A said his first word when he was 7 months old. On the flip side, he didn’t start walking until he was almost 15 months old. G didn’t crawl for more than a day or two and went right to walking, at 9 months.

However, when he was almost 3 and barely said more than a few words, we were starting to get concerned. Then, one day, the boys, who are 18 months apart, were separated for a good part of the day. A probably had a long day of doctor appointments or something.

All of a sudden, that day, G was suddenly speaking in complete sentences, almost nonstop. It turns out, he had the ability to speak, but with A around, he never had much opportunity.

He had been taking it all in, absorbing and processing it, but was perfectly content to follow A’s lead, and let him do the hard work. As they got older, I frequently noticed this pattern repeating itself.

Sometimes, this led to frustration, as A would try something first, and end up failing at it. G would watch, learn, and understand how not to make the same mistake, and appear to pick things up more quickly. This, as well as the fact that he was always a good 6 or 7 inches taller than most of his peers, usually led to G getting bumped up to play with the big kids. This also added to his picking up skills more quickly, and saved us from having to repeatedly explain to opposing teams or referees that he was really just big for his age.

As I look back through pictures, particularly first day of school pictures, I always find a snap or two of G peering up at or slyly looking sideways to be sure he was doing exactly what his brother was doing.

One of my favorite videos is the two of them singing a dinosaur song that they learned in preschool, complete with hand motions. G is a split second behind A for every gesture and lyric, perfectly mimicking his every move.

I’ve also learned over the years that G is not so much imitating his brother because he wants to be like him, but rather because G likes to do things the right way.

If A does things correctly, then G is good to go. If A does them incorrectly, then G knows what needs to be corrected. It’s both cheating and brilliant at the same time.

I’ve wondered for a while now how A’s departure was going to affect this relationship. For the first time in his life, G was going to be flying solo.

Granted, he’d watched his brother’s every move for the last two years, as they’ve been in high school and teammates together, so he had a blue print, but I still wondered how things would change.

After we lost Steve, and knowing that we were on the cusp of the first round of college applications, I tried very hard not to place “man of the house” obligations on either of the boys.

At the same time, they absolutely had to step up to help out with more chores than they had in the past. It’s been a delicate balance of getting everyone to be able to do all the chores some of the time, while not specifically allowing one person to do one chore all the time.

I’ve realized after doing this for almost three years that this method has managed to allow all of us to fill the giant hole in our family with smaller pieces of ourselves. This has allowed us to function, while still appreciating the hole in our family, and always being aware that it’s there.

When I fill in my section of the hole, particularly when it comes to chores related to the dogs, it also has the benefit of allowing me to understand why it was important to Steve, and what it took for him to accomplish what he did. As I’ve seen all the kids fill in their gaps of the hole, I’ve seen similar feelings emerge with them. It’s a way to keep him closer, and to remember how important he was to our delicate family balance.

So, even though it’s nowhere near the same kind of hole, our family is going through another shifting of the pieces. With A gone, at least temporarily, we now have to figure out how to spread ourselves a little bit thinner and close that gap with more pieces of ourselves. I get worried that eventually, we’ll be stretched too much, and we’ll start to lose ourselves

It’s a worry that isn’t going to go away any time soon, but in the few short days that A has been out of the house, things have started to fall into place just a little bit. Chores have been realigned, schedules have been coordinated, new responsibilities have been rolled out. We’ve had a few misses here and there, but so far, it’s been manageable.

It’s funny how quickly things can change. Since A started driving, G was almost always the last one out to the car, a frequent complaint of E’s since his lateness meant that A didn’t have time to drive her around the school for her drop-off and she had to dash up the hill to make it into school.

Suddenly, though, G seems to have figured out how his alarm clock works and is even getting up early some days for voluntary morning workout.

Although he seldom took the soccer field without sharing the defensive line with his brother, I’ve been pleased to seem him out there with a new teammate this year, providing direction for fellow players, and really stepping up his game.

I haven’t been able to come up with a good metaphor to explain how this feels, the hole and emptiness aptly described losing Steve, but this vacated space is different. It’s a lot more fluid. We don’t necessarily have to fill it up with pieces of ourselves, we just sort of have to occupy until everything settles into a new shape. That shape may not be what or how we expected, but somehow, the pieces are coming together to make it work.

Life With Liz is published on Saturdays in the Times News.