Steve didn't come to the funeral, but was in Vancouver and spent a lot of time with mum. She was very fond of him and gave him her engagement ring for his upcoming wedding.
Tony is mum's executor. What a strange life it is. I met them at a medieval society event 25 years ago. We had all stayed up to the wee hours sitting about the campfire. When I realized I didn't remember, in the pitch dark of a Saltspring Island summer night, where I had left my little tent, Steve found me a spot in the big group tent he and his group of friends had brought. The next morning, I found myself in a ten-man army tent with about eight other people. I turned over and this guy with a mop of curly black hair in the next spot smiled and said, "Hello, my name's Tony. What's yours?" The brothers, though as different as it seems possible for two brothers to be, have remained friends of mine ever since, and they took on the care of my mother without a murmur.
When I went out there last year to see mum for the last time, I asked Steve why he had done so much for someone who was no relation. He said that he had been estranged from his own father for years and a friend of his had made the effort to get them to reconcile. "He died in a car accident two months later. I figure I owe the universe."
Neither of them is a believer, but I once gave Steve a green scapular. He keeps it and tells his friends it's a "get out of hell free card." He told me that he is counting on me, his only Catholic friend, to get him a spot. I'll try my best.
Tony and me.
Tony and Vicky (I told Vic she looked wonderful and that she should dress like a girl more often.)
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