My brother John is a stocky man. You'd notice his smirk first, probably, and next his wickedly dry sense of humor. This man can do deadpan like no one else.

John is five years younger than me, but almost wasn't.

First reason: my dad got a vasectomy about two weeks before my mother found out she was pregnant. My parents were going for one girl, me, and one boy, the one that was supposed to come second. The only twist in their plans was that I got a sister instead of a brother. He was to be named Erik, so my sister is Erika. My brother is John Erik, an Anglicization of our paternal great-grandfather's name, Jon-Erik.

Second reason: My brother almost died in a car accident when he was 17. It was the day after President's day, 1988 (I think that was the year) and he was on his way to alternative high school. He recalls nothing of that day, but the driver of the U-Haul truck (yes) said my brother's head was down as he rounded the last corner of Maplewood Hill. The U-Haul driver slowed to about 5mph, and my brother hit him head on.

The engine, a 396 (this means large), came directly into his legs through the firewall. The impact pushed the steering wheel into John's chest, leaving marks shaped like the concave spots where the driver's fingers would rest while driving. The force of the crash pushed John through the upholstery of the front seat, shearing the front seat off its bolts. John had to be cut from my father's prized 1962 Impala. He would have been flown to Harborview, but the helicopter was busy.

As he was rushed to Harborview in an ambulance, the police investigated the crash as if my brother would die. They took all the extra evidence, just in case. A friend's mom, who rented our grandparents' house from my dad, drove by and recognized the car. My parents were called immediately anyway, as my dad had been a volunteer firefighter for 25 years in our town, and everyone knew the car.

I remember driving to Harborview and then just sitting around. John had 9 hours of emergency surgery to set his wrist, re-inflate his lung (which luckily wasn't punctured, just forced flat and stuck to itself), and to pin and plate his pelvis and femur. It took 4 or 5 days for him to wake up. He had a cranial pressure monitor bolted into his skull, but his brain never swelled. In fact, there were no internal injuries to organs. This is miraculous, for what the police estimated to be a 35mph crash.

My mother made one of her hardest decisions that day. She allowed the surgeons to give my brother blood. For those who don't know, Jehovah's Witnesses interpret the Old Testament dietary law prohibiting the eating of blood to mean any ingestion of blood by whatever means. Therefore, they do not have blood transfusions. My mom knew that she could not make that decision for my brother. He took 9 units. He would have certainly died without blood.

After a week or two in ICU, my brother was moved to Group Health Eastside Hospital, where he spent five weeks healing his bones. He had a CPM (constant passive motion) machine to exercise his hip and leg. He peed into a cup thing because he couldn't stand or walk. (My mother said he wouldn't have trouble with the girls, which, frankly, is more than I needed to know about my brother's endowments.)

When he was cleared to go home, he started out in a wheelchair, then used a walker, and finally just a cane.

The November after the accident, a mere 9 months later, he felt great and decided to go skiing. He went easy on the impact, and was having a lot of fun, until the cold hit the metal plates and pins. He said that pain was more intense than anything he had gone through with his recuperation. He doesn't try to ski anymore. Tough, since he was shredder on the old skateboard, pre-accident.

He eventually had another surgery to remove all the plates and pins. He saved them and shows them to people once in a while. He's funny like that.

There are residual problems. His kneecap doesn't track right. His tendons are sort of in the wrong places. He's had a number of meniscal tears. He really just needs a knee replacement, but Group Health wouldn't give him one because he was, at 35, "too young". What a crock. He's overweight and debilitated, and they won't give him a knee that would give him almost 20 years without pain. If I were rich, I'd give him a knee tomorrow.

He isn't without mobility, and he doesn't really whine or moan. He adjusted. He bought a Wave Runner last year, so he can have fun on the water without skiing. He has learned to airbrush like a pro, and I see him working up to getting seriously paid for it. He rides a Yamaha R-1, one of the fastest motorcycles around, and he even has disabled plates (which are looked upon quite skeptically, but hey, riding doesn't hurt).

His wife is a saint, too, but that's another entry entirely.

My brother is alive, and that's a good thing. Now if we could just get him to stop saying the F word in front of our mom.