R.I.P Little Brother

I am the oldest of five children - four girls, and the youngest a boy. I remember the day our little brother was born, the excitement I felt, the anticipation of finally having a boy in a house full of girls. Not that I don't love my sisters, but for some reason I always wanted a brother. Frankly I would have preferred an older brother, but a baby brother would work just fine too. 

Well nothing in my short thirteen year life prepared me for actually living with a boy. He was nothing like us girls. He was more active, more wild, and noisy - not demure and quiet like us girls. We were raised to be ladylike and lived in a more quiet atmosphere, then he came along and changed all that. I can still remember changing his diaper for the first time, as soon as I removed his diaper (they were still cloth back then) he started to pee all over me. After that, I learned to change his diaper really fast. Life became fast with him around. Today he would be considered ADHD with an emphasis on the H. 

Before the kid was even walking it was obvious that he was going to be a handful and boy was he.  As soon as he learned to crawl, he also learned to climb out of his crib everyday. Us girls, would never have done that. And I am not sure I even remember him ever walking, it seems like he went straight to running. Us girls, never did that. By the time he was around three he started running away. I can guarantee that us girls never did that - well, at least not until our teens.

At first, running away was just to the neighbor's house. They had three little boys, the youngest was a year older than Kevin. Than Kevin, and his little gang, would ran away to the creek - a small little creek about 3 blocks from our house. We tried everything to keep him from running away, but as soon as your back was turned, even for a second, out the door he went - he was that fast. When even put a lock on the screen door, up real high, but he figured out how to crawl up to unlock it. This kid was bound and determined to explore the world outside of the house and it seemed that nothing would stop him. 

The final straw was a time he ran away (again) and we looked for hours.  The police found him (and his little gang) at the new Target store.  Now that may not sound like a big deal, but the Target store was at least five miles from our house. These little kids, ranging 3-8 years old, had to cross very busy, very big, city streets with major traffic, some were four lanes across.  To this day I am still amazed that they not only made it that far, but that they made it without even getting a scratch.  I don't quite remember what we did to break his little running away habit, but we did - at least for awhile.

I left home when my little brother was only four.  In those few short years that small little child ran away as often as he could and more times than I can count. What none of us knew then was that running away was going to become a part of his life.  That in one form or another he was always going to be running away. He led a short, and sometimes hard life, and sometimes his choice in dealing with life was to run away, maybe not always figuratively, sometimes just emotionally and mentally. Sometimes, I am sure, it was just his adventuresome nature. But maybe now he has finally found peace and will not longer feel the need to run away.

RIP Little Brother. 

expressing myself with grief, sadness and sweet memories.