while listening to the Messiah

When he was little, my brother Phillip used to cry at certain pieces of music. At church, I'd look over and tears would be flowing along his cheeks; he was 4 or 5. It didn't have to be something big like the Messiah, but none of us ever sat him down and played him our records systematically to figure out what touched him even though we were enough insensitive as big sisters and brothers to have tried it -- we just weren't sufficiently organized or empirical. Vocal music usually didn't do it, that much I remember. Given our familial quietness about emotional events, it makes sad sense that, after he got older, we never talked about it, he and I. I think Walter and I might have talked about it at the funeral, after tequila; I might have mentioned it in the eulogy, thinking of Phillip standing in the sun after biking, glowing.

I miss Phillip.