Note: This story was originally written on 4/7/2013. I am re-publishing it now on 4/7/2023. Although our lives have changed tremendously over these last ten years, our relationship as siblings remains exactly the same. I appreciate my brothers even more as I grow older!

Happy Birthday, Brother!

Today is my brother’s birthday.
Mark is the second oldest.
I am the youngest of the Wagner three.
I am the only girl.
The sister.
I wear that like a badge. My brothers have been a part of my identity from birth. Growing up people would know us collectively by our names: Matt, Mark, and Sandy. The Wagner kids. There wasn't one without the other. Each born a year apart, we were a troupe of three.
Mark is the middle child. Although there are some perceived stereotypes about birth order, none of us ever fell into our noted birth order roles. I always racked this up to our closeness in age. Birth order was irrelevant since we always felt the same age. Just a troupe of three. In fact, Matt and Mark are less than eleven months apart. They were dressed in matching clothes through most of their early childhood.

I enjoy writing stories about my older brothers' physical oppression of me. From continuous bruising on arms to thrown forks that stuck in backs, the stories are true (note that Matt was more the perpetual afflictor than Mark), and I still always loved being the girl among boys. It toughened me up. Through my brothers’ love language of physical jags and verbal humor, I always knew I was deeply set in our trio of three.

My brothers were everything ‘boy’. They loved guns and mud. Fights ended with wrestling matches and fists. Our toy room was filled with Legos, John Deere tractors, and trucks. They cut off all my dolls' hair (other than the precious few I hid) and took my jewelry box apart to see how it worked. My brothers built forts and made up games with sticks. And they almost always invited me to join along.

My best friend growing up had three brothers and no sisters. As I look back, this is a common theme with me. Many of my closest friends have only brothers. We were drawn together as we speak the same language of a girl among boys. Growing up with my brothers and their friends also equipped me with later advantages in my work world filled with a high male-to-female ratio. My quick tongue (noted asset AND liability) was a learned trait. It was my defense mechanism against my brothers. They may have had the upper hand in a physical altercation, but I could hold my own with my words. Giving each other a hard time has always been the favored language among us siblings. A good laugh or great dialogue is our love language. Thin skin is never allowed in our discussions.

As teenagers, we had the perceived benefit of going to the same high school for three years. During my freshman year, I was banned by my cool brothers from speaking to them or acknowledging them while we walked the halls of Remsen St. Mary’s High School. I complied. Their words were warnings to stay away, but they quietly always had my back. At one point my mom cried as she listened to her teenage children bicker. We would fight incessantly with each other during our high school years.

"You kids will never speak to each other again once you are out of the house!" Mom sobbed one day after a teenage shouting match.

Fortunately, her prediction proved to be untrue. The complete opposite happened.

One by one we graduated and left the Wagner nest.

Matt left for the Army in 1983. We would talk to him on via tape recorder with my dad sending the tapes to Matt overseas. I would send him letters about the goings-on of our collective friends and parties. We missed him terribly.

Mark moved to Arizona to begin his career in woodworking in 1985. He was happy to go west. I was happy for him but missed my brother.

Then there was only one of our trio left.

Home alone, it only took a year after my departure for college for my parents to move to Arizona and out of Remsen in the fall of 1986. The house felt so quiet my senior year with me as an only child. I can't imagine how it felt to my parents after the constant bustle of their three kids being a distant memory.

Now I have the benefit of living in the same city as Matt. This never happened with Mark. His journey has taken him to Arizona, Florida, and Nevada. Although never in the same city, we have remained close over all these years. When together, it's although we've never been apart. Mark recently moved to Dallas and I just booked a flight to visit in a few weeks. Today is Mark's birthday, so it will be a bit of a belated birthday celebration. Happy Birthday, Brother! Your siblings in Omaha miss you!!

Epilogue: It is now ten years from when I wrote this original story on my brother, Mark’s 47th birthday. In the blink of an eye, Mark is now celebrating his 57th birthday. Matt and I no longer live in Omaha. I am in Colorado and Matt is in Arizona. Mark is still in Texas. Our kids are all grown and we are collectively enjoying grown children, our healthy parents, and middle-aged empty-nesting.