A Sorrow Shared (Mike and Walt)

When Susan called my cell so early in the morning I knew something was wrong. I had anticipated she was calling to tell me her 96 year old mother, whose health has been declining in recent months had passed away. I wasn't prepared to hear it was her oldest brother, Mike.  My eyes welled with tears, I wanted to hug  my life long friend, to be with her,  and share her sorrow.

While I  listened   to  Susan  telling    me the sad  details of   Mike's death, that he  suffered a fatal heart attack ,  my mind flipped back  eighteen months earlier  when  I was the one making the phone call,  to tell Susan my  brother,  my Walt had died.   Like Mike, from a  massive heart attack.

Throughout our conversation,  I couldn't seem to escape a single  image  locked in  memory's  view  -  a picture from 1963,  an 8 x10 photo.  Camp Little Green Valley. Southeast YMCA.   Susan's  brother, Mike,   a camp counselor is  standing in the back row -  my  brother, Walt,  sitting in the front row.

I thought of those years so long ago,  Mike  working   at his dad's hamburger stand across the street from our apartment on Heliotrope, Walt  still riding his bike, and playing cowboy and Indians with neighborhood kids. Susan and I not yet in high school,   but walking home from   school together . Meeting each afternoon at the corner  of the  different grade schools we attended - Susan's  Zion Lutheran , and my  St. Rose of  Lima.  I thought about how our lives   intersected, as did the lives of our brothers - if only one summer in 1963.