All of my life I got in the habit of telling people that as children, my brother Charles and I weren’t close growing up. As many of you know, Charles was adopted and I was perfectly happy being an only child on the eve of going to Disneyland with my doting parents when suddenly they were summoned to Albuquerque to pick up a squirming baby that no one even told me was coming and that I definitely never wanted or approved of.

Adoptions in the seventies weren’t the kumbaya, months of preparation that they seem to be today. As near as I can tell, parents put their name on a list and then waited, and if a baby showed up, the next family in line was given one chance and no notice to accept. Instead of Disneyland, we drove to Albuquerque where a smiling adoption agency worker stuck my baby brother on the floorboard of the car at my mother’s feet in the passenger seat. I know the child seat enforcers are all cringing but babies in the seventies rode on the floorboards or loose in the backseat... Read more or in their mother’s arms (and it’s likely my mother wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt either). It was like picking up a takeout order at the local drive through, and most of his life, I told my brother he was a “blue light special at Kmart”. Some of the younger crowd won’t get that reference but those of you who do know how mean that was.

I did a lot of mean things to my baby brother. I took his favorite stuffed animal and stuck it in the oven with the light on and told him I was going to “cook his duck”. I tickled him until he peed or cried or both. I told him scary stories to give him nightmares (to be fair, I did that to a lot of people I knew). I told him me and my friends were witches and we were going to conjure ghosts in his closet or monsters under his bed (to be fair, I did that to other people I knew too--I was a weird kid). I helped myself to his belongings, including his “huggy” pillow and other precious things that I wanted for myself.

Yet in the last three weeks since my brother passed, when I started to think about our childhood and the time we spent together, I began reminiscing about road trips to Kansas, Oregon, California (we did all finally make it to Disneyland), the state fair, the balloon fiesta. I remember how we always stopped at Dunkin Donuts in Santa Fe on the way to Albuquerque. I thought about us playing Noah’s ark on my bed with my stuffed animals and Barbie dolls and building forts under every available piece of furniture, including the steel ironing board that I accidentally collapsed onto Charles’ face (it really was an accident! Although our mother never believed that). I thought about camping trips to Bandelier and sleeping on the patio under the stars and walking the neighbor’s dog and catching tadpoles and frogs, cicadas and tarantulas, caterpillars and butterflies, and horned toads. We drove our mother nuts with all the critters we brought home and tried to build habitats for. I remember skateboarding and ice skating and tennis and swimming lessons. You can all guess who was better at tennis and swimming. I remember going to Chuck’s little league and soccer games and swim meets and him being dragged to the science fair or my plays and musical performances, even volunteering him for Brigadoon because they wanted children for the cast. I remembered board games and TV dinners, which we strangely thought of as exotic and exciting, and fondue and Pong and Atari. I remembered baking and decorating cookies with our mom and painting ornaments and decorating for Christmas. I remember fighting over the advent calendar and acting annoyed that I had to take my little brother trick or treating when secretly I was happy that I could still dress up and go out long past the time I should have stopped. I remember pretending to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy for my baby brother’s sake (and also so I could keep getting presents from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!)

So no, growing up we were a lot closer than we probably wanted to be. We lived in the same house and ate (mostly) the same food and slept in bedrooms just feet apart and sat in the back seat or the pickup truck bed together on countless family outings. In point of fact, growing up, we could hardly get away from each other.

So when I went to college, that’s when we grew apart, at least for a period of time. He fathered Zjael and graduated high school and I flunked out of college and eventually moved to Albuquerque and got married. But I remember when my marriage started to implode, the person who knew about it first was Charles, not because I told him, but because he knew me so well. He was in Albuquerque by then too and when I’d finally had enough he told me “pack your stuff, I’m coming to get you”. He took me in until I moved to Florida and he even offered to beat up my ex. Come to think about it, as a little kid he offered to beat up my a lot of my exes, and he probably could have done it even then.

At one point Chuck moved to Portland and you could say we were about as far apart geographically as humanly possible and still both be in the United States. We kept in touch with our parents but less so with each other. Then, when our mother was dying, Chuck gave up everything in Oregon to move back to New Mexico. Looking back, I realize what a huge, extraordinary sacrifice that must have been, but he never complained or blamed or resented. He spent his life serving and helping people, even sometimes against his own interests. He was a hard and reliable worker at all of his jobs, and he cultivated more lifetime friendships than anyone I know. He was kind and generous and silly and selfless and he reminded all of us not to take ourselves too seriously. In the end he got the dog he wanted, the girl he wanted, the relationship with his daughter that he wanted, the grandchildren he wanted, and even, I hope, the sister he wanted; that’s why his sudden passing feels so tragic and unfair.

