Hi, I’m J, BHD’s twin brother. I hijacked his blog once again, learning a new system with WordPress no less. Happy to be here to celebrate the man I love as no other twin can — my very own “big” brother. Mind you, we have six other “bigger” brothers, but he is four minutes older than me, and will never let me forget it!

I made arrangements for my wife and me to travel to the U.S. and visit our family and my brother (in particular) for “our” birthday. This annual visit is becoming a tradition that I cannot live without. Why?

This guy, you know as BHD, is truly a wonderful spirit. How he finesses caring for his partner, his senior pals, and everyone else in his life while working, maintaining his house and all of his rental properties (for, as he says, community heroes who need a place to live in the county where they work)… I don’t know how he does it.

He has been under a lot of pressure with things going on at home and with his work. What they call a “life balance” has been out of whack for a long, long time. He tells me that he is managing because the people in his life give him so much to look forward to. His caregiver heart shines so brightly.

I have been worrying about him for months. I speak with him on the phone several times each week. I hear the stress in his voice and the bewilderment in his expression about his concern for his partner’s health. He can remain bright and positively spirited most of the time, but I know there’s more going on than he talks about, and I saw that for myself yesterday, on our birthday.

The day began on a bright note, revealing the quality of character of the brother I love. I came over to his house at 8am. Even by then, two of his senior pals had delivered a cake and cards for his birthday. Another one arrived soon after I did, and offered to pick up a prescription for his partner. “No trouble,” he says. “I’m going there anyway, and you have picked up so many prescriptions for me, it’s the least I can do.” Two sisters phoned, ostensibly to say hello to me, but clearly, they were checking up on their little brother.

My brother had to take his partner to a doctor’s appointment — on our birthday no less — but as he said, “we do what we need to do. NBD.” Meaning, “no big deal.”

While they were gone, I visited another sister who lives nearby. When they returned, my brother called me and said, “get your butt over here. A buddy is coming over and we’re going for a ride!” So yessir! I had rented a Harley and came to his house. His buddy and I enjoyed a fun ride to test the route that he is planning to take for a group ride on Saturday. Man, he’s so prepared — the route was loaded into his GPS. But due to his “geographic dysfunctionality,” we took a wrong turn anyway (quickly recoverable, thankfully). Here’s where we went (it’s on the West River in southern Maryland):
We returned by mid-day, and then I learned how the “voice” of his partner’s disease speaks.

[Note from BHD: I have edited this post and removed some content. Let’s just say that my partner’s disease was exhibiting awful symptoms, so plans for the remainder of the day got changed. J went back to our sister’s home and I changed into my caregiver role for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. No more birthday; it was done.]

Ore e sempre, bro. I love you very much. I’ll be right here.