Dave the Little Hoer

Dave the Little Hoer
Originally uploaded by maplemusketeer

I wrote a song but it didn't have the right words
I sung a tune but it didn't have the right sounds
I wrote a letter but it didn't have the right verbs
But here it is.. I made it for you

Like crayons and felts on the door fridge
Weird culinary concoctions reside in the garbage
Stomping and jumping our way across the troll bridge
hand in hand side by side

We talked before you could speak
We clambered and fell pushed into creeks
I chased you with a hammer
You dislocated my coccyx
Lets call that even

Ok so Grandma was right when she broke up our fights
and told us that one day we'd miss each other. so.. ok.
I miss you.

Remember that time in Roberts Creek at the bus stop?
You latched onto my arm and clamped on through
my winter jacket. Leaving teeth marks as across the street you ran.
Darting your head out around the side of the Can Post post can
My arm cocked with retribution in the form of an apple.
I waited till your head wasn't there... and threw.
I hit you square in the face! In retrospect,
that still was an awesome throw.
Then you rubbed your face and I rubbed my arm
and we got on the bus to school together.

All the time we spent together wishing we were apart is now so long eclipsed by the time spent apart wishing we were together.

You always wanted to fight on your birthday when we were little because for a week we technically are the same age.

Welcome to Round 29.

Though somewhere along the way we learned to share.
And so now we share a week being the same age,
as we share our memories and experiences.

The magic and wonder
of trying to catch leprechauns
when spring was just around the corner.

Giant forts with lunch conveyance systems.
Matching outfits and vocabularies tenacious.

Growing a bit to running through woods
and swinging around giant trees.. with our pet Griffin.

And then the sea. Walking along and living in.
Forts to build, rocks to throw, fires to light,
making the most of where we were.
As we do still.

I don't know that there are easy paths in this world.
I would say that ours wasn't.
I know that as a big brother there were many times
that my best wasn't enough.
that I could have helped but wasn't there.
that you had to do things on your own without me.
Our roads parted for a time.
Our feet down different paths.
And we both faced difficulties, hardship, sorrows, pain, and beauty.
I regret not being able to share them, to share in them.

What is the bond of a brother?
To some it is genetic, that of the blood.
To some it is a kinship born of time spent together
through fortune and hardship.
To some it is a oneness of spirit and vision,
the call and response of one soul to the other
an innate connection, language, reality.
We share all these.

With you Dave it is not for better or worse.
It is only for better.
In my life I've only spent 11 months and 3 weeks not having known you.

You are my longest friend.


I cannot being to fathom a life not having shared with you.
I'm so very thankful for being able to look back
at these 29 years
with you
and wonder what it'll look like, and how many crazy awesome adventures and struggles and hills and valleys and floods and droughts and tears and triumphs will happen in the next 29.

Happy Birthday Little Bro
you're such a little hoer.