On this day 23 years ago...

My little brother Nathan was born. My mom used to tell each of our birth stories at dinner every year on our birthday. I wish I could remember each of them more clearly, but I have a really bad memory for things like that. I remember little snippets. Pieces here and there. With 6 siblings I think I might mix some of them up occasionally. My vague memory is that he was born in the Dr.'s office in Snowflake rather than the hospital in Show Low. I think he came home with some sort of special hat. Good thing we have journals to help remind us. Let's take a look back, shall we?

November 6, 1983 (Scribed by my oldest brother Bryan who is missing from that picture up top...where could he be?)
Grandma Hunt came to see me. We went to the park. I slide down the slidy slidy and jungle gym. We had a pic-a-nic at the park. Swingan and swinging. Our baby is Naphan Jame. We go to our church. We play in the leafs. We throw leafs. We bear my testimony. Suzie didn't pull down the microfader. Write Grandpa Grider.

January 8,1984 (Scribed by my mom)
Julie got a CTR ring. We went to the park. We got a new borned baby. Uncle Wade comed. I got a tricycle.

January 15, 1984 (Scribed by my mom)
I want to write about Christmas. I want to write about my Julie. Let me think. [patting her cheek with one finger]. We've got a baby named Nathan Jame. Write about Suzie's birthday cake for her party with her friends.

Ok. Maybe not. I wasn't much for details and full stories as a 2 1/2 year old, was I? At least I didn't think he was old news two months later, even if I couldn't seem to put the "s" on James.

When we were not yet old enough for school we were good little buddies for each other. Good times included blocks, the Mattel castle people, and "school". Though I'd not yet attended school as a 4 year old, I took it upon myself to be his teacher. We set up class in our pantry where we'd take scrap papers and pencils and books. We'd climb up on the stacked buckets of food and pretend we were big kids at school. At least I knew my ABC's and numbers pretty well by then. Maybe I was able to help him with something. Probably not.

We used to call him "Nate-skate-the chicken-bait." I'm not quite sure why. Must have been cool to rhyme. Another nickname that lasted a number of years was "Bud." Now he's Nathan. Or Nate.

We both grew up and we ended up being pretty good friends along the way. We'd do crazy acrobatic things under the name of "The Flying Zucchini Brothers" until he started getting to be taller than me. It was fun being the strong older sister. I remember him bragging to his friends once when he was in 6th grade about how strong I was. I would arm wrestle them and feel pretty good about winning, even though they were two years younger than me. That didn't last much longer.

Soon he was taller and stronger than me. His athletic specialties in Jr. High and High School included blading and baseball. He was quite a good pitcher trained up by my dad. I liked to throw with them, though I never could control the ball like Nathan. He was good.

Nate's ability to learn things on his own was quite astounding to me. By nature I am not very good at figuring something out just by reading a book. I like working with people and having them show me along the way. As computers were starting to become more mainstream I remember him reading a thick Java book. I'm pretty sure he read the whole thing. That stuff was gobbly gook in my eyes. I had no clue how he could figure out the inner workings of programming. But he did to a reasonable extent. All on his own.

He also taught himself how to play the guitar. No lessons. When he first got his guitar I remember thinking, "This will be a passing phase. He'll get frustrated and quit without having someone to tell him what to do and how to do it." But it wasn't so. That's just what I would have done. He, on the other hand, became quite good. He and his friends formed a band, wrote original pieces, and performed at various locations in AZ. They figured out how to do a ghetto recording and produce a CD. Around this time he discovered the wonderful world of MP3's, Napster, and file sharing. He spent hours upon hours, downloading on dial-up speeds, trying to obtain "outside music" we couldn't quite access in rural AZ. I still have some burned CD's he made for me and will occasionally listen to the Punk/Emo/Alternative mixes he put together to think of the good times growing up. He's now incredibly musically knowledgable. He knows more about world music, music appreciation, and musicality than I ever picked up in my 18 years of music training.

After I left for college we still kept in pretty good touch. He came and visited me just a few weeks before I got engaged. He was adventurous enough to dress up with some of my friends for a delightful "How to Host a Murder". I was glad he could come. Just a few months later he moved to NY and it's not been quite so easy to visit.

Though I never expected to live near my family (the kids are all quite independent and spread across the country...WA, PA, TX, NY, AZ, and currently Nate's living abroad), it's sad that we don't get to see each other more often. I miss having the late night talks, playing the games, and hanging out with each other. I miss having our mom make our birthday dinner request, hearing the birthday stories, and celebrating with cake and presents together.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATE! Hope you're having fun in a delightful foreign place. Take some pictures so we can at least spend the day together over the internet. I miss you little brother.