There can be only one

Sheila McGuire, Herald Reporter
Posted 3/22/19

Sheila McGuire column for March 22, 2019

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There can be only one

Posted

I was finding it difficult to concentrate on work one morning last week. I could say it was because of the time change, when the annual “spring forward” seems to have pretty much everyone stumbling around in an over-tired haze. 

I could say it was because it was snowing and roads across the state were closing, yet again, for the umpteenth time this winter. Combine the weather with the time-change hangover and I would have been perfectly content going home, curling up with a blanket and hot cocoa and watching movies all day long. 

The truth of the matter, however, is that I was in the midst of a group text conversation with my younger brothers that consisted of literally nothing but sending one another lines and video clips from the 1986 film classic “Highlander.” 

It’s hilarious. 

I adore my brothers. 

My earliest clear memory is of waking up from a nap when I was really little, must have been about 3 years old, and being surrounded by stuffed animals my little brother had put around me so I wouldn’t wake up alone. 

There’s right about a two-year gap in age between each of us so the three of us were one another’s constant companions growing up. 

We turned the backyard into an Olympic arena and baseball fields or, alternatively, filled every conceivable hole up with water to make swamps and mud bogs for my brothers’ GI Joe action figures. 

It was amazing how we could empty out the closet in their bedroom, drag the spring-loaded horse in front of the sliding doors and transform the ordinary into an extraordinary covered wagon as we settled the Old West. My bedroom could easily become a classroom or restaurant with my huge stuffed animal collection as students or customers. 

We had a massive collection of Star Wars figures, though I must confess we most loved to take the figures from the cantina scene — Greedo, Hammerhead, Walrusman and Snaggletooth — and play with them in my dollhouse instead of the picture-perfect family that actually came with the dollhouse. I honestly don’t know what happened to that family, other than the dog. The dog was welcome in the home of Star Wars misfits. 

It wasn’t all happy and harmonious. We fought — a lot. Sometimes we beat the snot out of one another. Name calling, hair pulling, kicking and screaming and even punch throwing weren’t unusual. There were times I hated them, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. 

As much as we could get on one another’s nerves, we were also each other’s champions. I could call my brothers disparaging names, but anybody else who tried it had best watch out. They could threaten to pull my hair out, but when the neighborhood bullies were actually doing it? My brothers were my hero defenders. 

That’s still the case. 

Anybody else daring to say anything bad about my brothers? Those are fighting words. 

Our shared history and childhood memories have provided us with a language that is uniquely ours. I’m sure it’s a similar situation for other close siblings. We can text one another a random movie line and instantly get it. 

We can look at the labels on our parents’ old vinyl records from a distance and name the song and artist, or at the very least narrow it down considerably, solely by the colors on the sticker of the record itself and not the album sleeve. 

We can still become ultra-competitive playing board games or create fantastical worlds out of Play-Doh, get out the old Matchbox cars and place bets on which one is the fastest or dig out my old “peg people” Fisher-Price castle that I’ve had for literally my entire life and reminisce. 

We live now in three different communities and are all together maybe once a year, twice if we’re lucky. When that happens it’s almost a guarantee we’ll be laughing until we’re crying over some random thing, the humor of which eludes nearly everyone else. Well, maybe not totally eludes, but they often don’t seem to find it nearly as funny. 

The three of us all love to cook and I think it’s on all of our lists of most favorite things to spend an entire day listening to music and cooking. We embrace the philosophy that food should be prepared with love and thoughtfulness, that cooking isn’t done just to reach the end goal of eating but is done for the joy involved with meal preparation itself. 

The same is true when we travel. Road trips aren’t just about the destination because the process of getting there is a huge part of the experience. We’ve been known to make music compilations, first as mixtapes and then burned CDs and now in any number of forms, that are not to be listened to until traveling. Each individual’s contributions are kept strictly confidential until that big reveal. It’s amazing how they can seamlessly fit together even when created totally apart. 

We all have an ongoing love affair with the outdoors, and we’ve spent countless hours hiking and climbing and playing in some of the most glorious places in the west, places we happily call our playgrounds. 

They understand when I’m moved to tears over nature or music or poetry. They also understand, and share in, my sometimes more than slightly twisted sense of humor. 

When I really think about the relationship I have with my brothers, I’m struck by the truly special nature of the bond we share, for it’s the type of bond not shared with anyone else. It’s not what I share with my parents, as the level of affection is the same but its nature is decidedly different. 

Similarly, my husband is perhaps the only other person on the planet with whom I can have entire conversations consisting of movie lines and song lyrics and know with absolute certainty that he “gets it.” He shares in my passions and the daily ups and downs in that way reserved for loving couples. Ours is a relationship built only for two. 

My children are the greatest joy in my life and I truly believe I have outstanding, and unique, relationships with each one of them. We have our “inside jokes” as well. 

But there’s something about that relationship between close siblings that’s different. My brothers knew me when I was young. They’ve seen me grow and change. They’ve been there for my disappointments and triumphs, and the mundane, from the very beginning. They’ve been my confidants and my tormentors, my enemies and my best friends. 

And days like that, when it’s been kind of a rough week and they know it, we can share text messages about musical suggestions and our eagerly-anticipated summer gathering. For us, it’s perfectly natural to have that conversation turn into emoji-filled messages about Connor MacLeod, Ramirez and the Kurgan. 

That conversation can turn to Star Wars, National Lampoon’s Vacation or any number of other directions. The lines we share are undoubtedly referenced from time to time by countless other people — they’re classic movie lines, after all. 

But the exact meaning behind them, the context and how they’re used in our conversations, belongs to us, my brothers and me. 

Really, that’s what’s so fulfilling about close relationships. They’re ordinary and everyone has them in some fashion, but they’re all extraordinary because they’re all built on singularly unique experiences. Each one is, and can be, the only one.