My 2007 Super Hero

It only took a 30-minute phone call with my brother on New Year’s Eve to remember that he’s ... well, he’s my brother, and he’s not perfect. Our friendly banter led to the usual rolling of eyes and concessions with casually shrugged shoulders. Important details like, say, the setting for the movie Juno. (Not Texas, as he thought for sure. Minnesota, doofus. I told him so.)

And yet, in spite of all that, I am here to name my hero for the year 2007. It’s my big brother. You can call him Tom, or like me, you can call him Raymy, but never, never, never call him a wimp.

Five months ago this past weekend, his life as he knew it fell apart. I won’t go into the specifics of how things happened, but suffice it to say that when I flew out to stay with him on July 30, he was broken. And, we honestly weren’t sure he could be “fixed.” As a family surrounding this devastated man, we were really scared, to be frank.

But, you could say, in the words of David Wilcox (of course), that my brother is “stronger than ever now, in the broken places.”

Here is a man who was already a great dad. He was, in fact, a most unusual dad for our generation. He was that almost unheard of entity, even in California—a stay-at-home dad. He had been the full-time caregiver for his little son for more than five years. And yet, he also endeavored to keep his own passions burning. He wrote full fiction manuscripts and screenplays and submitted them frequently. He led a stay-at-home dads group when he wasn’t changing diapers or cleaning up puke.

In the last several years, he even took stand-up comedy classes and began performing frequently in comedy clubs around LA as the “Stay-At-Home Dad Comic.” One of the cutest things I ever saw was when my brother asked his little boy to do his own “routine” for me. My four-year-old nephew climbed up on top of the concrete picnic table where we were hanging out in La Jolla and said, “Hi, I’m Aaron, and I’m a stay-at-home kid!”

But as my brother and I trudged around LA last August, trying to take care of all the details of his new life, I took many deep breaths, and said as many prayers under my breath in the space of a week as I had probably said in a year. Please God, let him survive this.

God answered those prayers and more. My big brother is not only surviving, but he is, shall we say, kicking butt.

In an ironic stereotypical role reversal, it was unclear whether he would be able to manage the details of a budget. He’d never had to be the one to do it. And yet, he’s not only been able to manage, but comes up with inventive ways to economize. (You should see the voodoo doll-slash-toothpick holder we got for Christmas. What, you think I’m kidding?)

He knew he’d need an advanced degree to eventually obtain the kind of employment it’ll take to continue to live and raise his son in the place they have called home for years. Yet, I breathed a little sigh of relief when the Master's in Urban Planning program details he’d already been checking out for months showed it was too late to sign up for the fall semester. It’s okay, I said. Take a few months, get on your feet...

Instead, he showed up the first day of the semester unregistered, petitioned the professors to take the classes, was accepted not only to the classes, but eventually to the program, and proceeded to take a full load with final grades higher than most of his classmates. In fact, two-thirds of the others dropped out before the semester ended.

I hoped he might eventually return to his stand-up comic engagements, but thought it might not be a bad idea for him to take a break. After all, his identity as a stay-at-home dad had been shredded to pieces overnight. He’d have to write all new routines, right?

Nope. He didn’t miss a show. He kept delivering the same jokes and callbacks with the same shrugs and pauses, waiting for the laughter of his audience to assure him he was still alive. As we talked Monday, he was preparing to leave for a show at a place he’d performed before—a physical rehab facility where people understand pain. He anticipated a good show—his last one there a few months ago had been one of the best he ever did. His routines have gradually morphed into a representation of who he is today, and he says they’re even better now. He’s got an edge he didn’t have before, after all.

Oh, yeah. Somewhere in between, he has rediscovered his talent and passion for drawing. Over the holidays, we’ve received a nearly daily dose of the black paper and chalk “LA Noir” drawings he’s done to prevent boredom and loneliness while the rest of us have gained 10 pounds watching movies and eating junk.

There is one area he hasn’t changed at all, unless you consider going from amazing stay-at-home dad to amazing single dad and not losing his mind a change. Then again, getting a five-year-old to kindergarten several days a week and then getting yourself to class for the rest of the afternoon and evening and doing a full load of graduate-level homework somewhere in between might be a change from six months ago. Yeah.

So, one other thing. For the last several years, my brother has made an annual Christmas CD and sent it out to parents and siblings, and who knows who else. (Maybe even the president.) In spite of all the great excuses he had, this year was no exception.

He shamelessly ripped the voices of the big guys—Nat King Cole, Burt Bacharach, and the Captain and Tenille (Huh?)—from the originals and crooned, doubled up, and maybe even harmonized himself in recordings that made us smile, laugh, and sing along. He recorded his little guy singing 20 repeats of the dreidel song before he whispered “ENOUGH!”, and then Aaron’s self-written and titled “Banana Boy.” Something about a scary Christmas tree and a robot in perpetual battle?

But, what ultimately made me cry and solidified my brother’s status as my hero of 2007 was his acapella version of a song—sung before by one of his own heroes, Elvis Presley, and often by our dad when we were children. Sung this time by my big brother in a brave, unwavering voice.

There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place,
And I know that it’s the spirit of the Lord.
There are sweet expressions on each face,
And I know that it’s the presence of the Lord.

Sweet, holy spirit,
Sweet, heavenly Dove,
Stay right here with us,
Filling us with your love.

And for these blessings,
We lift our heart in praise,
Without a doubt we’ll know,
That we have been revived,
When we shall leave this place.

(Sweet Sweet Spirit/Original, Doris Akers, 1962)

I love you, Raymy. You are my hero, my brother, and my friend.