I'm Adelimo and this is The Slowdown.

I was with my older brother last week and it was such a joy to spend time with him and

his family.

One of the things I try not to take for granted is how being together is about reliving our

shared memories, the storytelling that happens between siblings.

We remember our paternal grandfather coming in still singing loudly from Christmas

Mass, Boystress, ecstatic while we had been suddenly waiting on the couch watching movies.

We remember our uncle Charles and how much he made us laugh, his sarcastic humor, ricocheting

off our childhood bodies like some forbidden new music we didn't know existed.

We remember the uncles reciting the famous rhyming poem The Cremation of Sam McGee, late

one night after our dad's marriage to Cynthia.

Sitting in our backyard in the lingering July heat and watching these brothers crack each

other up over and over until we were laughing too though we weren't sure why.

We keep each other in check too.

He corrects me if I've misditributed a quote or I correct him if he misremembers a moment

or a specific event.

Our little brother Bryce who is 15 years younger than me and 17 years younger than Cyrus

also remembers so much.

We try to remind him of the grandfather and the uncle that he barely knew because they

died before he was old enough to really remember them well.

Together the three of us are the keepers of many communal memories and there's something

that feels almost like alchemy about it.

...