For my brother’s wedding I was told that I did not need to come up with a toast. This was fine by me. On the plane over to Ireland I began to get nervous that my brother’s plan for no toasts might not be the official plan and I wanted to be prepared. I began to develop a toast in my head and was quite happy with the result. At the wedding my brother’s new brother in law gave an unannounced toast and I almost followed him with what was rattling around in my head but alas I missed my chance. I now regret not saying something, especially since I had a toast sketched out in my brain. The toast has just been sitting in my head for some time and I feel the need to get it out. From my head to the internet’s web:
I’m Brady’s brother, Brien. As most of you know or have just found out I am his twin brother and since I have known him for about 32 years would just like to say a few words.
I know these things are supposed to start out with a joke, but the only one I know is about a man who fell into a lens grinding machine… and my dad is the only person who thinks it’s funny.
For those who don’t know, Brady is an outdoorsman and in our younger days we would backpack and rock climb quite a bit. One summer our friends Dan, Gary and Ken decided to hike into the Adirondacks and do some rock climbing. Brady and I decided to go, not for the rock climbing but instead for the hiking and camping.
The climb they decided to do would take all day and the plan was that Brady and I would hike up the side of the mountain with water and their boots to meet them at the top when they finished their climb. I am much more of a planner, which is a nice way to say I worry about everything, and was concerned about finding them at the top of the mountain. This is the Adirondacks we are talking about, a densely forested vast wilderness. The hike up the mountain would take several hours and we only had a topographical map as a reference. Brady, had no worries and was confident we would just meet them at the top of this mountain.
So, after watching Dan, Gary and Ken start up the steep cliff, Brady and I scrambled up the side of the mountain. Around mid day were felt that were at the top. I used some of my land navigation skills to triangulate our position and believed were right at the top of the cliff. The only problem was we could not actually see the top of the cliff. For the next several hours we searched for the side of the mountain and found nothing. Luckily, I had insisted that we establish a specific time to return back to base camp if something went wrong, which now it clearly had. Around 4:00 pm we headed back down the mountain and promptly got lost.
Now it is one thing to be lost in your car driving around a city looking for an address, it is quite another to be lost in thousands of miles of wilderness. After a few arguments about which way we should head, I started to feel myself panic. It’s the kind of panic you get when the sun is going down; you have no idea which direction to head and can only see miles and miles of forest. Brady looked at the map and pointed a direction and said that we were going to head towards the river. I looked at the map and saw several rivers all heading different direction. Brady just started walking and I followed. As the sun dropped closer to the horizon my panic grew. I focused on following Brady.
We walked for an hour or more before we reached the river. Once there Brady again pointed and started walking along the high river bank. I followed. Another hour passed until we came across a path. I instantly recognized it as the trail to our base camp. The panic that I was fighting for the past several hours was replaced by waves of relief. I looked at Brady and could tell it had just been a walk in the woods for him. He started down the path. “Are you coming?” he asked, and I followed.
Bree, you are very lucky to have Brady in your life. If you ever find yourself lost and beginning to panic, I know Brady will be there to get you back to the path.
Congratulations and best wishes on a very happy marriage.