The Defier

I have a brother people say marches to a different drummer. They’re trying to be nice of course, because he is a charmer, one of those rogues you have to love, but whose neck you would often love to wring.

He doesn’t march for anyone, or anything. He never has and I doubt if he ever will. It’s just not in his make-up. Born with a disease that was supposed to kill him before he turned three years old, he has managed to live to a ripe old age. His first grade teacher told my parents he was retarded. Heartbroken they took him to be tested and while he played chess with the psychiatrist, he explained why he did what he did. It turned out he was on the other end of the spectrum -- just a bit strong willed.

He’s big, strong as an ox and probably a throw back to some Viking Berserker who invaded Scotland and made love to one of our ancestors in a fit of maniacal love. Or perhaps he is closer to the Welsh pirate who married an Ojibwa chief’s daughter. Where ever his personality evolved from, it has kept him jumping in and out of every frying pan between here and kingdom come.

People adore him. He can walk up to wild animals and pet them, or pick them up in some strange way no one understands. He is loyal to those he loves, but he never lets that get in the way of the moment. When he believes in something, or likes it, no one can out do him. When he could care less, he makes no bones about the fact that he’ll have nothing to do with it. My parents tried their best and to their credit, they never killed him, but they never really changed him either.

Tom, The Defier, was told he would die if he didn’t quit drinking and smoking and living like he was a young man. That was over thirty years ago. He’s had three heart by passes and I don’t know how many other operations, but he’s still around. A bit the worse for wear, but he helped me move out to North Carolina last year just like he has helped me whenever I needed him all my life. He and his second wife, from his third of five marriages, moved me lock, stock and barrel with his oldest and youngest son.

It is not uncommon to see him at family weddings and funerals sitting with his current wife and all his exes and children in one place, chatting amicably. He gives the rest of us something to talk about.