I was in my grandparents staring at the gravel-like ceiling hanging over my head thinking about all the good times my brother and I have had together. Whenever I'm around him, I feel special because I know he won't ever let me down. One time when some older kids were bothering me, he took care of them.

The sun went down and I was wondering where Tod was. Then out of nowhere he appeared with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

We stared at each other for a couple of seconds and then we ran halfway across the room and he took his strong hands, clenched my rib cage and lifted me into the air, and I could see how much he had been lifting because his back bulged with muscles as we fell onto the bed in tears of laughter.

I felt really good because the last time I had seen him was a week before, but that had been on television when he was cheering on Duke to beat Notre Dame in basketball. We talked about how he was doing at Duke and about girls, but I can't share that conversation .

We slapped on our bathing suits and headed for the beach to play some football and go swimming in the ocean. For the first time I stared into his eyes, focusing mostly on the brilliant blue color standing out on the powerful white background, but what really fascinated me were the little vein-like structures going through them, separating the whites of his eyes into a million different sections. Then I stared more, hoping to find out whether if I grew eight inches, gained 85 pounds and lifted to get a good body, I would be just like he was.

We didn't play football too long because Tod threw the ball too high and it hit a lady in the head. We laughed so hard that when we went in the water we almost drowned. The waves crashed over us like a giant walking through a town of midgets.

The next day Tod had to leave and I was really upset. We'd had so much fun together and I wouldn't see him until May when he got out of college. But mostly I was sad because I have had the best times of my life with Tod. n