In the summer of 1978, when he was just 12 years old, he moved to a new town. On the first day at his new school, so the story goes, he was ridiculed for wearing purple pants. Instead of becoming a bully or shrinking away in embarrassment, he responded as most kids naturally would: he did a handstand and proceeded to walk across the school yard upside-down. He had no trouble after that.
Today, he’s an athlete. An electrician. A beer-drinking, Las Vegas-loving, deer-hunting kinda guy.
AND he’s a substitute teacher. A soccer coach. A brushing-his-daughter’s-hair, playing-with-all-the-babies, sewing-on-Girl-Scout-patches kinda guy.
He is one of the most inventive people I know and at fourteen years my senior, Conrad, a.k.a. Connie, is the oldest of my four siblings. He also happens to be one of the most slippery people I’ve ever met when it comes to putting someone in a box. I absolutely adore that about him and consider that to be one of his greatest contributions to my life.
(Me and Connie, Christmas 1992)
There have been numerous other gifts, too. Connie:
- changed my diapers
- showed me how to kick a soccer ball
- came to most of games
- paid me $50 every time a I got straight A’s in school
- taught me how to vision my way out of a headache
- came to see me off to my Junior prom
- recently assembled a birthday gift I gave him 20 years ago
- let me spend the night at his house when I was furious with my husband
I celebrate all of the love and care these acts represent. But it is truly the fact that he seems comfortable being a walking anomaly, living outside the bounds of anyone’s expectations for his life that I find so damn impressive and inspiring.
So Con, the next beer’s on me. After that, maybe we can race in the 50-yard dash and then hit up the Jo-Ann Fabrics…
Tags: celebration, change
