1.26.12

This morning, as my eyes slowly swirled in half-openness, memory, like a dancing mist, lighted upon me. I felt my mattress below in the warm darkness of the room. And then, as thoughts are so apt to do when one has overslept, my mind opened some window of consciousness through which the mists of memory were violently sucked into cold realization. My eyes shot open and I looked down at my phone: 6:16 am. "Shit!" I said in a harsh, self-criticizing whisper. I was supposed to have left sixty seconds ago.

It is the second Thursday of me taking my sixteen-year-old brother to seminary. I had to wake him up yesterday and as I got dressed this morning I found it impossible to believe that he was already awake and waiting for me to take him to (amiably, of course) "the cemetery." Though I really can't blame him and (obligatorily) all other participants for naming it as such, I myself spent four years complaining and bragging about it before my (admittedly regretful) exhumation.

I left my room and walked down the hall in a yawning, blinking stupor. The lights in my brother's room were not on. For the second day in a row I woke him up with, "Matty, Matty, hey, come on, we gotta go." And, as before, he replied with, "Hm? Oh, alright dude," though today he seemed less brazen, perhaps today it was actually an accident. He did seem genuinely sorry later on as we got in the car, "Sorry I fell back asleep, Daniel."

"Oh, no worries, man. It happens," I had responded. I remember thinking, "so he still does feel some kind of remorse."

Two nights before, Matty, Dave, and I had been playing a game with Mom. At one point Mom had made a hearty joke and began to act rather silly, making funny voices, etc. "Mom, stop it!" Matty had said, "ugh, it bugs me so much when you do that!"

"Why," she had asked, still giggling, "why does it bug you so much?"

"I don't know, it just does!"

"Because it's an emotional response over which he does not have control," I had said. It was not the first sarcastic jab I had given him in the last couple of days. We have rarely been having one-on-one conversations anymore, mostly one-worded obligations that feel like driving with a clutch in heavy traffic.

And then I couldn't find the keys; we were late to pick up Hayley. On the way there I had told them the story of how Dave's cat, the night before, had been staring at the TV while we were watching a movie. It had reminded me of the movie Scrooged with Bill Murray. There was a polite laugh by both children followed by an emotionless silence. I got them late to seminary.

I thought about trust on the way home. I had said "goodbye" to Matty as I dropped them off; he had not said anything back.