Reunion With Brother Quotes

Get away from my brother." - Damon

Damon’s voice was no louder than before. “Get away from my brother.” Bonnie could feel it inside him, a swell of Power like a tsunami. He continued, “Before I tear your heart out.

He put an arm around his brother to help him up. And then, for a moment, he just held on.

Although champagne was served, the mood was curiously subdued. After this reunion, they would probably never meet together as a class again—at least not in such numbers. They would spend the next decades reading obituaries of the men who had started out in 1954 as rivals and today were leaving Harvard as brothers. This was the beginning of the end. They had met once more and just had time enough to learn that they liked one another. And to say goodbye.

Need a place to stay? I have a seven-bedroom home. Need a date for your reunion? I’m your man. Need me to make a phone call to this ex-boss of yours, let her know she made a huge mistake by letting you go? I’m there for you. Want a job? I can find you one.

Is it accidental that so many ex-paratroopers from E company became teachers? Perhaps for some men a period of violence and destruction at one time attracts them to look for something creative as a balance in another part of life. We seem also to have a disproportionate number of builders of houses and other things in the group we see at reunions.

The reunions have always been more fun than serious. When you're with the guys, you're eighteen year old again.

At my ten-year high school reunion, I was voted best looking. Of course, there were two people in my high school, and while I wasn’t the best looking, my brother was two years younger and therefore not in my graduating class.

Then it was cooler and there was rain in the woods, the smell of leaf mold and mushrooms. The refreshed river hissed. He looked up at a sky that seemed set with rondels of thick glass. He found the brothers tearing out a beaver dam near their old hut on the Rivière des Fourres. Both brothers, muddy and glad to leave the beaver dam for a reunion, were in fair health though Toussaint’s beard showed white side streaks and Fernand groaned when he straightened up.

Dear . . . God,” she blurted as she recoiled. The hallway beyond was filled with the males of the house, the Brothers and other fighters and Manny sitting on the floor with their backs to the bare walls, their legs stretched out, propped up, crossed at the knees or crossed at the ankles. Apparently there had been quite a bit of drinking going on, empty bottles of vodka and whiskey littered around them, glasses in hands or on thighs. “This is not as pathetic as it looks,” her Butch pointed out. “Liar,” V muttered. “It so fucking is. I think I’m going to start knitting for reals.” As the females emerged with her, each one of them registered shock, disbelief, and then a wry amusement. “Is it me,” one of the males groused, “or did we just perform our own mass castration out here?” “I think that just about sums this shit up,” somebody agreed. “I’m wearing panties under my leathers from now on. Anyone joining me?” “Lassiter already does,” V said as he got to his feet and went to Jane. “Hey.” And then it was group-reunion time. While the other pairs found one another, Butch smiled as Marissa came over to him and put out her hand to help him off the floor. As they embraced, he kissed her on the side of the neck. “Are you out of love with me now?” he murmured. “’ Cuz I’m pussy-whipped?” She leaned back in his arms. “Why? Because you pined after me while I was watching a dirty movie with my girls that wasn’t all that dirty? I think it’s actually— and brace yourself— really pretty cute.” “I’m still all man.” As she rolled her body against him, she let out a mmmm as she felt his erection. “Yes, I can tell.

In moments of peace such as I experienced that day with Edal there exists some unritual reunion with the rest of creation without which the lives of many are trivial. 'Extinct' applies as much to an essential mental attitude as to the vanished creatures of the earth such as the Dodo. We can no longer await some scientific revelation to avoid the destruction of our species in this context; the evidence is all there, the writing on the wall. The way back cannot be the same for all of us, but for those like myself it means a descent of the rungs until we stand again amid the other creatures of the earth and share to some small extent their vision of it, even though this may be labelled Wordsworthian romanticism.

I watched my brother and sister interact with their grandparents and their mother. I could see the shared connection that comes only with years of being a family, years of history with one another, and waves of sadness crashed over me. I would never have that connection with them; those years were truly gone. As Pat had missed watching me grow, I had missed seeing my siblings grow, and I still felt like an outsider. Paradoxically, reunion helped in many ways to fill the void, but in other ways it made the void bigger than ever.

Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth. Where some children can emerge from conditions of soul-killing abuse and manage to make their lives into something of worth and value, others can’t limp away from the hurts and gleanings time decanted for them in flawed beakers of memory. They carry the family cross up the hill toward Calvary and don’t mind letting every other member of their aggrieved tribe in on the source of their suffering. There is one crazy that belongs to each of us: the brother who kills the spirit of any room he enters; the sister who’s a drug addict in her teens and marries a series of psychopaths, always making sure she bears their children, who carry their genes of madness to the grave. There’s the neurotic mother who’s so demanding that the sound of her voice over the phone can cause instant nausea in her daughters. The variations are endless and fascinating. I’ve never attended a family reunion where I was not warned of a Venus flytrap holding court among the older women, or a pitcher plant glistening with drops of sweet poison trying to sell his version of the family maelstrom to his young male cousins. When the stories begin rolling out, as they always do, one learns of feuds that seem unbrokerable, or sexual abuse that darkens each tale with its intimation of ruin. That uncle hates that aunt and that cousin hates your mother and your sister won’t talk to your brother because of something he said to a date she later married and then divorced. In every room I enter I can sniff out unhappiness and rancor like a snake smelling the nest of a wren with its tongue. Without even realizing it, I pick up associations of distemper and aggravation. As far as I can tell, every family produces its solitary misfit, its psychotic mirror image of all the ghosts summoned out of the small or large hells of childhood, the spiller of the apple cart, the jack of spades, the black-hearted knight, the shit stirrer, the sibling with the uncontrollable tongue, the father brutal by habit, the uncle who tried to feel up his nieces, the aunt too neurotic ever to leave home. Talk to me all you want about happy families, but let me loose at a wedding or a funeral and I’ll bring you back the family crazy. They’re that easy to find.

I, um, I thought you might want this back.” I pull out the battered old teddy bear and hold it toward him. He frowns and shakes his head and doesn’t reach for it, and I feel like he’s punched me in the gut. Then my baby brother slaps that damned bear out of my hand and crushes his face against my chest, and beneath the odors of sweat and strong soap I can smell it, his smell, Sammy’s, my brother’s.

Gina hoisted herself up onto her elbows and gaped at Spike. "So that's the famous Spike I've been hearing so much about from your brothers? Damn, he is ugly." Jesse, who'd stayed where he was, looked defensive. Spike was his baby, and you just don't go around calling Jesse's baby ugly. "He's not so bad," I said, hoping Gina would get the message and shut up. "Are you on crack?" Gina wanted to know. "Simon, the thing's only got one ear." Suddenly, the large, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table started to shake. It had a tendency to do this whenever Jesse got annoyed - really annoyed. Gina, not knowing this, stared at the mirror with growing excitement. "Hey!" she cried. "All right! Another one!" She meant an earthquake, of course, but this, like the one before, was no earthquake. It was just Jesse letting off steam. Then the next thing I knew, a bottle of finger-nail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away. I probably don't need to add that the bottle of polish - it was emerald green - was uncapped. And that it ended up on top of the clothes Gina hadn't unpacked yet. Gina let out a terrified shriek, threw back the comforter, and dove to the floor, trying to salvage what she could. I, meanwhile, threw Jesse a very dirty look. But all he said was, "Don't look at me like that, Susannah. You heard what she said about him." He sounded wounded. "She called him ugly.

Had Clayton ever been alone? In the house on that dead-end street in Tampa, his brothers and sisters were ever on top of him, all of them crammed into the three rooms of the rickety shotgun. Then Nickel with its communal debasements. He wasn’t accustomed to so much time with the knocking of his thoughts, which rattled around his skull like dice. He hadn’t thought of a future beyond a reunion with his family. On the third day, he concocted a scenario—a couple of years as a cook, then saving up for his own restaurant.

