My Brother Vinny

Happy birthday, little brother! 23 will be a good year for you. I can feel it.

**If you haven’t noticed, the last few days of November are big for my family. There are birthdays and anniversaries all over the place. This makes for some sweet parties when Thanksgiving break falls over these 3 days.

Kevin and I are 19 months apart, almost to the day. Up until just this moment I had always thought we were 18 months apart. I had just never actually counted. Brother, you are one more month younger than me. Ha.

When Kevin came home from the hospital, he didn’t stay long. I don’t know if I was excited about having a little brother or if I hated the idea. No one has ever told me. I just know that I was pissed when he was taken back to the hospital and my mom and dad went with him. For a month.

The poor kid was having SEIZURES.

Of course, I remember none of this, but from what I hear it was a pretty scary time for everyone. I don’t know the reason he had them, I just know that all of the first born boys on my dad’s side of the family has had them. Unless you are the first born son of a middle child. Apparently, if the father didn’t have them at birth, then the kids won’t either. And we have yet to determine whether or not they skip girls (me) or if it really just skips the middle kid (also me…Michael was dad’s first and he had them too).

Basically, the best way to conclude whether or not a child with Wittmann blood will or will not have seizures is to throw all of our names onto a huge Sodoku board and try to figure it out. Good fucking luck with that.

So he comes home FINALLY right before Christmas and was a pretty chill kid (thanks in part to the mass amounts of drugs he was on to subdue the seizing), which was AWESOME for me. Someone smaller than me who didn’t argue EVER when I told him what to do? FUCKING RIGHT!

I talked for him constantly. The pediatrician finally told my mom that she needed to shut me the hell up if she ever wanted to hear Kevin speak.

Thus establishing Kevin’s trademark character attribute; the guy does not speak unless absolutely necessary. I don’t know if I did this to him as a child—I’ll take credit for it anyway, thankyouverymuch—or if this is something he inherited from my father (no dad, you have NOT always talked as much as you do now), but if you have ever spoken to him on the phone, you know how true this is.

Which is why my brother and I rarely call each other. My mom always asks if we’ve talked when we haven’t seen each other in a while. My answer is always one of two things; “he called to say hi…that was it,” or “no,” which she never understands. Why don’t you talk to each other more often?

Because we don’t need to. It’s not that we don’t want to. We talk when we’re together. We love hanging out together. We have a large circle of mutual friends and we always have a great time doing whatever it is we end up doing when we see each other. But talking on the phone constantly is just not necessary with us.

He knows I am there when he needs me, just as I know he is there when I need him. He’s cashed in on that before and knows it’s an unconditional event; we can tell each other anything , knowing the other won’t judge, or, on the RARE occasion that it actually happens, we can just call to talk. But the phone calls aren’t obligatory.

He’s a cool guy, my brother. He’s figuring himself out and it’s neat to watch. He’s in between Austin and Houston right now, and possibly going back up north in the spring. He’s struggled and he’s persevered and he’s asked ME for advice which is just too awesome to express. He’s going to be successful, this I know.

And I hope he calls me when he hits it big. Even if it’s just to say hi, and that’s it.

I love you Kevin!