foliage

For my siblings

Find someone who makes you laugh so hard, your nose starts bleeding. Someone who’ll press a cold washcloth to your nose to make that bleeding stop (but not necessarily the laughter). Someone who buys you flowers when your sister’s cat dies, and someone who drives you and your cat to the pet ER when your cat is dying. Someone who buys you flowers even when no one’s cat has died. Someone who keeps houseplants and remembers to water them. Someone who helps you catch a foot-long plecostomus with a pillowcase, and someone who drives that bucket-filled-with-an-oversized-fish to the pet store to put it up for adoption. Someone who changes your sister’s oil out of courtesy, and someone who offers to wash your car for you because “you probably shouldn’t return a leased vehicle looking like that.” Someone who drops everything to change his sister’s flat tire, and someone who gives his mother raspberries to ease the tension when they don’t see eye to eye. Someone who answers the phone when his father, mother, sisters, brother, ex-brother-in-law, brother-in-laws, best friends, friends, and acquaintances call. Someone who washes dishes and vacuums and mops, not because it’s a chore, but because it’s the right thing to do. Someone who’s got so much life, la naturaleza would be jealous. Find someone who knows how to take care of himself before he knows how to take care of you.