Th-thurlow...?" His face,so very like her own, lit with pleasure. "Rycca,dear sister! I rejoice to find you well!" They hugged fiercely while Dragon looked on with as much contentment as he could have mustered had he personally arranged the reunion of the twins. "I don't understand," Rycca said when she could speak again.Her throat was very tight and tears gleamed in her eyes but she could not stop smiling. "Why are you here?" "I heard a wild rumor in Normandy, about you fleeing from the marriage arranged for you by the king himself," he said,with a chiding shake of his head. "Really,Rycca,what were you thinking? Dragon here an exemplary fellow.How could you have not wanted to marry him?" Over her brother's shoulder,Rycca sent the fine fellow in question a look that would have turned a lesser mann to ash. Dragon merely raised his eyebrows, the very image of wounded innocence. "It was a little more complicated than he may have explained to you." "Nonsense," Thurlow said with all the certainty of a very young man whose heart is nonetheless in the right place. "I love you dearly, sister,but we both know you can be a tad impulsive. Fortunately,I am assured Dragon will take excellent care of you." Rycca laughed then and reached out a hand to her husband,who took it with a grin.She she drew him to her,she said softly, "As I will care for him, brother.

Galen doesn’t get truly nervous until he senses the size of the Syrena mass coming toward them. Up until this point, he’d been worried about Emma. What she thought about all this. Her mother’s reunion with Grom. What she planned to do while they were gone. Whether or not she was going to keep her promise and stay out of the water. And…his thoughts keep wandering back to their kiss between the sand dunes. It was an exquisite torture, the way she tasted like a mixture of salt water and herself. A combination of two things he’s come to cherish. Water and land. Syrena world and human world. Love for his kind and love for Emma. Only now, as the party of Syrena approaches, its presence seems to encroach on Galen’s options. For some reason, it feels like a choice between water or land, Syrena world or human world, love for his kind or love for Emma. According to the law, there never was a choice. But that was before Emma. And Galen has the feeling that the time for truly deciding between the two is closing in on him. But haven’t I already made that decision? He steals a glance at Toraf, who’s been wearing the same grim expression since they left Emma’s house. Toraf is never grim. Since they were fingerlings, he’s always had a special talent for finding the positive in a situation, and if not the positive, then he can certainly find mischief in a situation. But not now. Now he’s keeping to himself. Toraf never keeps to himself. Even Grom, the usual sealed-up clam, has become boisterous and enlivened while he and Nalia chatter to each other, laughing and whispering and holding hands, all the while speculating over the events that separated them so long ago. But Toraf seems oblivious to the chatter and to Galen’s internal war of emotions and to the swarm of jellyfish he just narrowly avoided. Galen had thought Toraf might have been anxious about leaving Rayna behind. Usually, though, he comforts himself by talking about her until Galen wishes he’d had a twin brother instead of a twin sister. No, what’s troubling Toraf has nothing to do with leaving Rayna behind. He even persuaded her to stay. Which means he thinks it’s safer for her on land right now. Toraf’s motives are always simple: do what’s best for Rayna, in spite of Rayna.

Don't you know me, Sophia?" came his anguished whisper. He shocked her by sinking to the floor and clutching handfuls of her skirts, his dark head buried against her knees. She was dumbstruck as she stared at the hands tangled in her skirts. A harsh sob lodged in her throat as she touched the back of his left hand. There was a small, star-shaped scar in the center. It was the same scar that John had gotten in childhood, when he had carelessly brushed it against a fireplace iron still hot from the coals. Tears continued to slip down her cheeks, and she covered the mark with her own hand. His head lifted, and he stared at her with eyes that she now recognized were exactly like her own. "Please," he whispered. "It's all right," she said unsteadily. "I believe you, John. I do know you. I should have seen it at once, but you are much changed." He responded with a sorrowful growl, struggling to contain his feelings.

