The loss of a friend

Often times when someone loses a family member, that is exactly as it is stated. When it's a friend, it's stated that way. That's not the case here. My brother Rik was a friend, a person who likely had more influence in my youth than anyone else, and someone who clearly made me the person I am. We're either related, or we were great friends from the start.

Why the two possibilities? Because he and I always like the same things. Same tastes in everything. Music, clothes, TV, anything. He'd introduce something to me, I'd like it. It was never otherwise. As a teen visiting for a while, or sometimes long enough to be enrolled at Jefferson, he easily could have been hanging out with neighborhood boozers, and he did. But not all the time. Before that would happen, we'd hang. At 4 years old, he would allow me to build a fort on his bed. At 10, he would tell me of late night thrills and what he told Maurie to get away with it. He'd watch reruns of the Gong Show with me even though he'd probably seen it before. At 15, he'd tell me of trying to make it in TV and video production, stunted by the "help" of dear old dad. He'd tell me of married life. At 20, he'd listen to my college problems, give me advice when I struggled creatively. At 25, he talked of his son. I told him how much it ruled to have a nephew named after Sid Vicious.

As I look back on it now, it's our similarities that will help me through the rest of our life. Each time I talked with him, I'd seem to get some sort of knowing reaction - he'd usually been through what I was going through, sometimes the exact same thing. And unlike people who just want to tell you what TO do, he'd say what he did, and leave it to me to figure out where to go from there. Our father has made all of the son's growing-up extremely difficult. I can only wish I was there for them in those "If you don't change your major to banking, I'm not paying for college" days. Being in California created distance, and I never pretended to be any closer than I was just because of the last name. But when I met Sid and we goofed around, with him singing Kiss songs (at age 5) while I played the drums, I had a brief flashback. It was me, at that age, point to a Led Zeppelin posted on the wall. "Who is that?" He'd tell me. "Can I put up a poster, too?" A small Superman poster went next to it, and he played more Zep for me.

It is impossible at this stage to try to step in, but all I really can do is be there for Sid V as he grows up as Rik was for me. It shouldn't be difficult. He's already a friend.