Twenty-Three

My very young apprentice

Twenty-three years ago, Mom bought me a Bible at a church function aimed at keeping kids off the streets on Halloween. I don't remember much about the function, only that Mom bought me a beautiful, leather-bound Bible that was written in language easy to understand by children. The Bible even had some pictures in it. Being the bookworm that I was am, I dove into the stories of the Bible, reading them chapter by chapter. Some very interesting things happened back in those days.
A couple of weeks later, I was reading the story of Moses when my little brother came to the world. For those of you who are not familiar with the story of Moses, let me recap it for you real quick. Moses was born from Jewish parents in Egypt at the time when the Jews were slaves of the Egyptians. Fearing for his life, Moses' mother took him to the Nile river and placed afloat on a basket. Moses' sister followed baby Moses as he made his way down the river. Luckily, an Egyptian Princess picked up baby Moses and raised him as her own. He became one of the princes of Egypt. (There's even a Disney movie about it.) When my Mom asked me for a name for my new little brother, I named him "Moises", Spanish for Moses. His middle name "David", came also from the Bible. David was one of the great kings of Israel.
Moises turns twenty-three this week, and it was has been a very, very interesting twenty-three years for me, let alone for him. Through those years as his older brother, I learned about responsibility, about being a role-model, and about being held to a higher standard because he would eventually look at me for guidance. Sure, there were the "rough" times when sibling rivalry got a little out of hand, but it was never anything that drove us away permanently. He knows I'm here for him for any reason, and I know he's there for me. Thankfully, life has not gotten complicated enough to warrant either of us coming to the rescue of the other under emergency circumstances.
So, congratulations, little brother, you've made it to 23. You've already beat our most of the people in Swaziland, where you'd be a town elder. With the schooling you've received, you've already beat our almost 90% of Hispanics in the U.S. With all the things you've done, and will do, all the things you've seen, and will see, and all the good you'll do... With all of that, you'll truly be one in almost 7 billion.