There once was a female snake that roamed around a small village in the countryside of Egypt. She was commonly seen by villagers with her small baby as they grazed around the trees. One day, several men noticed the mother snake was searching back and forth throughout the village in a frenzy — without her young. Apparently, her baby had slithered off on its own to play while she was out looking for food. Yet the mother snake went on looking for her baby for days because it still hadn't returned back to her. So one day, one of the elder women in the village caught sight of the big snake climbing on top of their water supply — an open clay jug harvesting all the village's water. The snake latched its teeth on the big jug's opening and sprayed its venom into it. The woman who witnessed the event was mentally handicapped, so when she went to warn the other villagers, nobody really understood what she was saying. And when she approached the jug to try to knock it over, she was reprimanded by her two brothers and they locked her away in her room. Then early the next day, the mother snake returned to the village after a long evening searching for her baby. The children villagers quickly surrounded her while clapping and singing because she had finally found her baby. And as the mother snake watched the children rejoice in the reunion with her child, she suddenly took off straight for the water supply — leaving behind her baby with the villagers' children. Before an old man could gather some water to make some tea, she hissed in his direction, forcing him to step back as she immediately wrapped herself around the jug and squeezed it super hard. When the jug broke burst into a hundred fragments, she slithered away to gather her child and return to the safety of her hole. Many people reading this true story may not understand that the same feelings we are capable of having, snakes have too. Thinking the villagers killed her baby, the mother snake sought out revenge by poisoning the water to destroy those she thought had hurt her child. But when she found her baby and saw the villagers' children, her guilt and protective instincts urged her to save them before other mothers would be forced to experience the pain and grief of losing a child. Animals have hearts and minds too. They are capable of love, hatred, jealousy, revenge, hunger, fear, joy, and caring for their own and others. We look at animals as if they are inferior because they are savage and not civilized, but in truth, we are the ones who are not being civil by drawing a thick line between us and them — us and nature. A wild animal's life is very straightforward. They spend their time searching and gathering food, mating, building homes, and meditating and playing with their loved ones. They enjoy the simplicity of life without any of our technological gadgetry, materialism, mass consumption, wastefulness, superficiality, mindless wars, excessive greed and hatred. While we get excited by the vibrations coming from our TV sets, headphones and car stereos, they get stimulated by the vibrations of nature. So, just because animals may lack the sophisticated minds to create the technology we do or make brick homes and highways like us, does not mean their connections to the etheric world isn't more sophisticated than anything we could ever imagine. That means they are more spiritual, reflective, cosmic, and tuned into alternate universes beyond what our eyes can see. So in other words, animals are more advanced than us. They have the simple beauty we lack and the spiritual contentment we may never achieve.

Joël describes here, in unmistakable symbolism, the merging of subject and object as the reunion of mother and child. The symbols agree with those of mythology even in their details. There is a distinct allusion to the encircling and devouring motif. The sea that devours the sun and gives birth to it again is an old acquaintance. The moment of the rise of consciousness, of the separation of subject and object, is indeed a birth. It is as though philosophical speculation hung with lame wings on a few primordial figures of human speech, beyond whose simple grandeur no thought can fly. The image of the jelly-fish is far from accidental. Once when I was explaining to a patient the maternal significance of water, she experienced a very disagreeable sensation at this contact with the mother-complex. “It makes me squirm,” she said, “as if I’d touched a jelly-fish.” The blessed state of sleep before birth and after death is, as Joël observes, rather like an old shadowy memory of that unsuspecting state of early childhood, when there is as yet no opposition to disturb the peaceful flow of slumbering life. Again and again an inner longing draws us back, but always the life of action must struggle in deadly fear to break free lest it fall into a state of sleep. Long before Joël, an Indian chieftain had expressed the same thing in the same words to one of the restless white men: “Ah, my brother, you will never know the happiness of thinking nothing and doing nothing. This is the most delightful thing there is, next to sleep. So we were before birth, and so we shall be after death.”34

