Three Weeks With My Brother

In the spring of 2002, novelist Nicholas Sparks received a brochure from the University of Notre Dame alumni office advertising a three-week around-the-world tour. Despite the chaos of raising five children and the demands of his writing career, he could not stop thinking about the remote destinations: Easter Island, Ethiopia, Guatemala. His wife, Cathy, agreed to let him go, understanding the trip was less about the destinations than about Nicholas spending time with his older brother, Micah. The memoir weaves two parallel narratives: the brothers' 2003 journey around the world and the family history that made the trip necessary.

Nicholas and Micah's parents, Patrick Michael Sparks and Jill Emma Marie Thoene, married in 1963 as college students at Creighton University. Three children arrived in rapid succession: Micah in 1964, Nicholas in 1965, and their sister Dana in 1966. The family lived in poverty as their father pursued graduate degrees in Minnesota and then Los Angeles. Their mother raised three babies largely alone, assigning Micah adult-level responsibilities from age three. Their father remained distant but capable of quiet tenderness, tucking the children in each night and whispering that he loved them.

The brothers' childhood was defined by freedom and danger. In Los Angeles, they roamed rough neighborhoods unsupervised, and their mother insisted on toughness, forbidding whining and drilling her values into them: "What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things" and "No one ever said that life was fair." In 1973, the family moved to Grand Island, Nebraska, to be near their maternal grandparents, though the children did not know their parents had separated. When Micah began excluding Nicholas in favor of new friends, the brothers had their first fistfight, and Dana stepped in as Nicholas's companion. Their mother devised a nightly ritual: each child had to name three nice things a sibling had done that day, a practice that gradually brought them closer.

When the trip began in late January 2003, Micah arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport with infectious enthusiasm while Nicholas struggled to feel excitement. Micah suggested his brother might be depressed and urged him to choose a more engaged life. Their first stop was Guatemala, where they climbed a Mayan temple at Yaxhá and felt genuine wonder for the first time. They formed a close friendship with Bob and Kate Devlin, a couple whose forty-one-year marriage and warmth reminded both brothers of their mother.

The memoir alternates between destinations and family history. In 1974, the family reunited in Fair Oaks, California, where their father took a professorship. As the children grew, the brothers drifted apart. Micah tested limits as a teenager, while Nicholas threw himself into academics and running, inspired by their neighbor Billy Mills, an Oglala Sioux Olympic gold medalist. A teammate told Nicholas he could be great, and those words transformed him. He trained obsessively, convinced Micah to join the cross-country team, and the sport brought the brothers close again. Nicholas graduated as valedictorian and accepted an athletic scholarship to Notre Dame. Dana confided that no one had asked her to the prom; both brothers independently offered to take her, and she told them they were the best brothers a sister could have.

On the trip, the brothers were rendered speechless by Machu Picchu, Nicholas's favorite stop. In a Lima hotel bar, with the Super Bowl playing in Spanish, Nicholas raised the subject of Micah's fading faith. Micah revealed he had not prayed in three years, believing prayer accomplished nothing when his family needed it most.

At Notre Dame, an Achilles tendon injury ended Nicholas's running career. During a miserable summer, his mother suggested he write a book, and he produced a terrible horror novel in six weeks, discovering that he loved writing. On spring break in 1988, he met Cathy. He proposed that October and asked Micah to be his best man.

Six weeks after their July 1989 wedding, their mother fell from her horse along the American River, suffered a brain hemorrhage, and died on September 4 at age forty-seven. Their father withdrew from the world, growing irrationally hostile toward Nicholas. Cathy became pregnant but miscarried.

As the trip continued through Australia, Cambodia, India, and Ethiopia, the brothers revisited these losses. At Ayers Rock, they watched the monolith glow red at sunrise and saw Saturn's rings through a telescope. In Cambodia, the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime carried out mass executions, and a former school converted into a torture prison left them shaken. Micah connected his sadness to their mother's death, regretting that he never said goodbye.

In November 1992, Dana had a grand mal seizure, a full-body convulsive episode. Doctors discovered a brain tumor. Surgery removed most of it, but a biopsy revealed glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive form of brain cancer with a five-year survival rate below 2 percent. The antiseizure medication she required meant she would likely never have children. Nicholas, who had accepted a transfer to North Carolina, agonized over leaving. Micah promised to watch over Dana and their father.

In 1995, Nicholas's agent sold his novel The Notebook for one million dollars. Shortly afterward, their father died in a car accident near Reno. The siblings buried him next to their mother. Nicholas reflected that his father, for all his flaws, had fostered independence and helped the siblings grow close.

In January 1996, a doctor suggested that Nicholas and Cathy's two-year-old son Ryan might have autism. Months of evaluations produced shifting diagnoses and no answers. During a phone argument, Cathy described her anguish, wondering if Ryan would ever speak or know she loved him. Nicholas strapped Ryan into a small chair and spent six hours repeating the word "apple" until Ryan whispered "Apo," his approximation of the word. He quit his pharmaceutical job and spent three years working with Ryan daily, teaching him one word at a time.

Meanwhile, Dana's tumor returned after five years of remission. She cycled through increasingly experimental chemotherapy, with Micah attending every appointment. In March 2000, after the final consultation confirmed nothing more could be done, she cried for the first time since her diagnosis. She died at age thirty-three. At the graveside, Micah put his arm around Nicholas. Neither had tears left. They were the only surviving members of their family.

In Lalibela, Ethiopia, sitting on a ledge above churches carved into the earth centuries ago, Micah explained why he had abandoned his faith: He prayed constantly, and the only answer was silence. Nicholas responded that he never blamed God for the tragedies, so he never expected God to fix them. In Tromsø, Norway, near the tour's end, Micah told Nicholas that God gave Ryan to him and Cathy because they were strong enough to help him.

The brothers responded to their losses in opposite ways. Micah simplified his life, selling his businesses and spending months camping and reconnecting with family, convinced that life was for living, not having. Nicholas added more to his plate, writing multiple novels a year and sleeping fewer than five hours a night, until he broke down in August 2001 and could not stop crying. Shortly after, the brochure arrived.

On the final flight home, Nicholas reflected on how his parents' lessons lived on in his own family: He caught himself repeating his mother's sayings and asking his children to name three nice things a sibling had done that day. Micah mentioned casually that he would attend church the next morning, insisting it was only for his children's benefit. Nicholas smiled knowingly. At Dulles airport, the brothers reached the point where their paths diverged. Nicholas thought, as he always did, that he might never see his brother again, a thought born of losing three family members without warning. They embraced in the terminal. Micah whispered, "I love you, little brother." Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut and responded, "I love you, too, Micah."