This picture makes me happy.  I found it in my little boy’s closet.  I don’t know where it came from. School is my guess.  What this picture means to me is greater than words.  These boys are smiling and goofing together.  It shows togetherness. Two brothers who want to be together, play together, take pictures with funny faces together. 

And to find it carefully placed on a shelf in his closet, as if it’s a treasure, something he wants to keep.  It’s something that is meaningful to him.  Brothers.  That’s what it means to me.  Brothers.  That word is so much more than two people who have the same parents.  It’s two young men who love each other so much they call one another ‘brother’ even if they didn’t have the same parents.  They choose ‘brother.’

Here are my two boys being brothers, choosing each other.  Being a friend to the other at the tender ages of 6 & 9 at school for all their friends to see.  At home sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever all get along.  The drama, the fights, the name calling, and hitting and kicking and pushing. It’s all exhausting and mom just wishes we could all love each other as much as mom loves all the boys.  Why not?

Oh that’s right, you guys just all ended up here together in a family.  I was the one that brought you all here.  I got to love you from the moment you came into being.  For each of you that moment was also a threat to your all-too-comfortable-territory-of-mom.  Ok, I get it.  Now we all have to work together to make ‘togetherness’ happen.

 I get that it’s not natural for you, like it is for me.   Its my job to teach you how the natural feeling of love I got from the moment I knew of your existence,  is cultivated when it’s not the first experience.  That way I get to learn it while I teach it and you get to teach me while you learn it.  That makes sense now.  Why we’re all here.   We have different roles.

Mine is to teach, support, help grow; yours is to learn.  Although a lot of the time you boys think it’s the opposite. You know it all and it’s your job to teach mom.  You brilliantly and exuberantly show me your intense emotions, sprung from your brothers actions. Ahhh another fight.  Let’s not do that anymore.  We need each other, now that Dad’s gone, the deep hole of something is missing in our family is ever present. We need each other even more to come together, not draw apart.

We need to fill that hole with the love that’s left in us and grow it into more than what was there before.  What we have now isn’t enough and since it’s all we have; we have the job of making it grow into enough.  Making that togetherness so big we can fill the gap in our family.  We need to love not fight.   

We need to help, not cause problems.  We need to come together and build each other up, not tear each other apart.  We need to learn to be the safe landing space for each of us to come in to from out of the world as we experience being home. We need to know we’re all here for each other. When it’s over and the next life takes its turn in your life cycle, what we have left is what we created together.  Was it love or hate, support or discord, safe or unsafe? 

I teach the boys, “let’s help, not hurt, let’s be brother heroes, not hurters.”  They roll their eyes and say, “ooooook mom.” Then I say, “let’s do ‘brother hugs’ and get back to playing.  They hold down their arms.  “Come on I say, hugs!”  Then one of them relents, holds out his arms and the other brother responds, lifting his arms slightly as they come together in a hug.

Both boys trying to subdue the little smile that comes with the hug as they both love the connection and don’t want to appear as if they like it.  They’re learning.  I’m teaching.   What we’ll leave for each other is the memories of how we felt with each other.  That is what we’ll live with.  I don’t want to leave you boys feeling alone.

If you keep hurting each other, which is the natural thing to do without training, you’ll be left feeling alone. We all need training to act better. I want you to know who I was, that I was there for you and that we are all still here for each other. I will fight for us all to become better.  I won’t give up on that.  Yes, I want to leave a solid foundation of memories that were created in love.  Because I love you.  So I will live that way.  In truth.  Real love.  Not the kind that hurts.  

I have the chance to think of this because I see the memories your dad left.  Many good, some not as good, and all of them are not enough.  Let’s be more of us and for dad, because how much more powerful is it when boys who have the same parents and also choose ‘brother?’

This picture shows me the ‘togetherness’ we’re creating.  It shows that we are choosing each other, and we’re brothers. We’re family forever.  Thanks boys for learning and loving.  It makes this mom’s heart so happy.  Let’s keep this.  Forever.