Visiting Uncle
I jerked awake to the sound of whispering children. “Let’s go see him!”
I called out “Let your uncle sleep!”
Gleek and Patches paused before continuing down the stairs. “He’s awake. There’s a light under his door.”
“Even if he’s awake, you need to leave him alone until he comes out. He’ll come out when he’s ready to play.”
Gleek sighed. “Okay. We can’t go in anyway. The door is locked. We’ll just watch.” And so the two of them went to set up their vigil on the door, ready to pounce on my brother the moment he emerges.
My brother has definitely earned this Desired Playmate status from my kids. I’ve never seen a man so patient and so willing to crawl around on the floor. Last night Gleek was teaching him how to play Monster in the Dark, which included howling and growling and my brother being used as a beast of burden. He played with a smile. I watched and remembered when this brother stayed with us for a month in 2004 while he was job hunting. Then it was Kiki and Link who set up a nigh daily vigil outside his door. Although their choices of games were probably more to my brother’s innate taste. They kept asking him to play chess.
I keep an eye on the play and sometimes I go rescue my brother. He does wear out, and with no kids of his own he’s not always sure how to make them understand that he is tired. He’ll escape upstairs tired and rumpled, but smiling. If anyone deserves to have kids, it’s this man. Unfortunately he first has to find a wife, which has been tricky for him. He’s a computer guy, very distractable and not very aggressive. And women between 30-45 who are geeky while sharing our religion can be hard to find, particularly in Florida where he lives. I wish he lived closer so I could help him network socially and meet more people.
At least this morning my brother has a door to retreat behind and lock. For most of the weekend he’s been sleeping on the family room floor because my parents had the guest bed in my office. Gleek and Patches assured me that they were not waking up my brother every morning by jumping on him. I knew they weren’t but I also know that a young child sitting nearby and trying to be quiet is one of the noisiest sounds in the world. Especially when “nearby” means “three inches away.”
My brother will be leaving today. He needs to travel to Idaho to visit my other brother before returning to Florida. My kids will be really sad to see him go.