We all have families. I am the oldest of five children. I have two brothers and two sisters. I recently watched the film '
The 5,000 Days Project: Two Brothers'. (Click the link to watch the film) The film follows the lives of two brothers for ten years. It was interesting to see the parallels with these two brothers and the relationship that I have with my siblings.
Cort is two years younger than I. Many times growing up there were little conflicts between us. We'd fight and argue. We'd try to annoy each other- get under one another's skin. But we also played together. I remember many times organizing all our He-Man toys out on our bedroom floor. We'd set them up like a village. Then we'd have our parents get out the old movie camera and film it. Like we were making our own live-action version of the cartoon. Then it was G.I. Joe or Transformers. We were able to play together. We shared a room until I was 12.
Even though we had our own rooms we were still together. Our family built an addition on our home that gave us an upstairs. Cort and I had bedrooms next to one another. We were the only ones upstairs. So were just shared a larger room. A room that had a pool table, hide-a-bed, and a bathroom.
I remember in school we always rode the bus together to and from school. I remember we had an minor earthquake. We were waiting at the bus stop in the fall, Cort had run home quickly to take care of some "business" and the quake hit. I was sitting on the side of the road shivering in the early morning. Cort came running back to the bus stop and asked me if I had been at our house shaking the lights. I told him that I had just been shaking with cold there at the bus stop. Only after we got to school did we find out there had been an earthquake. Then in sixth grade Cort and I were no longer in the same school. It was interesting not having him around or riding the bus home together.
We'd end up at home at different times and then argue about who was going to do which chore or what T.V. program to watch. Other times we'd work together to get his newspapers folded and then deliver them for his paper route.
In junior high we were in school together again. I was in ninth grade and Cort in seventh. By now we had acclimated to not being together. We each had our own friends that we hung out and walked home with. We'd still see each other at school though, occasionally.
In high school we were together for the last time my senior year and Cort was a sophomore. By this time we were very different people. I was in the Jazz, Concert, and Marching bands; Cort was in Cross Country and Track. Although we had separate lives at school we had something that we always did together at home. We mowed lawns. So even though we might not see each other much during the school day, we'd be ready at home to load up the Datsun pickup and cut grass. at the peak we had roughly 25-30 lawns that we tended to each week.
Then after graduating I went to college. I moved three-hundred miles from home- across the state to Ricks College. It was the first I'd ever lived on my own and it was exciting. Going from living with my parents and siblings to having five roommates was a change. Talking to my family by phone a few times a week instead of multiple times during the day was a change too. While I was away Cort became the oldest brother. I remember my mom commenting on the change that seemed to have happened. My dad and Cort would argue sometimes, but after I moved away his countenance changed and there wasn't the same level of conflict, like before.
I was in college for a year and then I left for a two- year mission for the LDS Church. For his junior and senior years Cort was the oldest at home. While serving as a missionary I only communicated with my family via letters and the occasional phone call on Mother's Day and Christmas. I noticed a change happen to Cort during this time. He was no longer my little brother, he was becoming my friend. A friend that had been there with me from the beginning. Through the letters we shared I saw the little brother I remember maturing into a fine young man. Cort continued with Cross Country and Track in high school and then attended a year of college while I was a missionary.
One of the most memorable experiences I have of my time as a missionary was when Cort, while on tour with a performing group from Ricks College came to California where I was serving. I was able to visit with him and then stay for the performance that evening. This was a little less than three months before I returned home.
The summer I returned home Cort was working earnestly to save for his upcoming mission. He had finished one year of college and in September he was leaving to serve a mission in the Philippines. That summer he was in and out leaving town to visit friends going on missions and it was the first time in a long time that I felt alone. Even though I was in the same upstairs that he and I had shared for those many years, when he was not there I was alone in my own room for the first time.
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I returned to college the fall after coming home from the mission. Cort left to the MTC soon there after. He was in the MTC for over two months for intensive language training before leaving to the Philippines. Before Thanksgiving I learned that my parents were going to separate and later divorce. A few days after Thanksgiving we were meeting Cort at the Salt Lake Airport on his way to the Philippines. At the airport I was under strict instruction not to talk to Cort about what was about to happen. I obeyed my parents, but I was not happy about it. Cort and I shared letters while he was in the Philippines, but I must admit that I was not the best pen pal. Especially during this time, I was engulfed in my own feelings about the breakup of my family and didn't think about how it effected Cort. I tried to support him as best I could, I remember making a mix tape for him - I called it "Marinduque Blues"- Marinduque was an island where Cort was serving at the time.
While he was in the Philippines I graduated from Ricks College, returned to a very different home than the one he left and I met, dated, and married my wife; Tammy. When Cort returned home from the mission Tammy and I were there to help him adjust to life. He wasn't home too long and he was back at Ricks College. But when he'd come home to visit we always made it a point to spend time together. Cort then continued on to BYU in Provo, UT. Still a good distance away, but he'd visit from time to time. We'd go out Cort, Tammy and I for dinner or spending time together. (Sometimes Cort would forget cash- at that time not all locations accepted debit cards-). While at BYU Cort spent at semester interning for UNICEF in the Philippines. When 9/11 happened that is where he was. He was far from home, but we kept in contact.
In January 2002 Cort was back in Provo at BYU. I was working for HP and attending graduate school at Boise State University with a wife and a small child. January 29, 2002 our mom died. I rushed to meet Tammy and our eleven month son at my mother's home where my youngest brother Clark and youngest sister Carley lived. The ambulance was still there when I arrived. Along with the neighbor from across the street and my dad who came. With our parents divorced Cort and I took to planning the funeral and making other arrangements that were daunting to anyone- especially a twenty-seven and twenty-five year old. This experience; as had others, brought Cort and I closer as brothers.
When Cort married and started a family it was great that we could still be so close and live near each other. We see each other regularly and our kids play together all the time. We both have four kids and they know what it means to be friends with your cousins. When I think back to the times that we argued growing up if you'd told me that we'd be as close as we are today, I would have said you were crazy. But now I know that we're more than family, we're brothers.
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