Warming Up

John flew to Detroit from Providence on Tuesday to share the holiday with us. He has an extensive DVD collection that includes many 1960s TV shows and he made certain he brought with him some of my old favorites -- he and I happily spent Tuesday night watching episodes from season 3 of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. He recalled how my dear friend Colleen and I watched it together every Saturday night in high school, after I'd made her cheeseburger of course. Watching the shows with him was a total trip back in time -- he recalls every little detail from the life of every person he loves -- and there are many.

He really loves to fart while we watch together too -- apologizing before the reason for the apology becomes obvious -- and he giggles like an innocent child when I suggest we need to clear the air with the aid of a match. "Don't set my pants on fire," he'll beg in an explosion of joyous laughter. It's one of our favorite "routines" and something I look forward to each time he visits.

Wednesday, he and my husband, Tag went shopping together for the ingredients for lasagna. Onions, cheese and peppers in large amounts -- perfect for a guy who loves to fart. I believe we may have a carbon off-set problem after Wednesday night, never mind the noxious output on big day itself...

Thanksgiving Day 2009

The beginning

I have wanted to share my brother's story for a long time. He is a trailblazer, or perhaps more accurately, my parents were trailblazers in the movement to keep disabled kids at home with their families after birth. John was born in 1960, a time when almost no middle class parents kept kids like him at home. Somehow, my mother knew that his potential could only be maximized by his living at home with his parents and three sisters. And so he did. I know it was really hard for many people, but it was never hard for me. My mother, who had breast-fed her daughters, knew she needed to be able to measure the amount of nutrition he took in and so bottle-fed her son. I remember her saying it took about an hour for him to ingest an ounce of formula and that he needed 24 ounces a day. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how she spent her days in the summer and fall of 1960. Even so, I recall sharing her lap with him and her reading a book to me while she fed him. He was really cute too -- so tiny and blond with big, soft brown eyes and so clean smelling -- like corn starch.

He was born about a month early and I've been told it was a very difficult birth for my mother. There were no sonograms in 1960, so no one knew in advance that he had a very large head, even for an achondroplasiac dwarf. Despite the best efforts of the doctors, his brain was damaged during birth, leaving him mentally retarded. Family members recommended that John be institutionalized for the 'good' of my sisters and me, but my mother was resolute and home he stayed. My strong, prim and proper Grandmother was horrified by her daughter's renegade decision, but helped her anyway. She stayed with us for an extended period after John's birth, running the household for my parents and eventually hiring help so we could manage after she returned to her home in Minnesota. She seemed rather cold when we were kids, but now I know what a great lady she really was --I admire her for having had the courage to put her feelings aside and help her daughter when she needed her most.

No Sorrow

My job has been very challenging of late. Not so much the work -- more the people. It is difficult to accept that some of them are not the decent people I thought they were.

So, I come home and call my brother, John. We don't talk about work, at least not mine. We talk about real stuff -- like what he had for dinner and which 1960s-era TV show he's going to watch on DVD tonight. He always asks about each member of my family--even the pets--and he genuinely cares about what we had for dinner tonight, yeah--even the dog. We talk about how much he likes to work and whether he packed more boxes today than yesterday and what he brought for lunch. We always cover the important matters--his success at work, food, TV, weather and his favorite topic, farting. Real stuff about which we have real laughs. There is no room for tears when you speak with John. He laughs too much; enjoys life too much. He keeps me on course and happy. My hero. My brother, John.