Charlie Brown and Suzy Q

 

I just got the devastating news that my brother Larry died.

Lawrence Scott Coutermarsh was born on 2/22/1961, on Washington's Birthday.  I can never forget that because he would always remind me.  He said to me, "MY birthday is on Washington's Birthday - father of our country, greatest president ever; we even live in a white house - while YOUR birthday is on the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire and other disasters!"

The funny thing about his saying that is that it caused HIM to always remember MY birthday!  While a young adult (to make a long story short) he was in a horrible accident.  One of the effects was losing bits of his memory, like most birthdays...but mine stuck.  He called me almost every year.

We were 3-1/2 years apart; he was older.  He was the stereotypical big brother.  He would torment me & I'd run & tattle.  When I was dating he would intimidate my dates.  However, we also played together a lot.  There was a show we watched called "Pixanne" and we would pretend to be in her magic forest: I'd be Pixanne and he would be Pixandy.

He was the first roommate I clearly remember.  We had bunk beds: he had the top.  Yes, we did the "draw a line on the floor; this is YOUR side & this is MY side", which was a trip, considering the bunk beds.  We seemed to always go opposite of each other: I'd like red, he'd like blue; I liked Frankenstein, he liked Dracula; I watched Sesame Street, he watched Dark Shadows.  When we were little, agreeing on anything was not our strong suit.

Our Pepere called him "Charlie Brown" and me "Suzy Q".

At one time he started a Horror Movie Club with his friends in our cellar.  One day I was looking for my favorite doll.  She was really big - as big as me - with a ragdoll-style body.  Well...I found her.  He had used it as a prop for his club.  It wasn't pretty.

He had a task in elementary school when I was in 1st grade.  He would run down to the little store down the street to get the teachers' lunches.  My teacher would often send me to give him her order.  I thought it was so cool that he had this job, and I felt cool being the messenger.

When he was a teenager & I was in my "tweens" he didn't mind if his friends liked me.  He had this one female friend who, if she called him & he wasn't home, would talk to me.  She even invited me to a party that she was inviting Larry to (he wasn't home, and of course I didn't go). 

The older we got, the closer we got.  I was horribly bullied in school and he offered to teach me self-defense.  Mom forbid it, so he loaned me an album of guitar music.  That was what the album sleeve said; inside was a self-defense instruction record (It didn't work for me, tho).  Sometimes, when I would have a party he would up the attendance by letting me tell people that he would be there (he was very popular; I was not).

I remember many a Tuesday evening sitting on the living room floor watching "Happy Days" with him. 

His personality was unique.  He was one of those blessed people who, 5 minutes after meeting him, you loved him.  Everybody loved Larry.   He was fun and funny and boisterous and outgoing.  He was also very energetic.  He didn't go for sports per se, but in his lifetime he  skateboarded, studied martial arts, lifted weights, competed in bodybuilding competitions, was a boxer and a bullrider, and competed in the The Sadler's Ultra Challenge, which is a wheelchair and handcycle race that runs between Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska (this one was after his aforementioned accident).  He holds the record for the most times competing in it; they even named an award after him.

Since he lived in Alaska we didn't get together nearly as often as we would have liked in our adulthood, but every time we did, there would be lots of hugs.  One of my favorite visits was when he came down to NH to visit our parents ON my birthday, and he even had a gift for me.

I will miss him horribly; however, I know he'll always be with me, and I see him in my own daughter, who is so much like him.