It's T-minus 2 weeks and counting to the wedding. I know that I'm not really losing a brother but gaining a sister in law. And believe me when I say, there is no other person in the world I would wish for happiness more than my brother, not even myself. But it's Bittersweet too. At the same time my heart sings for his happiness, I'm also saying goodbye to some things I will desperately miss. And I know I'll still have those things, but they'll be different. They'll be him only more guarded and protective. More anxious to get home early and he'll have to call to check with her first. I didn't feel this way at all when my other brother married SL. Probably because SL and I had been friends since we were kids, I introduced them. She was already family. When I go there to visit, most times I'm going to hang with her. This is a totally different thing.

When I heard the news and gave my obligatory sisterly speech – the one request I made was a "Last Supper" just the two of us, like times of old. I didn't even have to say the words "Last Supper" out loud. He said them, as I was thinking them. In one of those mind reading moments that can only come with time, from siblings, by blood.

So, yesterday I went to my brother's house for my last Slump dinner and a movie. That is to say, quality sister / brother time before the new bride moves in and the whole dynamic shifts. It's not really about the Slump (although that's a big part of it) I have the recipe and can make it myself. But It always tastes better when he makes it for me.

I know it sounds dramatic but there was a time not too long ago when dateless Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons would not be cause for melancholy or wallow because there was always a hot pot of Slump on the stove and some classic movies with cheesey one- liners that only we would find disturbingly funny. Like Mommy Dearest "No wire hangers!!!" Coal Miners Daughter, or Urban Cowboy, "Sissy, I wanna 'pologize clear back to the first time I'ah hit you!" A toasty glass of merlot, and the good company of one of the only men in the world who truly understands me. The way only a brother can.

When we were little, we would fight like cats and dogs. I would become furious when he would call me "blow lip" because I had these big lips and it took me a while to grow into them. We were competitive and we'd play cobra snake pellets the ones you'd light on fire and they would grow and hiss. Rockem' sockem' robots and super elastic bubble plastic. Later we would stay up all night having Atari and Nintendo wars and he didn't even get mad at me when I got older and started dating his friends. Instead he welcomed me into their fold as a sister and a friend.

I always worried it would be me to settle down first, leaving him in the boat I'm in now. The unmarried one. The one who gets singled out at family functions and pinned in the corner from the well-meaning aunt, "So when are you gonna be next dear?!" Trust me it's already happening. In a way, I'm glad it's me dealing with that crap and not him. I think I'm better equipped with the smarmy one-liners and quick comebacks that always make them regret saying it. Until the next time.

I guess some small part of me always pictured us being old fogies, still eating Slump in our 70's, still single, still laughing at the same old movies, but not alone b/c we'd have each other. It sounds funny I know, but now I have different vision in my head. Now I have this thick lump in my throat that's making me both sad and happy at the same time. I know I'm going to cry at the wedding even thought I detest losing my composure in public. This is a huge problem for me. I think I know how a father must feel walking his daughter down the aisle, giving her away. In a way that's what I feel like is happening here. It's the end of an era…