Lucy

My youngest brother called me this morning and woke me up from a lovely dream. I was actually dreaming of him and my family in the Middle East. It was an incredible surprise to hear his voice on the other line.

He is seventeen years younger than me and the first time that I met him I was 23. I was nervous for our first meeting and was afraid that he wouldn't like me. The minute we met, we both sat there in complete silence and stared each other down. I think I was more intimidated by him than he was of me.

Days went by and he wouldn't say a word to me. Just stared. I felt let down. I really wanted him to like me. Our relationship was interesting, we did everything in silence. We colored in silence. We played with cars and ate happy meals together in complete silence.

It's not like he didn't ever talk, because he talked. He would chat away in Arabic and English but when I was around not a word was ever spoken.

By the end of my trip I kind of gave up on him wanting to talk to me.  I was completely surprised when he walked up to me and hugged my legs and said to me "Layla, you are my sister and I love you." My mouth literally dropped. From that moment on, I couldn't get him to stop talking.

Today he called me to tell me about his new cat Lucy. He was going on and on about how much he loved her and how he was excited to have a new cat. He asked me if I had a cat and when I told him that I did, he wanted to see her for himself.

So we Skyped and he was so excited to meet Flora. He even introduced Lucy to Flora. He watched Flora eat some treats and then told Lucy that she doesn't get to eat treats like Flora because he didn't want her to get fat. It cracked me up.

It makes me smile to think about him. I'm glad I won him over.