I miss my little brother. Especially at harvest. He was a hard worker – strong back and long reach. The kind of brother you want around.

‘Course, there was much more to him than strength and size. His art demonstrates that. He used to love experimenting with oils in his down time and had a knack for vivid battle scenes.

They say you paint what you know and not a year went by when he wasn’t called up for service. They would come to the farm to say the king needed him, and there was no refusing that call.

What he saw on the front line haunted him. So much was expected of him of course, but I think we overestimated his ability to cope with the ordeal of combat. Folk mistook his stature for a propensity for violence that needed release. We knew different. He was happier in the fields.  

I heard dad talking with him while he painted. It was clear my brother knew the value of a champion. The lives saved. The men who got to go back to their farms and families. The gods had gifted him, dad said. But when I see his canvases, that’s where I see the gift. Lasting reminders of the trauma that lesser men can wrought. Reminders of the suffering one man can save us from.

I miss Goliath.