My Tiny baby brother Tim got married on Friday, to a gorgeous, grounded and kind cardiac nurse — and by kind nurse, I mean she left her rehearsal dinner to escort a family member who was having a heart event* to the ER (*what playwrights call bad heart things.) I don’t know what I was expecting, watching my youngest brother, who I shared a room with for years, who I think the largest world of, who I think has the the tenderest of hearts and sharpest of wits though he never presents with either — marry the girl he loves — but basically every time I caught him looking at her with any sort of love, the kind of of love that shuts out the world and the wedding and all expectations and even the past, I sobbed through my eyelash glue for 17 seconds.
I didn’t have to do a toast, but obviously, Dan and Pete toasted Tim. The toasts were beautiful, laced with emotional restraint and military humor and humble admissions of what it feels like to look up to your younger brother, and obviously, I sat as close to all of them as humanly possible while these toasts were happening, like I’m basically sitting on Sarah’s lap. Another obviously: I took a million pictures because it’s rare to see my three brothers together, feeling something. Traveling back to LA last night, I looked at each of these pictures, trying to find the best one(s) so that I might delete some… but really, each one I took is essential. While they all look basically the same, each captures a tiny feeling felt by a brother, warm stabs otherwise covered.
PETE LOOKS AT FLOOR SO AS TO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT:
TIM DRINKS BEER SO AS TO NOT FEEL
DAN LOOKS AT CELING SO AS TO NOT SOB
DAN DOES STAND UP WORTHY OF LATE NIGHT TELEVISION, TIM’S LUNGS LEAK TEARS
DAN’S TOAST GETS PHYSICAL, TIM THINKS ABOUT BEATING HIM UP LATER, PETE FOCUSES ON CHANDELIER SO AS TO NOT HUG TIM