Brother

The grief and loss we've all been feeling is still so raw, I thought I should phone my brother, Myke, to see how he was coping with it all.

Then I remembered it was his funeral I'd recently come back from...

Back in my early 20s, Myke would create epic sci-fi/fantasy war games on a table-tennis table. Based on our Dungeons and Dragons, and Warhammer figures, along with bits of Lego, scraps of wood, weird found objects, and anything else he thought would make a good battle-ground, these games would last all day, sometimes several days.

No one who ever played them would forget the improvised catapults using a ruler, a tobacco tin, and a chewed up bit of paper. There was just as much chance of blowing up your own troops as there was hitting the actual enemy.

With the points system Myke had devised for creating our armies, I would always put together an elite team of space marines – heavily weaponed and armoured. Myke, on the other hand, would go for a mass army of low-tech orcs and goblins.

As the younger brother, I would feel an intense rivalry – an overwhelming desire to beat my big brother.

I would meticulously and strategically secure each section of the board before moving onto the next.

Myke, on the other hand, would do things like strap a bunch of explosives to a lone goblin on a motorcycle and charge him towards the gates of my castle.

9 times out of 10, I would easily shoot him down before he got close enough to do any damage. But every now and then, the dice would be against me – the goblin would get through and cause absolute devastation – to Myke's (and everyone else who was playing) absolute delight.

But because I was methodical and strategic, and Myke was more chaotic, I would ultimately win most of the games.

But Myke always had more fun.

Somehow this felt unfair. I worked so hard to win, so I deserved to feel the best about it. But Myke didn't care about losing, so long as he had fun.

In some ways, this defined my relationship with my big brother.

I was always more ambitious, looking for opportunities to grow, achieve, and win.

But Myke just wanted to have fun.

As I grew older, I became far more interested in looking at ways everyone could win – so everyone would feel they gained from the experience. And I've always worked hard and been strategic to  make this happen.

But Myke – he just wanted everyone to have fun.

For decades, we would chat on the phone for about 5 minutes, once a year, when I would phone him on his birthday. Our lives, and our outlooks, were so different, that the conversations never really got going.

I knew he loved me, and he knew I loved him, but it never felt like we had much in common.

During the summer of 2022, Meg and I went down to Devon to visit. Myke and I spent a bit longer together, and finally connected at a level I hadn't thought would happen.

Because we gave each other enough time, we tuned into each other much more, and I finally started to understand him at a different level.

I am heartbroken that we didn't get the chance to build on that connection we made last year.

But I will forever be grateful we had that bit of time together.

Michael Charles Ayres  - 25th October 1962 to 25th November 2023

Siblings - photo taken by Meg in 2022 - the last one of the 3 of us together