On Authority, Or What I Learned From My Brother
My eyes are swimming in tears. Tears of recognition, tears of happiness.
Why am I so happy, you ask? Because I have turned a corner. A big one for me.
My brother, six years my junior, lives in Hungary. We were never really close. No one was close in my family. Holocoust survivor parents, all carrying memories of personal and racial horrors in their cells.
You never knew when they would blow up on you… it was totally unpredictable. I learned last night what’s the mechanism: I am 65 years old and I hadn’t known. Wow.
I last saw my brother in 1995. He came to visit me and he stayed 2-3 weeks, I don’t remember how long. He’d just sold a house he built and was now building another one, and had a sudden cash influx; that’s how he could afford to fly over to me.
At the time I was a magazine publisher and quite ill. He had headaches. I had none of the powers I have today: there was nothing I could do for him. Today I would know what to do… but I won’t cry for spilled milk.
Later that year he lost one eye, the cause of his headaches, then lost his job due to his funny looks with the glass eye… life is unfair.