A new wife is not a matter. She is my family. Their Graces have had thirty years to spend holidays with us, and this my first—” Westhaven sighed, took a sip of punch, and glanced over at Val. “It doesn’t get easier the longer you’re married. You still fret, more in fact, once the babies start coming.” Val’s head cocked, as if he’d just recalled his brother was also his friend. “Well, as to that…” Val smiled at his punch. Baby Brother sported a devastating smile when he wanted to, but this expression was… St. Just lifted his mug. “Congratulations, then. How’s Ellen faring?” “She’s in fine spirits, in glowing good health, and I’m a wreck. I think she sent me off to Peterborough with something like relief in her eye.” Westhaven was staring morosely at his grog. “Anna isn’t subtle about it anymore. She tells me to get on my horse and not come back until I’ve worked the fidgets out of us both. She’s quite glad to see me when I return, though. Quite glad.” For Westhaven, that was the equivalent of singing a bawdy song in the common. St. Just propped his mug on his stomach. “Emmie says I’m an old campaigner, and I get twitchy if I’m confined to headquarters too long. Winnie says I need to go on scouting patrol. The reunions are nice, though. You’re right about that.” Val took a considering sip of his drink then speared St. Just with a look. “I wouldn’t know about those reunions, but I intend to find out soon. Dev, you are the only one of us experienced at managing a marching army, and I’m not in any fit condition to be making decisions, or I’d be on my way back to Oxfordshire right now.” “Wouldn’t advise that,” Westhaven said, still looking glum. “Your wife will welcome you sweetly into her home and her bed, but you’ll know you didn’t quite follow orders—our wives are in sympathy with Her Grace—and they have their ways of expressing their…” Both brothers chimed in, “Disappointment.

Knowing that R. L.’s death at nineteen is not his end, Mrs. O’Brien and Jack can trust the nuns. Those who live in the way of grace may die young. They may die horribly. But they never come to a bad end because death is not the end. We are quite a ways beyond Heidegger here. Whatever other influence he had on Malick’s vision, Malick doesn’t accept that death is the limit, that time has a final horizon beyond which the rest is silence. Beyond death there is reconciliation, reunion, hope. Beyond death, there are sunflowers. The sunflower is a perfect image for the way of grace. Its name is suggestive of heavenly glory. In color and shape, it is a reflex of the burning suns of what might be an infinite universe. Malick uses Hubble Telescope pictures of deep space, but one doesn’t have to have a telescope to see the glory shine. Suns grow in the backyard, if we our eyes are open windows. Sunflowers follow the sun through the day, the perfect botanical expression of the way of grace that receives the glory. It’s the perfect Heideggerian flower that never forgets Being. But Malick does something stunning with his sunflowers. The first shot of is a close-up of a single flower, as Mrs. O’Brien speaks of the way of grace. We can see others dancing in the wind behind, but we concentrate on this one. At the end of the film, the camera pulls back, a brilliant blue sky fills the top two-thirds of the screen, and we see a breathtaking field of sunflowers. Through the suffering and loss that the movie depicts, the single sunflower of grace blossoms into a field of sunflowers. It’s Job, surrounded by his second family that he can love. It’s Brothers Karamazov. It’s the Agnus Dei and all seeds that go into the earth to die, so they can produce fruit.

And don’t worry, Zombie, you won’t have to share a bunk body bag with your little brother,” Mom said with a knowing look. Whoa, did she just read my mind?

Now, my mother didn’t raise a fool, and of course I’ll play hard to get, because, yes, getting out of Jeff and Mom’s house is the end goal here, as well as finding a new job and bringing a hot piece of ass to the reunion, but I’m also going to see what this guy has to say.

And how does your godfather feel about this little family reunion?” “He thinks it’s fate.” “And you?” Connor lifted a shoulder. “What else could it be when the long-lost son of the Italian mafia is raised at the table of the Byrne Brothers?

Austin couldn't help being protective of his youngest brother. While he and Hayes had both worked in law enforcement, Laramie had no experience dealing with criminals. "I hope you're right," Austin said as he watched his family finish their lunches. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that Laramie had no idea what he was getting into.

My "ten year" was last year but I didnt feel like going to my reunion... my brother and my sister arent that cool.

An outsider might claim that this made sense, that Shauna was giving the sister and brother some space during this tender reunion. That outsider wouldn’t know Shauna from Cher. Shauna was wonderfully consistent. She was prickly, demanding, funny, bighearted, and loyal beyond all reason. She never put on masks or pretenses. If your thesaurus had an antonym section and you looked up the phrase “shrinking violet,” her lush image would stare back at you. Shauna lived life in your face. She wouldn’t take a step back if smacked across the mouth with a lead pipe. Something

I don’t know, it’s just really weird to think my secret soulmate’s brother put me here, and then I had a reunion with my secret soulmate and she pretended like it’s not a big deal. Not even freaked out. Who doesn’t freak out when they found out their soulmate is framed for a murder, correction, assasination?

