I heart my brother

I was going to write a long post about the past week here, and I might still do it later on, but for now I think the following anecdote sums things up quite well.

I picked up my brother from the airport today. He could only get one day off work, despite explaining to his boss that both his mother and his grandmother are down here in the hospital with cancer. But at least he is here until Monday.

My brother and I have never been close. In fact, years go by when we have almost no contact with each other. We don't really have anything in common. Mum was a little bit worried about him coming down at all, since he tends to need looking after rather than being any help around the place himself. As far as I can tell, his main hobbies are spending money, breaking things, and losing his job.

So anyway, I picked him up at the airport. He got into the car and asked me, "How long have you been over here?"
"Since Sunday," I replied.
"Aaah, good times," he said ironically. Then, with concern, "Have you had any good times lately?"
"Not exactly," I said, and started to cry.
"We'll have to do something about that, then!" he said. He took me to the shops, bought chocolate and sweets and all the ingredients for pancakes, drove me to the movies and made me watch Pan's Labyrinth and eat chocolate, and tomorrow he is cooking me pancakes for breakfast. (I think my no-sugar thing is on hold.)