My two brothers and I were all born in the month of April. Stuart, being the oldest, has had to experience everything first. And in seeing and being out there before either of us, it seems like like comes out him hardest. Ian is probably the most clever of the three. He has a way of looking at the world that let's him handle things- he's the funniest of us. My mother worried when we were growing up, about the effects divorce and broken family life would have on us. She worried that we would suffer from depression. She came from a large family, and her parents created a home for them, especially my grandfather. I can see why she was afraid for us; I can see a little bit of how she must have known things should have been different.

She wanted to hide us away from the world, just long enough. Long enough so we wouldn't have to run up against it before we were ready. Part of growing up in a fractured family is that you have to see and hear things before you are ready. You have to witness anger and resentment, before you know fully the sentiments that transcend those emotions. You have to see your parents fight, and scream, and weep before you can understand what would possess them to act that way.

My brothers and I have always been independent, or at least we have always sought independence. We get it from our parents, my father worked to create his livelihood without an inheritance or help from his own father, and my mother traveled across the world to work and to start a family. Mom could only hold us for so long, she thinks as soon as we turned twelve or maybe fourteen, that was when we were already fighting to be on out on our own. I had thought it was later. When I went to college, I felt like I was starting a new life. My things were then my things, and they were packed into my car. I had a room.

The world is upon us now, the three of us. It's turning and changing us. My brother's divorce, and his daughter, Amira. The house and the war. Ian's job flying, and my studying, and sitting here, and feeling sadness every once in awhile. It's all here now, and it's been there for years but it takes some time to see it.

I used to think if I could just make the right choices, life would go smoothly. Some things couldn't be helped, but if I continued to finish my work, and make it through the day, and be a faithful friend things would fall into place. Things just had to be done well. Now as I go on I'm realizing the world is so complex, and the guidelines are growing thin and far apart. We run the course of our lives, trying to give ourselves the best shot- cutting away at the worst possibilities, we insure that we have a job, and a home, and comfort in relationships. But at some time we have to acknowledge the unknown in the world. We just can't know what will come, and it's a fearful thing. We guard as much as we can, but we can only grasp and hold on to so much.

In my brothers I see many things. I see the home we grew up in, the woods we used to run through. So much of our lives is bound up amongst us. As I grow older I realize that they are what I want keep with me as the world changes. As it swells and fades.