He put his hands on her waist. “Kiss me,” he said. “No,” she said. “Come on. Haven’t I been perfect? Haven’t I followed all your rules? How can you be so selfish? There’s no one around—they’re busy drinking.” “I think you should go back to your reunion,” she said, but she laughed at him again. Boldly, he picked her up under her arms and lifted her high, holding her above him, slowly lowering her mouth to his. “You’re shameless,” she told him. “Kiss me,” he begged. “Come on. Gimme a little taste.” It was simply irresistible. He was irresistible. She grabbed his head in her hands and met his lips. She opened hers, moving over his mouth. When he did this to her, she thought of nothing but the kiss. It consumed her deliciously. She allowed his tongue, he allowed hers, and she reached that moment when she wanted it to never end. It was so easy to become lost in his tenderness, his strength. And then, inevitably, it had to end. They were standing in the street, after all, though it was almost dark. “Thank you,” he said. He put her on her feet and behind them, a raucous cheer erupted. There, on the porch at Jack’s, stood eight marines and Rick, their tankards raised, shouting, cheering, whistling, cat-calling. “Oh, brother,” she said. “I’m going to kill them.” “Is this some kind of marine tradition?” she asked him. “I’m going to kill them,” he said again, but he kept his arm around her shoulders. “You realize what this means,” she said. “These little kisses are no longer our little secret.” He looked down into her eyes. The shouts had subsided into a low rumble of laughter. “Mel, they are not little. And since it’s leaked,” he said, grabbing her up in his arms, lifting her up to him again, her feet clear of the ground, and planted another one on her, to the excited shouts of the old 192nd. Even with that riot in the background, she found herself responding. She was growing addicted to the perfect flavor of his mouth. When it was done she said, “I knew it was a mistake to let you get to first base.” “Ha, I haven’t even thrown out the first pitch yet. You’re invited to go fishing with us, if you like.” “Thanks, but I have things to do. I’ll see you tomorrow night for a beer. And I’ll get myself to my car. I’m not going to make out in front of them for the next week.” *

They waited for one another. Yuda saw him just once more, in 1971, in Israel, after 30 years. That was the only time I had occasion to meet my brother-in-law. At that reunion, the heartache was so visible on everybody's face. They knew that they were the closest blood relatives and had been apart for most of their lives. They knew that they were brothers, yet they were in essence strangers, molded by completely different conditions. Both had gone through inhuman hardships, but in different places, in different surroundings.

Instead of rushing to the family reunion, Jesus asked one of those rabbinical rhetorical questions addressed to listeners then and now: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” The messengers thought they were informing him about his biological family. He used the occasion to redefine the nature of family for those who joined him on the way to a New Community.

The movie may indeed have been saved by the change in the cast, as though a volatile, drunken brother-in-law had been disinvited to the family reunion.

It was an honor meeting you, Ridley,” Eli said. “I really enjoyed getting to know you on Sunday. I’ve never had such a connection with a woman before—I feel like I really taught you a lot.” Jackson looked at his brother in confusion. What the hell was Eli doing? Was he saying goodbye? Was he giving up? “Me too!” Ridley was staring at Eli and the sound of her voice drew Jackson’s attention. “I remember everything you told me.” Eli nodded at her. “Sorry to interrupt your touching reunion, but we have to go.” Moreno prodded Ridley in the head with the gun and she flinched. “Now!” “Okay. I just wanted to say goodbye,” Ridley stammered. “Well, say it and then move!” Ridley’s eyes met Jackson’s. For a moment, it could have been just the two of them in the room. There were so many things he wanted to say. It’s going to be okay. I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. I love you. But he couldn’t say anything. All he could do was watch helplessly as she inched backward until Moreno put his arm around her neck again. As he tugged her backward toward the door, she looked at him and said, “Goodbye.” Then she dropped to the ground.

