Brother time

It's nice to be loved. It's very nice to be loved by a brother. Take it from me, it's beautiful. We might be both 36 but we might as well be 6 years old. Because although life has given us the inevitable knocks, it hasn't changed us one bit. Some people say it's not too healthy. I say it's extremely healthy and that the some people cannot even try and understand what it's like to be a twin and brought up like we were. My mum always said... take care of him. Now, the tables have turned somewhat, he does a lot of care taking. But tell me, can you really help not loving a brother who has found himself in Heathrow's Duty Free section and is in total panic because he has already probably bought half a suitcase for me, and yet wants to buy me something else? So he calls and gives me a tour of what's pretty over the phone. Incredible. And we are 36. And I can relay off anything I want, as expensive as it might be. Because he's not going to scrimp on me. Funny this twin bond. I write about it from time to time. And I rewind back to when I was less than 10 years old. If I was invited to a party, then I would politely and brazenly ask if he could come along. I always got a yes, but if I got a no, then that would have meant no party. He did the same. But I remember him going off somewhere one day. He brought me an ice-cream back with him. A very melted ice cream, but an ice-cream just the same. We had a fab nannu who would take us on long walks and tell us countless of stories, a nannu who always stopped to buy us a treat. One day brother darling had a cough, so nannu reasoned, an ice-cream for me, and sweets for my other half. But wait nannu, no thank you, because since Joseph couldn't have ice-cream then I would have the same as him. I didn't want him to stare longingly at my ice-cream. Such wisdom at perhaps 6 years old. Where did this all come from? Well I guess our upbringing was a big part of it. I remember my mum saying God put us together to watch out for each other. As hard as it might be to believe now, brother darling was quite mentally challenged. So it was always a 'hold his hand, take care of him, watch out for him' kind of thing. And I did. Very fiercely too. Now that he's far from being mentally-challenged, he's held my hand, he's watched out for me. He has done countless things for his sister. But it's not just the upbringing which clinched it. As far as I can remember it was always double. Double trouble, double love. Few people understand it. But I do, and so does he. And so should other people who think they are great at thinking and analyzing. It's so nice having a mate from the word go. It's even nicer still having that mate at 36. Nothing has really changed, we're still the two kids who ran off together. We couldn't be more different, that's the sense of humour of life and it's ok. Because we're still glued to each other. And I can only thank nature, God, for freaking us out. We might be freaks, but freaks can be very loving too.