For someone who mostly wanted to get away from my little brother, what I wouldn’t give for more time with him now. I want another text or phone call calling me silly sister. I want another photo of his dog or a plate of food at the local restaurant or the latest record purchase or the new mohawk color. I want to see him playing with our dogs or calling my kitty “cute” and blasting records and hanging out with his friends. I want to go to one more concert or watch one more episode of some old timey tv show or one more scary movie on Netflix.

I’m so grateful that he convinced us all to go to our Uncle Bob’s funeral this past January. He told me “pack your stuff and fly to Dallas, I’m coming to get you”. After the funeral, he drove us all back to New Mexico like a bat out of hell but it felt like we would never get there. Now every moment of the four of us and the dog driving for two days across Texas, staying in an overpriced, unimpressive hotel, arguing about what music to listen to and who ate all the corn nuts, is precious and irreplaceable. When I went back to Florida at the end of that trip, he sent me away with a gigantic bag of Jordan almonds because he knows I love them and a much too quick hug.

When it’s my turn to leave this earth, I want my little brother to grab the dogs and the cats, the Jordan almonds or corn nuts or whatever passes for snacks in heaven, and to say “I’m here to get you, silly sis”.

Thank you everyone for coming to pay your respects to the remarkable, irreplaceable cult of personality that was my baby brother. Thank you for loving him and, by extension, loving us.

My brother wasn’t a churchy guy but I do believe he was a man of faith. I’d like to say a prayer for him, but mostly for those of us who are left behind.

Father in Heaven, I know that my Redeemer lives and that after this body is gone, I shall see God in the flesh. Thank You for the grace and mercy that allows us to come to the altar even when we are broken and our faith is tested. Thank You for the blessing that was Charles Lee Builta. Please bless and keep him until we are reunited. Thank You for his legacy of friendship, family, compassion and service. Help us to be good stewards of that legacy and to support and love one another the way he loved us. Help us to never forget the fun and laughter that he brought into our lives. Give us strength through our grief and give us joy and peace when the pain diminishes. Help us to take the lessons from his life that each of us needs to be better. Thank You for the plan of salvation that was fulfilled in Jesus and that we celebrate on Easter weekend. It is in His name we pray. Amen and Amen. Read less

All of my life I got in the habit of telling people that as children, my brother Charles and I weren’t close growing up. As many of you know, Charles was adopted and I was perfectly happy being an only child on the eve of going to Disneyland with my doting parents when suddenly they were summoned to Albuquerque to pick up a squirming baby that no one even told me was coming and that I definitely never wanted or approved of.

Adoptions in the seventies weren’t the kumbaya, months of preparation... Read more that they seem to be today. As near as I can tell, parents put their name on a list and then waited, and if a baby showed up, the next family in line was given one chance and no notice to accept. Instead of Disneyland, we drove to Albuquerque where a smiling adoption agency worker stuck my baby brother on the floorboard of the car at my mother’s feet in the passenger seat. I know the child seat enforcers are all cringing but babies in the seventies rode on the floorboards or loose in the backseat or in their mother’s arms (and it’s likely my mother wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt either). It was like picking up a takeout order at the local drive through, and most of his life, I told my brother he was a “blue light special at Kmart”. Some of the younger crowd won’t get that reference but those of you who do know how mean that was.

I did a lot of mean things to my baby brother. I took his favorite stuffed animal and stuck it in the oven with the light on and told him I was going to “cook his duck”. I tickled him until he peed or cried or both. I told him scary stories to give him nightmares (to be fair, I did that to a lot of people I knew). I told him me and my friends were witches and we were going to conjure ghosts in his closet or monsters under his bed (to be fair, I did that to other people I knew too--I was a weird kid). I helped myself to his belongings, including his “huggy” pillow and other precious things that I wanted for myself.

