David

My special-requested breakfast yesterday.

Today’s post is about David, one of the best brothers a girl could ever hope to have. (Click here to read about another one of my bros.) David is really more then wonderful. He’s fantastic. Case in point, I got a phone call from him this morning, asking if I wanted an omelet for breakfast. It’s about the third time this week that he’s asked, and if I say yes, he’ll make one and Moses will deliver it up to my office. 

Two evenings ago I was down in David’s office, talking with him and I noticed a bag of sugar-free hard candies on his shelf. Being the sugar-free-hard-candy-connoisseur that I am, I asked him if I could have one. He said I could have one of each flavor. When I couldn’t tell for sure if there were three or four flavors, he took the bag and handed me a piece of candy. Then he handed me anther one, and continued doing so until the whole bag was empty. Yes, really. He gave me the whole bag!
The hard-candies, minus a few I ate.

David and I have had a special brother-sister friendship for twenty-one years. He’s four years older than me, with one sibling (Helena) between us. Early on the three of us kids would spend hours out in the woods, building forts and exploring. We did school together. We walked to school together. (Yes, we were home-schooled, but Mom would make us take a walk beforehand to get exercise.) We worked together. We played together. In our family it’s almost like there were three sets of children, with David, Helena and I being the middle set. We grew up with the same books. The same toys. The same memories. The same world. The same sandbox. (Yes, we practically lived in our huge sandbox for a while. It was one of the coolest things ever.)
In more recent years, David and I had our goat herd. We’ve spent hundreds of hours up in the barn working together. Near-sleepless nights waiting for a goat to have her kids, rushed moments of trying to get a kid dried off, the thrilling exhilaration of another perfect set of baby goats. We would have long discussions. We would listen to music turned way up. David would get my favorite Gaiter Vocal Band CDs from the library, and then eventually bought the same CD’s for me as Christmas and birthday presents. 
David drew my name for presents this Christmas. He got me an assortment of some of our favorite childhood books. (“Some day you’ll probably have kids of your own, and you want to make sure you have these books to read to them.” Amen.) A common conversation the two of us will have goes like this:
David: Do you like my hat? 
Me: No I do not. 
David: Good-bye again.
Me: Good-bye! 
And that won’t make much sense to you unless you’ve read Go Dogs, Go…
The books he gave me for Christmas, each one has a lovely note inside. 
The many late-night conversations David and I have had can’t be counted. They often compass life-changing subjects and deep-thoughts (on David’s part, at least). Other times they’re full of laughter as we remember different childhood incidents. Recently we were sitting talking and David was like “Remember last year when we sat in this same place, talking about ____?” And I did. The cool part was that the talk/prayer time we had has been answered in an amazing way. 
Some of the best times are when Helena and I are spending a late night working in the kitchen and he comes and perches on the counter to talk. At one point he was into juggling eggs, those sessions didn’t always pan out very well… 
I could go on and on. I could talk about the sweet notes he writes me when we’ve had a disagreement, the beautiful bouquets of flowers he often picks for me and my sisters, the road trips we’ve been on, the inside jokes… But this post is getting long enough, so I’ll end it. I’m just so very thankful for my terrific brother who is by far one of my best friends. I love you, bro!

8 thoughts on “David”

  1. Anonymous says:
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    This was so super sweet. ♥ What a brother you've got, Aidyl! He sounds like a great guy – don't you just love having all those memories?? Some of my favorite memories are ones with my siblings, just talking in the kitchen like you mentioned. And by the way, I love that your mom had you “walk to school.” I think I will use that idea if I have a future family.
    Thank you for sharing with us!

    Rebecca

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  3. David Mabe says:
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    It sounds like you have a best friend in your brother. That's awesome to read about. I was, and still am, an only child, so I never had that dynamic in my life. It got lonely at time since my family was kind of nomadic. And all of the friends that I've had over the years that had siblings, often left me wonder if I was really missing anything. It's refreshing to read about the kind of sibling relationship that you have with your brother, which is the kind I always fantasized about having growing up. It's nice to know that such a relationship is a reality. Great post today, Aidyl. And, as I said on David's reply yesterday, your brother had a great name.

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