PEER CRUELTY Every morning you leave your cramped apartment in Manhattan’s East Village to go to your laboratory at the Rockefeller University in the East Sixties. You return in the late evening, and people in your social network ask you if you had a good day, just to be polite. At the laboratory, people are more tactful. Of course you did not have a good day; you found nothing. You are not a watch repairman. Your finding nothing is very valuable, since it is part of the process of discovery—hey, you know where not to look. Other researchers, knowing your results, would avoid trying your special experiment, provided a journal is thoughtful enough to consider your “found nothing” as information and publish it. Meanwhile your brother-in-law is a salesman for a Wall Street firm, and keeps getting large commissions—large and steady commissions. “He is doing very well,” you hear, particularly from your father-in-law, with a small pensive nanosecond of silence after the utterance—which makes you realize that he just made a comparison. It was involuntary, but he made one. Holidays can be terrible. You run into your brother-in-law at family reunions and, invariably, detect unmistakable signs of frustration on the part of your wife, who, briefly, fears that she married a loser, before remembering the logic of your profession. But she has to fight her first impulse. Her sister will not stop talking about their renovations, their new wallpaper. Your wife will be a little

It doesn’t matter if, like the Doolittle Raiders, the time comes when the Mistys can be counted on one hand. When only one Misty is left, that man will have his own reunion, and he will hoist a glass to his brothers who flew up north and who were in the shit on every mission. He will drink to those who never came back.

My dear sister,' [Patrick] Henry wrote Annie Christian [May 15, 1786], while I am endeavoring to comfort you, I want a comforter myself.'...Henry [had] loved him [her husband William] like a 'friend and brother.' Together they would find consolation, Henry believed, only in 'the many precious lessons of piety given us by our honored parents' and their shared Christian faith....Henry offered his assurance that although they might never see one another again 'in this world,' they would surely 'meet in that heaven to which the merits of Jesus will carry those who love an serve him.

My whole life I wanted a brother or a sister. My whole life. I never said anything to you guys about it because I didn’t want you to feel bad, and you were always trying so hard to be okay with having an only child.

Empathy, a moment’s compassion, seeing that everyone has equal value, even people who have behaved badly, is as magnetic a force as gratitude. It draws people to us, thus giving us the capacity to practice receiving love, the scariest thing of all, and to experience the curiosity of a child. And, as it turns out, the family is the most incredible, efficient laboratory, in which we can learn to work out the major blocks to these, which of course we got from the family in the first place. If we do the forgiveness work, forgiving our families and ourselves, they become slightly less “them,” and we become slightly more “we.” It’s ultimately about reunion. You might as well start this process at the dinner table. That way you can do this work, for which you were born, in comfortable pants. Maybe on this side of the grave, you’ll never forgive or be able to stand your wife’s brother or your sister’s child, and that’s okay, but don’t bank on never. I don’t so much anymore. Yes, it’s hard hard hard, but when I’m having a good time with my big messy family, I notice and savor it, and I say thank you, that this came from a place of joy and absurdity, that it turns out we have it in us to laugh. And who knows, we may again—later today, tomorrow, or in patient, patient time.

As Jiminy hopped away, the Blue Fairy spun her wand for one last spell before she tucked it away for a year. In her mind, she conjured the smell of cinnamon and pistachios, of chocolate and buttery sugar. A modest plate appeared on her palm, and she inhaled. "Just like home," she whispered to herself. With a wave of her arm, she let go of her wand and made for the humble two-storied house with a yellow door. A lemon or two still hung from the trees brushing against the back window, and a bittersweet pang overcame Chiara's heart. It squeezed inside her, filled with excitement and nervousness and wonder. When she found her courage, she knocked. At first, she didn't think anyone heard. Then from inside, Niccolo's wife shouted: "It's the girls! They must be back early!" Footsteps approached, and Chiara held her breath. Niccolo himself answered the door, and let out a gasp. The expression on her brother's face was one she would treasure all her life. Joy and surprise flooded his eyes as years of forgotten memories came back to him. When he finally cried her name, his voice choked with emotion. "Chiara?" "I know I'm a few years late," she said, finally letting go of her breath. She smiled at her brother. "But is there room for one more at dinner tonight? I've brought cookies.

