I am recalling dreams I have had.

Of the sweet southern sun kissing my cheeks while pairasailing in Panama. Of blowing foam off of the top of a yard of German beer. Of walking the beaches in the french Riviera. Of Desert Storm and all it's torments.

Surely it's true these are not my dreams, or my memories. They are a gift, memories on loan from my brother. I don't think I talk about my brother much here, but I think it's about time.

My brother is 13 years older than me (I have two, the other is 10 years my senior) Being so much older, we find it hard to have a common ground on any issue. He's democratic but has conservative viewpoints, I'm republican and have view points that make sense. He's atheist, I'm baptist. His dad is rich and left our mom with nothing when he married his cousin, My dad... well, il est disparu. We grew up seperatly, worlds apart. He was raised by my youthful mother and a maid in a huge house with a farm, I was raised by a woman who was burned out and left bankrupt in a three bedroom apartment. But despite or differences, we have the oddest similarities. I look like he spit me out, we're both giants with dark brown hair and uncommonly good skin and grossly dispropotionate noses. We both love our mother, we both wish we had better dads, and we both miss our grandmother more than life. But other than that, that's about all I know about my big brother.

He left for the Navy when I was 5 (he was 17.) And all I remeber was having him one day and seeing him again in August, twice his size and all about me. He used to pick my up from school ealry as a treat and take me out for snowballs. When he was home, we would sleep together, eat together, and talk... Well, he would talk and I would listen. All the adults would bustle about, bringing by his favorite foods and saying how big and strong he'd gotten and I would watch, knowing he had just returned from doing something really important. He would talk about pairasailing in Panama, drinking in Germany, and walking the streets of Italy where our great grand parents came from. Everything in his short but treasured letters from him would unfold with gifts, pictures, and live interpretations of his travels. He would talk about the pretty girls and friends he'd made. He would talk about how much he missed us, and how glad he was to be home. Everyone else would pat him on the head and tell him how proud they were of him and how much they envied him in his travels.

By the time I was old enough to understand what my brother was doing, I was old enough to hate him. His temper and racism cut through my admiration for him like a warm knife through butter. He opted not to re-sign for a third term in the Navy and moved into our mothers town home, brining his bi-polar, pain-killer addicted wife and grumpy countenance. He told me how much he hated me for ruining his rich lifestyle and how if only I had never been born...

Something had changed in him. To this day, I don't know how he came to hate me. He used to be my big brother and now he's Gar, my half-brother who holds dual ownership of my mother with his brother. He has cut me out of our inheritance and kicked me out of our small family.

But I remember seeing him smile in those pictures in the Gulf Coast. I remember when he was tan and muscular and all the girls loved him, even me. I remember when I thought "When I grow up I'm marrying a man like my brother" I remember the letters and the 3 AM phone calls from the air craft carrier and the weekends on base and the vacations on the military resorts. I remember seeing him cry at my grandmothers funeral and wanting no one else to comfort me more than my big, strong older brother.

I don't know hwere to find him like he used to be. But maybe if I were as I used to be, adoring and quiet, maybe he'll come to me in a dream.