I broke his arm once, though I didn't mean to. Not at the moment, I was actually playing with him then. Other times, I actually tried. I remember trying to bring his forearm down on my knee to snap it in two like a twig, but it didn't.
He doesn't remember it as play when he did end up in a cast. But even if I was innocent (and I was) on that occasion, I was guilty of the failed attempts. Several of them. Okay, many of them.
But when I was going through the divorce, when almost all of the friends that were both my wife's and mine basically turned their backs on me (though I'd never even tried to break a one of their arms), it was my brother and his wife who helped me clean up the house. It was my brother who came down and showed me how to pull a toilet when Mo had plugged it with toys and I couldn't afford a plumber. When we couldn't get it cleared, he decided to pop for a toilet for me.
I know, it's not the first thing you think of, but toilets are pretty important. Someone who will buy and install one, and even teach you what you'd need to know to do it next time it comes up, well, that's a hell of a brother.
That's just one thing; he's done a ton of others. He was there for me in a big way when my employer of ten years decided to throw me to the curb on false pretenses. And while I can't honestly claim to have had a genuine religious experience in the last 30+ years (if you don't allow brewing and jazz guitar as religions), and while he's deeply religious and would love to see me, as they say, saved, he's never pushed or been obnoxious about it.
Okay, yeah, there was one time when he read from Ezekiel (or something) while we were verbally sparring. But that was in junior high, and I was probably about to try and break his arm or something.
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