My brother Tim told anyone who would listen that he obviously was the best of us four kids. “Perfect,” I believe was the word he used.

Tim would look to Mom to confirm that he never caused a lick of worry, concern or trouble like his three siblings. Mom has yet to corroborate that assessment. She just smiled and gave Tim that “mom” look — you know the one: You didn’t get away with as much as you thought you did.

Tim passed away a few days ago. He was a few weeks shy of his 64th birthday. And continued to claim that he was the perfect one.

He was wrong, of course. It was me. I am the oldest, wisest and prettiest of us four kids. When I was born, Mom and Dad were so impressed that they said, “Let’s make more just like this one.”

They were disappointed in how the other three turned out.

No matter how many times I insist on this truth, my siblings cannot get the story straight. They tell completely ridiculous versions about which of us is the good kid.

Martha, the youngest, claims that Mom and Dad wanted a girl all along. The first three attempts produced duds. (I am sure that she meant to say “dudes.”)

She says, “When I came along, Mom and Dad finally had what they wanted all along, so they stopped having kids. They were afraid of ending up with another dud.” (Martha, it’s “dude.”)

Tim countered that Mom and Dad were so scared after seeing her that they were afraid to try again.

Dan, the No. 3 son, didn’t jump into the fray. He rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut. Some claim this proved which one of us truly is the wise sibling. I don’t get it.

When Timmy and I were mere lads, before the other two interlopers came along, we created our own language. When we were forced to talk to the grownups, I had to translate.

Tim ended up in speech therapy. Somehow, I got the blame for this. I taught him to talk, but a made-up language. No one gave us credit for being the linguistic geniuses that we were.

Come to think of it, the grownups often accused me of concocting stupid ideas, then talking my young siblings into pulling the stunts. Therefore, even the grownups acknowledge that I was the smart one.

Tim used to annoy me with his crazy ideas. When I was 5 and he was 3, Timmy would often start tall tales with, “When I was big and you were little…” I would tattle on him for such fanciful talk. I was the big brother, always had been, always will be.

The joke was on me. By the time we hit our late teens, Tim WAS the big brother, and I was littler. I think he passed me just to irritate me. Big little brothers are like that.

When I was a senior and Tim a sophomore in high school, we were in marching band together, me sliding my trombone, Tim oompa-ing his tuba. Bandos know there is no other bonding like band bonding.

And band brothers bonding is even better.

As adults, our interests strayed. While I chased writing, Tim fell madly, passionately in love with racing. He built his own late model stock car, drove it himself until medically unable to do so, then handed the wheel over to a partner in Tim Cole Racing.

Tim often quipped that he could either afford a wife or a race car, but he couldn’t afford both. He claimed that he chose the cheaper option.

He also noted that of the four of us, he was the last to sprout gray hairs. No gray and no spouse was no coincidence, he claimed.

But for a guy who claimed to be married only to his racecar, Tim had several girlfriends over the years and acted as a father figure to quite a few kids.

At 63, Tim was far too young to pass away. At 66, I’m far too young to be missing one of my siblings. But here we are. As a friend of mine often says, “That’s life.” Death is a lousy way to conduct life.

Or as Timmy and I would have put in our language many years ago, “Gee-gee kabooga laloopa mazamamoo.”

He’s crossed the finish line. We miss you, little brother.

burton.w.cole@gmail.com