My brother, Jeremy, went missing back in 2007. He quit his job, changed his phone number, moved. Disappeared without telling a soul. After a long and extensive search, no sign of him could be found.
Jeremy frequently spent time in the South, photographing Civil War battlefields, often on his own. As the years rolled by and we heard nothing from him, I reached the conclusion that my brother was probably dead. Through accident or misdeed, something terrible had happened to him. He was gone forever.
I went from telling people that I didn’t know where my brother was to telling them that he had disappeared to explaining that Jeremy was presumed dead.
In 2012, I was preparing to perform at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. I was sitting in the café, nibbling on a bagel alongside my father-in-law and my editor, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Don’t I know you?”
I turned. It was Jeremy. Just minutes before I was to take the stage and perform for hundreds of people, my dead brother had come back to life.
Our reunion was made possible by a woman who had read my first novel and decided to learn more about me online. She found a blog post explaining the presumed fate of my brother.
She knew Jeremy. A year earlier, she had been working for him. She called Jeremy and told him that I’d been looking for him. During his disappearance, many things had changed in my life. I had published my first two novels and had begun performing onstage. My daughter, Clara, was born.
The woman knew that I was performing at the 92nd Street Y and convinced Jeremy to attend the show and reconnect with me.
He did. We spent about fifteen minutes in the café, catching up as quickly as possible.
Then I took the stage. Before telling my story, I explained to the audience what had just happened. I needed to say it aloud so I could move on to my story. They were as shocked as I was. My father-in-law says it was the only time in his life that he has seen me speechless.
I told a story onstage that night in which my brother played a role (of course). When I was finished, I found Jeremy standing in the back of the room. His first words to me were, “You messed up that story! You left out the best part!”
He was right. I can’t remember everything.
My brother and I have been in frequent contact ever since.
About a month after meeting in New York, Jeremy invited us over for dinner at his apartment, about an hour from my home. We invited the woman who reconnected us as well. Jeremy cooked a meal identical to what my mother would have cooked when we were children. We ate and laughed and shared stories.
When Jeremy bent over to pick up Clara to hug her at the end of the evening, I warned him that she would cry. Clara cried whenever anyone except for Elysha or me picked her up.
She was silent as Jeremy held her in his arms. Smiling, even. It was a damn miracle.
When my son, Charlie, was born later that year, Jeremy was the first person I called from the delivery room.
You never know who you’re going to meet at a storytelling show.