Yet in the last three weeks since my brother passed, when I started to think about our childhood and the time we spent together, I began reminiscing about road trips to Kansas, Oregon, California (we did all finally make it to Disneyland), the state fair, the balloon fiesta. I remember how we always stopped at Dunkin Donuts in Santa Fe on the way to Albuquerque. I thought about us playing Noah’s ark on my bed with my stuffed animals and Barbie dolls and building forts under every available piece of furniture, including the steel ironing board that I accidentally collapsed onto Charles’ face (it really was an accident! Although our mother never believed that). I thought about camping trips to Bandelier and sleeping on the patio under the stars and walking the neighbor’s dog and catching tadpoles and frogs, cicadas and tarantulas, caterpillars and butterflies, and horned toads. We drove our mother nuts with all the critters we brought home and tried to build habitats for. I remember skateboarding and ice skating and tennis and swimming lessons. You can all guess who was better at tennis and swimming. I remember going to Chuck’s little league and soccer games and swim meets and him being dragged to the science fair or my plays and musical performances, even volunteering him for Brigadoon because they wanted children for the cast. I remembered board games and TV dinners, which we strangely thought of as exotic and exciting, and fondue and Pong and Atari. I remembered baking and decorating cookies with our mom and painting ornaments and decorating for Christmas. I remember fighting over the advent calendar and acting annoyed that I had to take my little brother trick or treating when secretly I was happy that I could still dress up and go out long past the time I should have stopped. I remember pretending to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy for my baby brother’s sake (and also so I could keep getting presents from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!)

So no, growing up we were a lot closer than we probably wanted to be. We lived in the same house and ate (mostly) the same food and slept in bedrooms just feet apart and sat in the back seat or the pickup truck bed together on countless family outings. In point of fact, growing up, we could hardly get away from each other.

So when I went to college, that’s when we grew apart, at least for a period of time. He fathered Zjael and graduated high school and I flunked out of college and eventually moved to Albuquerque and got married. But I remember when my marriage started to implode, the person who knew about it first was Charles, not because I told him, but because he knew me so well. He was in Albuquerque by then too and when I’d finally had enough he told me “pack your stuff, I’m coming to get you”. He took me in until I moved to Florida and he even offered to beat up my ex. Come to think about it, as a little kid he offered to beat up my a lot of my exes, and he probably could have done it even then.

At one point Chuck moved to Portland and you could say we were about as far apart geographically as humanly possible and still both be in the United States. We kept in touch with our parents but less so with each other. Then, when our mother was dying, Chuck gave up everything in Oregon to move back to New Mexico. Looking back, I realize what a huge, extraordinary sacrifice that must have been, but he never complained or blamed or resented. He spent his life serving and helping people, even sometimes against his own interests. He was a hard and reliable worker at all of his jobs, and he cultivated more lifetime friendships than anyone I know. He was kind and generous and silly and selfless and he reminded all of us not to take ourselves too seriously. In the end he got the dog he wanted, the girl he wanted, the relationship with his daughter that he wanted, the grandchildren he wanted, and even, I hope, the sister he wanted; that’s why his sudden passing feels so tragic and unfair.

For someone who mostly wanted to get away from my little brother, what I wouldn’t give for more time with him now. I want another text or phone call calling me silly sister. I want another photo of his dog or a plate of food at the local restaurant or the latest record purchase or the new mohawk color. I want to see him playing with our dogs or calling my kitty “cute” and blasting records and hanging out with his friends. I want to go to one more concert or watch one more episode of some old timey tv show or one more scary movie on Netflix.

I’m so grateful that he convinced us all to go to our Uncle Bob’s funeral this past January. He told me “pack your stuff and fly to Dallas, I’m coming to get you”. After the funeral, he drove us all back to New Mexico like a bat out of hell but it felt like we would never get there. Now every moment of the four of us and the dog driving for two days across Texas, staying in an overpriced, unimpressive hotel, arguing about what music to listen to and who ate all the corn nuts, is precious and irreplaceable. When I went back to Florida at the end of that trip, he sent me away with a gigantic bag of Jordan almonds because he knows I love them and a much too quick hug.

When it’s my turn to leave this earth, I want my little brother to grab the dogs and the cats, the Jordan almonds or corn nuts or whatever passes for snacks in heaven, and to say “I’m here to get you, silly sis”.

Thank you everyone for coming to pay your respects to the remarkable, irreplaceable cult of personality that was my baby brother. Thank you for loving him and, by extension, loving us.

My brother wasn’t a churchy guy but I do believe he was a man of faith. I’d like to say a prayer for him, but mostly for those of us who are left behind.

Father in Heaven, I know that my Redeemer lives and that after this body is gone, I shall see God in the flesh. Thank You for the grace and mercy that allows us to come to the altar even when we are broken and our faith is tested. Thank You for the blessing that was Charles Lee Builta. Please bless and keep him until we are reunited. Thank You for his legacy of friendship, family, compassion and service. Help us to be good stewards of that legacy and to support and love one another the way he loved us. Help us to never forget the fun and laughter that he brought into our lives. Give us strength through our grief and give us joy and peace when the pain diminishes. Help us to take the lessons from his life that each of us needs to be better. Thank You for the plan of salvation that was fulfilled in Jesus and that we celebrate on Easter weekend. It is in His name we pray. Amen and Amen. Read less