His name is Mark. I met him in 1953 although I don’t recall ANY details about that first meeting. He was three years old and had a head start in life which included an older brother who was 7 that year.

Mark was the one with a vivid imagination compared to his siblings. Still has it and uses it today…adding in lighthearted teasing along the way when his days are now filled with drawing, chopping wood, building furniture, camping, spending time with his girls.

As a boy, he was the one whose bicycle lay in the driveway…parts strewn everywhere…because he wanted to “see” how it worked…maybe improve its performance.

He was the one often scolded for using his dad’s tools and not returning them to their rightful place. Because he was curious and talented in problem solving, it was he who came up with creative gimmicks to keep his grandparents’ chickens in their coop when his family stayed for a week to house sit and care for the hens.

In his early teens he fell in love with hockey, purchased his first pair of skates and hockey stick…spending countless hours at the ice rink two blocks away from his home. His sister was the one who walked those two blocks in the cold to beckon him to dinner. Occasionally, his chair at the table was empty while his family ate, waiting for his return after “one more lap around the ice and I’ll be home….” He once told his mother “I’d rather skate than eat.” And skating he did, from hitting the ice in his teen years and eventually walking away from a senior league when he was approaching his 60s.

Mark was the peacemaker in his family. Still is, actually. Tension and confrontation aren’t his favorite conversations…he has and does continue to bring gentle wisdom into hard situations. I think it’s a quality he inherited from his father.

I didn’t always like Mark. We clashed until the year he turned 19 and I was 16. Attitudes and hearts began to soften then, especially when he went off to college. Not long after those years that eventually ushered us both into our 20s and 30s…with him now 72 and me 68…well, life has certainly mellowed, ebbed and flowed with experiences that have brought us to tears, continuously closing the gap that disdain had formed in those early years of our relationship.

At 72, Mark continues to draw, honing his skills with the likes of YouTube. He serves in his church and as a Gideon, visiting small churches in mid Michigan and passing out copies of the New Testament on college campuses. His gentle mannerisms and twinkle in his brown eyes allow him to enter conversations that may not happen otherwise. He’s devoted to God and to his family. He loves to reminisce about years and experiences from his career as a professor of welding. He could see potential in his students that others often overlooked. He’s bold when it comes to defending the truth of scripture as well as tenderhearted with tear filled eyes when praying over a family meal. He will most likely see humor in some of life’s most challenging moments or possess insight that is expressed in loving encouragement, such as standing at the coffin of his beloved grandmother, his hand resting on his grandpa’s shoulder, leaning over her body, staring into her face and whispering…”Look at this way, gramp, she’s only beat you there….” Heaven. A place he knew she longed to go and spoke of often when cancer invaded her body. 

His name is Mark and he is my brother. And I not only “Like” him now. I love and adore him. And as I remind him every year on my birthday when he calls to tell me “you’re getting older”….”yup, but I’m still younger than you.”