Good and Perfect Gifts: My Heath!

There are moments in your life where you just have to take a deep breath and think Wow! Sometimes it's a Wow...I can't believe I just did that. Sometimes it's a Wow...I can't believe that just happened. But today, for me, it's a WOW...I can't believe I'm that old. Before I go any further, I want to clarify that I'm not saying that I think I'm old by any stretch. I'm not so much talking about the number of years I've been on the earth, more of a realization that things change so much in a short period of time. What brought about this WOW moment? My Heath turns 30 years old today!

First of all, I must clarify why I call him "My Heath". At some point during my undergrad years, I was talking to Alycia about what was going on and I mentioned something about Heath. In trying to say "My brother Heath..." it somehow came out "My Heath...". We laughed for a minute, but then I owned up to him being my Heath. I mean I'm not trying to lay sole ownership of him, but he's the only Heath I know, so he's my Heath. Maybe you have some other Heath, but my brother is my Heath.

Anyway, Heath was closest in age to me growing up (thus the realization that if he's 30, that means I'm not too far behind). We played together a lot. I most remember playing with G.I. Joes. We would get out all of the G.I. Joes, have some sort of draft to see who got which ones, we also picked from the large accessories (heliocoptors, bases, etc.) and then we would set up our teams for war. I can't remember now exactly how it all worked out. Probably with me crying that it wasn't fair that he just came in and bombed all my people. And then me going to get my Barbies to stomp all over his wee little men. But we generally played well together, as well as can be expected with a brother and a sister. We would often stay up late on weekends watching Cheers and American Gladiators together. As we grew older, I became very jealous of his academic abilities. He was always on a totally higher level than me (I must admit here that I did get some satisfaction in finishing my doctorate before him. Even if he didn't finish due to forces outside his control. For a couple of months, I had achieved something he hadn't.) He welcomed me to the U of A by letting me join in his group of friends. He helped keep me fed through all the various tailgate and game-watching parties. And through all this, he and Stanton became good friends as well. And, I don't want to speak for Stanton and Heath, but I think they've got quite the brotherly bond, which is great.

I miss not having Heath around since we've been in Waco. You know how some of the best moments come when you are just hanging around. And since we've moved away, we don't get to have that bonding time any more.

So, to my little big brother on his 30th birthday, I just want to say thanks! Thanks for putting up with me when we were younger. Thanks for looking out for me when we got a little older. And thanks for being the best Uncle to all your little niblings.