Jokingly, I have said many a time, “I’m just next in line.”

But that was in reference to the dishes in my hutch. Almost everything in the cabinet belonged to someone else first. Today it takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s my brother—Denny’s gone. Tomorrow at 1pm, he will be placed next to his wife in the cemetery. My feelings are mixed. In a sense, I have felt we were two only children. Being of the opposite sex, and seven years between us, we were never really close. But then, he has always been there. Sort of.

As children, I recall playing with him and his cars in the dirt in front of the home two doors down, newly built. Denny has always been a car guy. On the weekends his friends from high school would come and together they worked on rebuilding an engine. I think. Our dad had a carport and made a beam strong enough to hoist up a transmission or whatever it was they worked on.

Today there is a bunch of miles between us. Denny was more like our mother, quiet, private, an antique lover, and love of the home he made with his wife. That, in and of itself is a funny story.

Denny and his wife moved north and it took ten years to be accepted by the community. It seems there was another resident, by the same name that had become well known in town—not in a good way. Happenstantially, this resident had a girlfriend by the same name as my sister-in-law. Her name will not be revealed in order to protect the not-so-innocent.

My brother never had a great deal of money, so he lived humbly. His home was over a hundred years old and in the local hotel pictured as one of the original homes built in the budding city it continues to be. A few years back, he did me proud. Inheriting a few dollars from another family death, Denny purchased two things. Not one to make spontaneous purchases, he bought an antique car, and a log-splitter. The latter, very necessary as he heated his home mostly by a woodburning stove.  

Denny was not one for keeping in touch. If we were to phone each other, I was the caller. The last time we talked, he called me. Every year I made a point of calling him on his birthday—and he remembered (!) and knew I would not reach him. He had a new phone number.

Now he has a new residence too. I hope it’s the place I have prayed for him. He’ll have the chance to get better acquainted with Jesus, bring our parents up to speed with his life on earth, and meet the two siblings our mom lost in miscarriages.

See y’all later.