ben wakeman : : Journal

Jon Turns 42

January 4, 2005

My eldest brother Jon turns 42 today. It seems almost surreal sometimes when you realize how quickly time passes. I look at old pictures like these and still part of me feels like the little boy in the red bellbottoms trying despirately to keep up with his brothers. When I think about how much I have learned from watching my older brothers over the years, especially now that I have two boys of my own, it's staggering.

Jon taught me how to create. Watching him, I learned the value of words, music and art. Some of my earliest and most valuable memories are of venturing into Jon's bedroom where it was like another, separate universe from the rest of the house. His shelves full of books about hobbits, magic and foriegn lands -- his vast record collection with ELO, the Beatles, James Taylor and countless others I would listen to for hours with his set of enormous headphones. I would study all of the artifacts on his shelves, enamoured by the completeness of his world -- his eye for collecting things -- pieces of driftwood, coins, rocks and photographs all displayed on his shelves almost like a movie set. Jon was a powerful creative force in my growing up.

Years later when I was 20, Jon accompanied me and my cousin Nathan on our first trip to Europe. He had been several times and was already fluent in French. He guided us through Paris as a Parisian would --- showing us parts of the city we would never have been able to see, explaining works of art in the Louvre that we may never have understood. For the rest of my life I will have one very clear memory of Jon and what he has meant to me. When Nathan and I arrived in Paris on a train, we were in culture shock. Everything was so vast and unintelligible to us. Stepping off the train into the throng of busy Parisians pushing past us in all directions, clinging to our suitcases and scanning the horizon for anything that looked familiar, I felt very alone. Jon was supposed to meet us, but he was nowhere to be found. Walking towards the station, we passed a man on bench reading a paper. After a few paces, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder. Grinning over the top of the paper was Jon. He had been watching out for us the whole time. That's what big brothers do.