Brother with a Capital B

Today is my Brother's 22nd Birthday.

His name is Andrew.  In my brother's graduating class, there were only 9 boys.  Of those nine, five were named Andrew, so it was determined early on that they would all need nicknames.  My brother, because he was the biggest of all of them, was called Big D.  He liked this nickname, and it suited him well.  He was the biggest lineman on my high school's football team, and now he's one of the biggest linemen on his college football team.  The teachers at my school all referred to him as Big D, and my parents often call him that.  To me, however, he is Brother with a capital B.

I love the story of Brother and I.  My parents got married when they were 28 and tried having a child when they were 30.  My mom's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and as a result, she was told that she would never have any more children.  After being on an adoption waiting list for five years, my parents adopted me.  Within my first two months of living with my parents, my mom found out she was pregnant.  To her, this was quite scary, as her doctor told her that it was quite dangerous for her to bear a child.  I love it when God proves doctors wrong.

Eight months later, my baby Brother was born, and ever since, we have been best friends.  We are 10 months and 12 days apart, which I love.  We grew up together - we hit all the milestones at nearly the same time.  Brother was old for his class, and for athletics, that bumped him up to the teams that my guy friends were playing on.  Thus, throughout our schooling, we had the same friends.  I was never much of an athlete, but Brother is, and I have always been his biggest fan.

Brother was always the child that my parents worried most about.  As an infant/toddler, he was the climber, always getting into things.  As a young boy, Brother made a mess out of whatever he touched.  Sometimes, we would find him sitting in the corner peeling paint off the wall.  If he was outside, he would turn on the hose and get filthy while playing in the dirt.  As he got older, breaking windows was his thing.  He broke windows at home, at Champions, and at our elementary schools.  This kid was a wreck.  But, he never failed to give me (the good child) a good laugh!

In our adult lives, I am so thankful that we are more than just siblings.  I love that when my Brother needs to process through the first half of a big Husker game, he calls me.  And I love that when he has an itch to take a trip to Boston or Chicago, he calls me.  And when he wants to go shopping or go to go to a baseball game, he calls me.

Brother has a great sense of humor... he's hilarious, in fact.  He's the kind of guy that funny things always just seem to happen to.  Like here, when the McDonald's worker thought that he ordered ten 4-piece Chicken McNuggets instead of one 10-piece order.

He is also a hard-worker, and will do anything for anyone.  Like in high school when he'd go start my car in the winter mornings so that it would be warm by the time I needed to go to school.  Or when I need someone to take my luggage to my car after a weekend at home.  Or when I need someone to help me move to nine different dorm rooms in a four-year span.  Or when I simply don't want to go wash my car.  He's the best.

So, Brother, I hope that your 22nd year of life is just as great - better even - than the past 21 years have been.  I continue to thank God for bringing us together and making us family...siblings... and friends.  I hope that you know how much I love being your sister and how much I take pride in calling you Brother with a capital B.

Happy Birthday, Brother!