Jacob Hunter

Jacob, AKA, MY little brother

My LITTLE brother. That towers over me at a whopping 6'2. Plays varsity procrastination, Cross Country, participated in high jump, discus, javelin, 15/3, distance medley, and hurtles in Track. Rocked the world of FFA, grew leaps and bounds in 4-H, and is the CEO of annoying me and making me laugh all in the same hour.

I will use bad humor in this blog, because I am very sad and yet happy to be writing it and I don't know how else to handle my emotions.

It all started on a day I don't remember. Mom brought baby Jacob home from the hospital, and I guess from that day on, we were best friends. Jake and I did everything together. I was, of course, the bad influence (hehe)

I was there to convince him to eat an entire tub of ice cream with me on the back porch. I was there to convince him to coat himself in mud, and get in all sorts of trouble with me.

Ugh. I'm really going to miss him. When we were little, we  always played together. We threw objects at the highway (accidentally hitting a cop car with a rock, we were less than 3), climbed in trees to look at eagle eggs, and having dance parties in our shared room, because I was destroying all the pretty things in my older sisters room.

Somehow, Jacob always ended up getting hurt. One time, we were playing in the tire swing my dad made us (while we lived in Colfax) and my sister and I had wound him up so high, that when we let go, the speed of the swing and the weight of my tiny little brother snapped the rope. It was kinda amusing to watch his feet flying around and around so fast until the rope broke and he ended up on the ground.

When we moved to Oregon, we played in the lawn barefoot and ran around our neighborhood together, meeting friends on the streets and riding our bikes around the school grounds after hours. As we got older, our fun became listening to music in our cars while we drove literally anywhere, jumping in the lake fully clothed, eating Ben and Jerri's outside in the summer, and sitting on one of the freezers in our garage, eating our parents ice cream.

Jake has always been my best friend. No matter what age, or stage of life, or even the activity we were doing. Even when I had my little friends in grade school. Jacob was my best friend. He is loyal, and smart and brave. He makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe and I cry, he pushes me harder when we run together and I want to jog but that's not really *working out* (apparently)

He has always had my back. We used to camp outside all summer, close enough to the house that we still had WiFi, and we would stay up giggling over memes all night. When Billy and I started dating, we would even look at memes and laugh with him too, even if he could just hear us wheezing at ourselves over the phone.

He gets me milkshakes and slides chocolate bars under my door when I am too upset to be normal. He makes jokes until I crack a smile, and then he just starts being a goof. He costs me tons of money in gas, because he sticks his feet out the window of my car and creates massive wind drag. We face mask together, when we were younger, he let me do his makeup and dress him up (he was really little)

He was my date to every high school dance, my date to go get fries and a shake on a hot summer day, the weirdo that ate popcorn with chopsticks at youth group, the insane one that jumped in the lake, fully clothed with me after I graduated high school, and the shocker that delivered a sentimental, yet odd speech at my Alt. Ed. graduation. He was even my buddy to talk to on long late night walks to clear our heads and get fresh air.

The thing is. I am really going to miss Jacob. Leaving for college was hard for me, because I knew that my best friend on the planet was going to be in a completely different state than me. We even had a plan, that he was going to college somewhere close so we could hang out. We have even made plans of being friends with each others spouses and hanging out and living in some southern state and noodling (I guess that's a form of fishing?).

This year, my little brother will be graduating from EHS, and going the the University of Idaho in the fall. He has worked so insanely hard to get a ton of scholarships, and graduating with stellar grades. He has been a best friend to many 4-H campers, a leader in every situation that needed one, an ambitious achiever in FFA, and a loyal, loyal brother to me.

I am so proud of him.

God knew that life for us was going to be interesting and challenging, so he blessed me with a little brother. There is so much to say. So much love to express. I'm so proud of him and blown away by his amazing accomplishments and the man he is becoming. I could write an entire book and the adventures of Jake and I. I do not know how things will play out after he leaves for college, and I get married and move to Lord knows where. I just really really freaking hope that we stay a part of each others lives.

         conGRADulations, Jacob Hunter, I will be cheering you on, no matter where I am.