This is my big brother . . .

Kenneth Hanford Patrick Warner.  And me.  I'm on the right.  I'm the one that's still alive.  In fact, I'm now the oldest living Warner, a status I intend to keep for just as long as is humanly possible. 

My family always had a giant party after a funeral.  Everyone who came to the funeral was invited to the party, and they all almost always came.  And brought food.  Incredible food.  After my dad's funeral, his friends the Testones brought homemade spaghetti- and this was way before there were noodle machines! Square noodles, sliced with a knife!  Amazing.  We never went hungry after a funeral.

I remember walking out to the kitchen (to get some more food- no sense wasting a good feed).  It was after we sang all the Irish songs, but before anybody wondered why we only ever met for big, reunion style parties when someone died.  I stopped short in the hallway because I overheard my mom's cousin Billy talking to Ken.  "You're the man in the family now," I heard him say.  "You've got to take care of your brothers . . ."

And I panicked.  Why not just hand him a badge and a gun?  I knew he already believed this was his new status, and now he had confirmation.  But you know what?  Over the years, him thinking that he had to take care of me and my little brother worked out way better for us than if he'd had some other idea about what we were for.  No matter what it was, no matter how much it cost, he was always there to help if I thought I needed it.  He didn't even have to agree.  If I thought I needed it, that was good enough for him.  He never, ever said "no" to me. Not even when I ran away to join the circus.

I miss him.