(May 2007) I’ve been looking at a lot of pictures lately: Del as a baby, Del as a toddler, Del at one, at two, at three.

And then, there are two of us in the pictures. Del looking at the baby. Del carrying the baby, Del and me playing in the sandbox, Del pulling me in the wagon. I’m told he was very happy about having a baby brother and that he doted on me. What I remember is that he and the babysitter conspiring to convince me there were wolves in the basement. I was about 21 before I could go down there without turning on every light.

But I also know that Del looked after me and looked out for me. He told me what to expect when I went from sixth grade to junior high. When Del went to college, and high school had time off when he didn’t, he brought me up to UMD his freshman year to spend the time with him. We’d drive up to Duluth in his ’64 Thunderbird and I’d stay in his dorm room with him.

I didn’t give much thought to it at the time, but there probably aren’t a lot of big brothers who would want their little brother hanging around their dorm. Especially since it is part of the Little Brother job description to be a pain in the ass – and I was good at it. But that’s just what he was like, he cared. He cared so much. And he was generous – to me, to everyone.

Del often regretted he got rid of that ’64 Thunderbird. But I don’t think he had a lot of regrets; he wanted to live on a lake, and have a ski boat, and he got that. He didn’t say so in so many words, but I think he loved living on a different lake, in another house with our own ski boat and he wanted that for his girls. He and Pat have two beautiful children that he absolutely adored. (Talk about doting on someone). Family was so important to him. He also regretted that our Dad died without ever knowing his girls. He would have loved them so. And now, Del is denied the joy of grandchildren.

I’m not saying we always got along. We were boys, we were brothers. We fought. And he usually won.

OK, he always won.

As adults, we still didn’t see eye to eye on everything. I like Minneapolis, he liked St. Paul. When I moved to California, he told me he didn’t approve of California. I turned hard to the political left during Vietnam. Del landed somewhere Henry David Thoreau and Jesse Ventura. I don’t really know what his politics were, except that he would get as angry when someone mentioned Bill Clinton as I do when anyone says George Bush. So we didn’t go there much.

We hardly talked about our differences. And sometimes, we hardly talked at all. We might go long stretches without calling each other. And when we did, it might be what would I call a Scandinavian conversation. “How you doing?” “Fine. What’s new with you?” “Same stuff, you know.” “Yeah, me too.” That wasn’t the introduction, that was the whole conversation.

Sentimentality was not our strong suit. I called him one day after the brain tumor had taken control of his life and as we were hanging up, I told him I loved him. “Yeah, you always had that problem,” he said. Never willing to let him have the last word I said, “Well, not always.” And we both laughed.

In another phone call, he said hello and I said “you sound pretty good.” He said “well, I feel pretty good.” I knew Pat was holding the phone to his ear so he could talk to me, and he hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. I let him get away with that.

I probably should have been there in those last several days, and held his hand, but I just couldn’t see him like that. That wasn’t who he was, and I just couldn’t do it.

We may have left a lot unsaid. But we knew. We both knew.

I guess what I’m driving at, is that from the day I was born until the day he died, Del was always the best big brother and friend I could have hoped for. And even though I eventually grew taller than him, I never stopped looking up to him.