My brother-in-law Kevin turned 60 yesterday. He’s too far away to pummel me for announcing his age to everybody (not that he would.) Next week is the same milestone for my big sister (his wife), and I’ll see them both that weekend, so they can save up the pummeling. I plan on doing my part to spoil them both.

I am eternally grateful Kevin came into our family many years ago. I have no doubt in my mind it was providential, foreordained, or in other words, Kevin didn’t stand a chance of getting out of this one! My mother always said if Beth didn’t choose Kevin, one of her other daughters would have. I think it was supposed to be Beth that earned the prize, though. She and Kevin have been good for each other, and of course they are very special to the rest of us in the family.

Kevin and my other brother-in-law Tom are like brothers to me, and I love them more than life.

Kevin had some challenges growing up, but I believe that shaped him into the unique and wonderful person he is. He grew up without a father and as I recall didn’t meet his dad until he was about 18. That might have been the only time they physically met. They never had a father-son relationship. Nonetheless, I think Kevin would have made a great father himself, if that had been “in the cards,” but it wasn’t. (My folks have had to settle for fur-faced “grandchildren,” but they’ve never complained.)

Kevin was raised by two women, one of them now deceased, and the three of them moved relatively frequently through his growing-up years. His genealogy includes some “gypsy” blood, so I guess that was to be expected. His mom, a retired nurse, lives on the West Slope, so family holidays are split between her place and our folks’ place in Pueblo.

Kevin was living in Craig at the time when fate or Providence (I believe the latter) brought him into our family. We had moved there in the mid 1970’s, and that is where I went to high school. I think Beth had attended four different high schools in as many years, and she spent her senior year at Moffat County High, where Kevin and I also attended. Mamma worked at the newspaper in Craig, and so did Kevin. (It was one of many jobs he has held, although he has worked in graphic design companies for quite a while now.)

He asked my mother if Beth might be interested in going on a date, and what she might like to do. I think they went to dinner, something they still enjoy doing.

I don’t know if it was love at first sight or not, but at some point it stuck, and Kevin was pulled completely into the family a few years later. He also joined our church family, and we were glad to welcome him into both.

Kevin and Beth spent about a decade in the outskirts of Detroit where Beth was a teacher before they moved to Denver where they have been ever since. Beth switched careers and is now a paralegal with a family law firm in downtown Denver.

Although Kevin has a “day job” that pays the bills, he is an artist (and a bit of a comic) in his soul. He doesn’t have as much time or energy to draw and paint as his talents would prefer, but he still does some. I think at least at one time he dreamed of becoming a Disney illustrator, and he and Beth are still big fans of “the mouse.”

In recent years he has become a self-taught musician and even constructed his own instruments. He is into stringed instruments like the guitar and ukulele, and sometimes when he’s playing around with them, the rest of us get to eavesdrop a bit. It’s probably good therapy for having to live and work in the big city.

My big brother Kevin, like my big sister, is generous and caring, smart, philosophical, funny and artistic. He can come up with some profound statements when we least expect it, or just as easily a jab at the funny bone.

I am so grateful God has blessed the world with Kevin — 60 years of awesomeness!