I’m in Hometown Coastal City, in the house in which I grew up, visiting my parents and siblings.

Da Da, The Little One, and I drove down for a few days. With mortgage costs, a car note, and day care expenses, we don’t have much disposable income to put toward gas for road trips, but we worked it out, and made our way down.

Yesterday, we went to the beach right at sunset and just looked at the ocean. It was so peaceful. I felt that all was right with the world. I felt immediate clarity on so many issues. As children, we rarely came to the beach, even though our house is twenty minutes from the ocean. I’m not quite sure why we didn’t go to the beach more often. I suspect that visiting that beach brought back painful memories for my parents, as the local beach was forbidden to them during their childhoods due to segregation and Jim Crow.

This weekend, I was able to see six of my eight siblings, and two of my ten nieces/nephews. (I also have a grand-niece and nephew, and one on the way, but that’s a whole ‘nother story as they say.) It’s been nice to see family, and the trip has been pretty drama free.

One of my brothers– The Special One– who is a marine, will be shipped off to Iraq in two months. It will be his first time to Iraq. He will be stationed in Fallujah.

I have so many feelings, and so many things that I would like to say to him, but he functions and exists in a reality in which I do not live. I do not understand much of anything about him. I, and most of my siblings, deal with him in superficial terms. We just smile and nod at his asinine comments, and emotional outbreaks. If he didn’t look so much like my mother, I would believe that he wasn’t related to us.

If our relationship was “normal,” I would write him a long letter, and tell him that I loved him, and that no matter his choices in life, we would always be family. I would tell him to be careful, and to think long and hard about the implications and consequences of recent life choices. I would tell him that I think that his wife is playing him. (I think that I would tell him this. I hope that I would be able to tell him this.) I would tell him not to forget where he comes from, and to write often. I would tell him to make good with my father before he left. I would tell him to explain to my parents why he did what he did. I would tell him to make peace with his twin, and to pay my uncle back the money that he borrowed. I would tell him that I am sorry for any wrongs that I have committed against him, and that I forgive him for scratching my Mary J CD when I was 18 and he was 14. I would tell him that no matter what he sees at war, that we will still love him, and that he can always come home.

But we don’t have that type of relationship.

 So, I’ll just tell him to have a safe flight.