Encouragement

Yesterday I posted a blog entitled Discouragement. Tonight I want to visit the flip side.

Twenty-nine years ago, in the spring of 1982, I was a student at New York University and Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. He was pushing for massive cuts to student loans and grants and what-not, and several thousand students decided to mount a protest to Reagan’s planned cuts. At the time, my brother Scott was living with our natural father, Bob Jaycox, in Joppa, Maryland, not very far from Washington, D.C. Once I knew I was going to be going down to D.C. to protest Reagan’s proposed Draconian cuts, I called my brother and asked if he might want to meet me in Washington for lunch or something.

He said, “yes.”

We met on the steps of the Capitol building one March afternoon, almost precisely twenty-nine years ago. It was the first time he and I had ever chosen to see each other, to spend time together. As I recall, we walked around a bit, took in some sights and eventually had lunch somewhere – I have no idea where. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was with my brother. It was great.

I just got off the phone with my brother a few minutes ago. We talked earlier this evening for nearly ninety minutes. We talked about our lives, our hopes, our worries, our concerns, our joys.

We recalled that day twenty-nine years ago that we decided to meet one another on neutral turf, by our own choice, and I couldn’t help but tear up. It was a pivotal moment in both of our lives, and a joyful one. It was the first time that we decided we wanted to see each other, to visit, to spend time with one another. It was – and remains – a gift. A gift that we gave each other. We decided that we were brothers, we embraced it. It was always so, of course, but it meant so much more after we embraced it.

And so while last night I mused about discouragement, tonight I write of encouragement, because the meeting that my brother and I had twenty-nine years ago is one of the most encouraging things I can imagine. And the conversation that we had tonight was just what the doctor ordered.

Namaste.