7 Comments

Beautiful photo, Lee. "I’ve spent my life being confused for him" Some things we never figure out.

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mary - Confused for him? Or with him? People thought I was him, despite our 10 year difference.

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somehow, that part of the sentence stuck out to me, and I imagined the confusion a brother might feel.

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Fun with prepositions. The short story is despite the 10 year difference, everyone called me by his name my entire life because of how similar we looked and acted. So when he became suicidal in what would become a 13 year journey through major depression, I ran to the doctor and asked, “so when’s my turn?” Fortunately, and exactly as the doctor said, it doesn’t work that way.

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Yes, thank God for that. I was afraid to have children, thinking it would be automatic that my parenting would be similar to what I'd gone through. A therapist turned me around on that as well.

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If anything, these kinds of things wrench themselves more deeply into us as time rolls on. I’m glad he was able to save you, even if he wasn’t able to save himself.

Fantastic photo!

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Thanks, David. It’s the Lynn I mostly remember, before the gaunt days of religious asceticism and the bloat of psychiatric meds that added 100+ pounds to his frame.

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