Thursday, January 27, 2005

VISITATION

To begin this story I need to give a little background, dear reader.
When my parents married both had kids from a previous marriage. I have an older half brother and sister. When I was about 12 my brother and his family disappeared. My mother was devastated and if she wasn't an alcoholic before this happened, she became one after to be sure, and although I was too young to understand the whys and wherefores, I grew to hate him. And I vowed I would beat him down if he crossed my path again. This all began in 1967 or so.
My mother survived having a lung removed but her broken heart was never cured and she died never knowing what happened to her firstborn son. In 1992 a year after Mom died my older sister searched through a private detective and found him in Germany where he had served in the army.
I got a call from my little sister and she was trying to convince me to see this jerk and his wife. In the condo I lived in I had put family pictures on the wall going up the stairs to the bedrooms. I had a particular favorite picture of Mom and it was two portraits in a desk frame that was hinged in the middle, and I had placed it at the top of the wall about halfway up the staircase where nothing could disturb them. As my sister was trying to convince me to do something I was adamant about not doing I gazed at my Mothers portraits several times. I turned away and when I looked back the two pictures had come away from the wall at least two inches as if they were trying to close. I have ALWAYS been a skeptic about spirits and the afterworld until that moment. I took it as a sign from Mom that I should bury the hatchet and go see my brother.
Now a few months before disappearing my bro took me to see a guy he worked with race motorcyles, it was the last fond memory I had of him. After the race we ended up at a little beer garden up behind Stanford University in Portola Valley called The Alpine Inn (formerly Rossotti's) where we had a great time. When I was about 31 I landed a job as a restaurant manager at a place about a mile from the beer joint and ended up becoming a regular patron.
So I decided I would take them up there for a beer. While we were in the back garden I hear the name of the guy that we had gone to the races with being called to the phone. Needless to say when I went up to him and told him my brother was here all three of us were in shock. After 25 or so years had passed it was unreal that we should all be in the same spot at the same time. I don't know if these things happened for a reason, but I think Mom had something to do with it.
Things didn't exactly gel with my brother, the difference in age, language ( he could barely speak English ) and culture were too great. And I think my Mom was able to move on, because however many times I have yearned for contact again, it hasn't happened.

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