Good Will Hunting

One of my earliest memories involves my brother, Will, four years my senior. We were playing tug of war with a blanket, upstairs in the bedroom he shared with our brother OB--across the hall from Sis and me. Will and I were both in our PJs, and laughing hard. It was so much fun, a moment of complete abandon and joy. Then he made me laugh so much that I lost control and had an accident in my yellow footie pajamas. That's how I know I must have been really young.

Daredevil
He wasn't truly a daredevil, but in our pretty staid family, he was the most daring. When we were kids in the early seventies, down at a Jersey Shore rental for a week, my parents rented him a Sting-Ray bike with banana boat seat. The rest of us went somewhere for the evening, and when we came back, before sunset, we found out that Will had ridden too fast on the sandy road, fallen, and gotten all cut up. It was scary.

With his merry brown eyes and favorite spot in our Mom's heart, Will was also the one who got us a dog. He convinced my parents to get Chip, our black puppy with brown eyebrows, from the deli owners on the other side of town.

He had a BB gun. Dad still has the gun owner's permit in his wallet--he had to sign so Will could get the gun. [It seems so strange, the thought of Dad as a pistol-toting person.] Our backyard was right on the railroad tracks, providing a bit of empty space in otherwise crowded suburbia--space a young man could point his BB gun into, or maybe swing a golf club towards. I remember a man from Sunset Drive, on the other side of the tracks, coming over to say Will had broken his window, and we had to pay to fix it.

He had a motorcycle. He then wiped out on a curvy road in Oradell when the weather was bad, breaking his leg. Again, a scary bit of news.

He drove a North American Van Lines truck. He fell in love with a pretty redhead in Saint Louis on his route. His life would most likely be very, very different right now if he had married her. He might have kids, and as our Dad says, "Will would have really enjoyed that." But life led Will to a series of three long-term commitments in New York City, no marriage. He has been with glamorous K. for more than 14 years now; they share an apartment, and a love for Cape Cod, too.

Tall, Dark & Handsome
Picture a tall man with dark, thick, wavy chestnut hair. [He reminds me of Colin Firth, and I tell him so whenever I see him.] Think carpenter, who takes great pride in his work.

Figgy and I saw him today at Care One in Cresskill, the rehab place my Dad is at temporarily for physical therapy support.

"Doesn't he remind you of Mommy? Doesn't he look like her?" I said to Dad, who was lying in his bed.

"Oh, yeah," said my Dad, who is always proud of his son. He wants to be proud of his other son, too, but OB does not give him the time or the chance.

Big Brother Knows for Sure
As a boy, Will had a navy blue velour shirt that zipped up the front. Sis and I both remember him wearing it. I also remember these things he taught, by saying, doing, or just being Will. I don't know if they are all true, but they are vintage good advice passed down from all-knowing big brother to impressionable little sister.

1. When the snowflakes get bigger, that means the snow will be stopping soon.
2. Put an ice cube in your hot soup to cool it off.
3. You can make Raisinets. Dip raisins in melted Tollhouse chips and freeze.
4. If you have a stomachache, put your hands on your belly as you go to sleep and it will feel better.
5. Say "I buy, you fly' if you want someone to go out and get something for you and you're giving them the money to pay for that something [like peanut M&Ms, for example].
6. Carry a subway map just in case your train is out of service and you have to reroute [something I've never done].
7. Dream big--whether you're a young boy who sees a fancy sports car your mom's cousin's husband owns in tony New Canaan, CT, or a man in your fifties who is saving, saving, to buy the family home on Cape Cod so it stays in the family.
8. Choose a seasonally appropriate birthday cake. Will was born on December 29, and the layer cake he requested had fluffy white seven-minute frosting and a shower of snowy coconut--as opposed to, say, the strawberry shortcake my mother sometimes made for OB in June.
9. Be generous. Live large when it comes to your family. [Will is very generous to Figgy, whether leaving her a twenty in the little mailbox in her room on the Cape, or giving her a gift card to Urban Outfitters for Christmas.]
10. Be tactful. Will and I have a running joke. I like to bake, but he doesn't like eating too many sweets. If he didn't want to eat a brownie or cookie I made, he said, "Nuts?" meaning he didn't want to eat it since it had nuts in it. Then another time he'd say "No nuts?" and act like he didn't want to eat the cookie or brownie that time because it was nutless.

He's my brother. And I appreciate his big heart and his hard work and love it when I pick my phone and hear him say Ali!!!!!