Tuesday, October 07, 2003

My Brother My kid brother, he’s actually fifty seven, gave me a phone call from Indiana a couple of days ago, like he does almost every week, to see how I was doing. He’s been checking up on me regularly since 1990, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and he gave me a large, belated wedding present to cover some of my expenses. Prior to that we’d had almost no contact in decades. I was six years older than him, and ran with a different crowd. I liked sports, he didn’t, I was extroverted to the point of obnoxiousness, he was quiet. We didn’t have a whole lot in common. Well, we were both into music. I was a jazz critic, very concerned with the avant-garde. My brother’s passion was classical trumpet playing, but what he was interested in doing was becoming as good a player technically as possible. He didn’t play publicly, just took lessons with the best teachers he could and practiced assiduously. Why he chose to stick with me over the past several years, when I’ve been so sick and troubled, I don’t know. But I’m so thankful that he has. As I said, we talk on the phone almost weekly about family, trumpet playing, whatever we can think of. He’s been closer to me than friends I’ve had for years. I guess he believes in the concept of families sticking together, to combat prejudice as they had to do in Jewish Poland, where my parents are from. At one time I thought that was an outdated custom in America. Now I’m so grateful to him for helping me keep afloat. 4:50:43 PM