facing some decisions, and while they're neither desperate
nor troubling, just the sort of thing that comes up when one is going along
living a life, I'm feeling unsettled. This is not uncommon for me -- there's
always something waiting for me to get to it, after all. Life is good, but
it needs maintenance and attention to detail.

I'm wrapped up in my own head, and then I read on FB that a former
step-brother has just been placed on the national wait list for a liver. I
barely know him -- his dad and my mom divorced when I was young, and he was
younger still. I lived with my dad, but I visited them, I knew them. We
share a sister, she's half his, half mine. After the divorce I knew nothing
about him or his brother for many years. Recently, we vaguely connected on
FB, since we share a sister in common, but we haven't said anything to each
other. My sister and I don't communicate much. We don't really know each
other -- we grew up in different households. But we were together when my
mom died. One of her sons says he might come out this way this summer, so I
might see him then. We keep in touch now and then since he had his near
fatal accident last November where he broke his neck. He's making a
remarkable recovery.

Vague relatives. I love them all, but they don't keep in touch, and so we
don't really know anything about what's going on in each other's lives. If
one of my sister's kids has a near fatal accident she'll text me. Otherwise,
I hear nothing. But vague relatives are still good relatives.

I don't know why my former step-brother needs a new liver. I just know that
he does, and I hope he gets it soon. I have a picture of us when we were
little, he and his brother, me and my brother, playing in the pool out back
of my mom and stepdad's house. He was active and, like many boys that age,
always getting himself into trouble. We all did. It's what we DID.

I'll always remember him just like that, with his toothy grin, because
that's the last time I saw him. Hopefully he'll get his liver transplant and
live forever, like me, and I'm fairly certain that even if he does I'll
never see him again. But I want to know he's still out there, healthy and
happy and existing. That's not asking too much, is it?



-- 
Monique Colver