It's true. My "little" (6'5'') brother, Clark, is getting married this weekend. If he's married, do I have to stop saying "the kids" are coming to visit when he comes over? Mike always makes fun of me for clucking around my younger siblings like a mother hen, swooping around them with my fluttering maternal wings to make sure they have plenty of food and towels and pillows and that they make it to bed in good time and travel safely in the snow and and and.... Never mind the fact that they are all well into their college years and well-acquainted with independence (and, the jerks, much much taller than me besides). After one of my anxious, detailed planning sessions preceeding their arrival, Mike will mockingly say to me, "Let's make sure we have enough sidewalk chalk and animated movies to keep them entertained too. Oooo...do we have enough sippy cups?" I glare in return. We always called Britton and Clark "the boys" growing up and I can't imagine calling them, "the men." Even though (I admit), they are no longer adolescent, gangly boys in need of an (overly) protective elder sister's watchful eye (nay, vigilant...their poor girlfriends, I was notorious for mad-dogging them).
I remember the day when I saw Clark as a man for the first time, when my eyes finally saw past the smooth-faced boy time-frozen in my mind. We were in my grandmother's backyard on a dry, hot June afternoon, sitting on the cool cement stoop in the shade. Clark was coming out to school for his first semester. He had grabbed his guitar and wanted to play me a few of the songs he had written over the preceeding months (and which he planned to use as ammunition to slay the flocks of swooning ladies up at BYU-I, and--trust me--slay he did...the poor suckers never stood a chance). As he crooned and lilted through his songs, I saw him. His broad shoulders and angular face. A man's face. All in an instant. It shocked me.
I'm still shocked.
And on Saturday he'll be married. Ring on finger. Lovely lady at his side. Strutting into the future as man and wife.
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