I think I better head to bed. Who won?" I squinted at the board. It was blurry, the little pieces swimming around it like they were chasing one another. I hiccupped again. "Me?" "Actually, you owe me two thousand dollars and a house on Tennessee Avenue." Katie laughed, starting to remove the Scottie dog, top hat, and thimble from the board. I yawned, my eyes flickering shut as I took spontaneous one-second naps between blinks. Somewhere in the back of my head, I realized I was being a mess, not at all the brilliant, responsible fiancé Chase wanted me to be. Screw him. I owed him nothing. As long as his family was having fun. "I hope you like fixer-uppers and accept coupons, Katie, because I'm broke as all hell," I snorted out. "That's all right. It's just a game." Katie folded the board and tucked it back into the box as she hummed to herself. She was so agreeable and docile. The opposite of her older brother. Almost like he'd hogged every drop of ferociousness in their DNA pool before he was born. "Yeah, well, I'm flat-out broke in real life too." I snickered. Time to go to bed, Miss Hot Mess Express. I stood up on wobbly feet. My knees felt like jelly, and there was a strange pressure behind my eyes. Knowing I'd be coming face-to-face with Chase made me break out in hives. I'd tried to postpone our reunion as much as I could, hoping --praying, really--he'd fall asleep before I got back to the room. "Not for long." Lori laughed. I laughed too. Then paused. Then frowned. "Wait, how do you mean?" "Well"--Lori offered me a one-shouldered shrug, picking nonexistent lint from her dress pants as Katie put the Monopoly box away--"you're going to marry Chase, honey. And Chase is ... well endowed." Katie choked on her soda, while I used every ounce of my self-control in order to not break into giggles. "Oh, Lori, you have no idea,

I understood that this sister of mine was going to live somewhere else, away from us...This information did not make me thing of the baby as less mine. She was my sister, like my brother was my brother and my mother was my mother. The adoptive parents' claim on my developing sister did not negate mine, she was not a kingdom or a territory or a thing with a deed; she was a person. This baby girl would be both my sister and these other people's daughter, and my mom's daughter. there would be moments when one claim took focus-- as right now this baby girl was more Ours than Theirs, and one day she would be more Theirs than Ours, but none of those connections could completely erase the others. It would be easier, perhaps, if they could, if after she was gone we could forget this baby ever belonged to us. But that's not how people work.

Wow. I can’t believe it, but obviously…” He looked Rafe up and down and shook his head. “Wow.” “Holy hell.” Now Corey stood on the back deck, staring. He came over and we had to go through the whole thing again. Yes, it was Rafe. Not a ghost. Not a zombie. Not a long-lost twin brother. As ludicrous as all those ideas sounded, though, they seemed more likely than the truth--that a guy fell from a helicopter and survived. “You sure about the twin thing?” Corey said when Rafe had finished. “Yes, I don’t have a long-lost twin brother.” “I do,” I said. “Or so I’ve heard.” Rafe grinned at me. “Yes, but I’m not him.” “Which is good.” “Very good.” He squeezed my hand. “We’ll…be inside,” Daniel said. “Uh-uh,” Corey said. “Romantic reunions are officially on hold, even for guys who’ve returned from the dead. We’re neck-deep in crap here and we need to dig our way out.

Jefferson would live another two years, Lafayette another ten. But in fact, long before their reunion, the legends of both men had already been sculpted into marble.

When he grabs me in a skeletal embrace, a hug so hard it hurts, I know who he is. A silent sob escapes my chest. He is quiet as he hugs me. Then his body shudders. Except these shudders come from joy, not pain. Roque lives. "My brother," he sobs. "My brother." "I thought you were dead," I tell him as I clutch his delicate frame. "Roque, I thought you were dead." I clasp him to me. His hair is so thin. I feel his bones through his clothing. He's like a wet rag around my armor. "Brother," he says. "I knew you would come back. I knew it in my heart. This place was hollow without you." He grins at me with such pride. "How you now fill it.