Sharing the secret would devastate my brother
It’s interesting with younger brothers.
They grow up and you’re their hero. You know all about sports and who’s going to be picked first for the team. You build the most complicated Lego cities, you know which rebbi gives the most homework. You’re the advisor, protector, instructor.
Then they grow up a little more and they know everything, too. You get married and they get married and wait, is that little kid who hid behind me at recess about to become a father?
Naftali and I were always close; we’re the only boys in the family, with three sisters to team up against. When he started shidduchim, Zahava and I had two kids; when he got engaged, we’d just had the third. I was experienced but still young enough to remember what it felt like, and he spent hours on the sofa in our small basement apartment discussing his latest shidduch dilemma, or mulling over pros and cons, or — finally — shyly debating proposals.
And then he became a chassan, and got married, and very quickly, everything changed.
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