Brothers

Two loaves molassas bread (plus cranberry preserves)

mixed: noon

molded: 1:40 pm

baked: 2:20 pm

gave to: homeless dinner at our church

I grew up in a home of four children: girl-boy-girl-boy. I’m the third, squished between two boys–one six years older than me, the other who toddled just behind. These two boys have helped shape my life in countless ways. I was an indentured yet happy servant to one, and a mini-mother to the other. They are both people you love to be around, one so selfless and silly, the other completely made of charm… And they would do most anything for me. Run to me if I needed saving. Even drag me off on business to France. I love them.

As I watched the line gradually grow at the dinner for the homeless last night, where my basket of molassas bread sat waiting for hungry mouths, I wondered where their brothers were. These men and women, dirty, drunk, so full of hurt. I walked among them, chatted to Dina about learning Greek, signed a floppy leather hat of another who then begged to have his photo taken… Where are their brothers? Where?

I have such love around me, such happy security. Such beauty in the fountain that brings finches to my yard, the scent and space of the ocean just down the road, the smell of bread baking, the sound of my children singing while they play. And I have these brothers who make me laugh. I’m thankful for them, and pray I can be the right kind of sister to them, and maybe even be a sister,

at least for a moment,

to those standing, waiting their turn for my molassas bread.

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