I saw a picture of my brother when I was in West Virginia a few weeks ago, a recent picture of him, and when I saw his face I felt almost like I’d been punched. Like, for a moment or two I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen his face for probably ten years. His hair has gone almost completely white. But there, his eyes, there that little smirk. He is hugging his little boy and a boxer puppy, his broad shoulders behind them, protective.
Even I don’t really understand my relationship with my brother and sister. They are my father’s kids from his first marriage. They were in their teens when I was born, and when I was far too young to remember, they moved to Colorado to live with their mother. I was raised an only child, but I worshipped “Bubby” and “Sissy” throughout my whole childhood. During the Gulf War, my sister was in the Navy and my brother in the Army, and they sent me postcards, spoons from Singapore, Israeli army knives. My mom and I made care packages and sent cookies and watches and pictures. We bought yellow-ribbon memorabilia from Wal-Mart.
So, there is the part that’s easy to understand, to communicate. The rest, I don’t know. My sister is in my life now, and that there’s been no ending makes the middle easier to pack away. But, my brother, an unanswered question. He visited us a few times. He talked to Dad on the phone. When my sister moved to West Virginia, he came to visit her, and we sat at the little Charleston airport before he left, and I was sixteen and had just gone to California for the first time, had dreams of attending Berkeley, wore red Florida State University sunglasses and baggy jeans and black VANS, and I had absolutely no clue how long it would be before I’d even see a picture of my brother.
I don’t know when the last time Dad heard from him was. I know he called Dad’s twin brother when my grandmother passed away in January. I know he’s got a little boy now, that he’s still out in California somewhere.
And that’s that. I don’t really know what it’s like to have a brother; I don’t really know what it’s like to not have a brother. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, or if he would recognize me.
Just that picture, something someone printed from an email perhaps, and the face I’d know anywhere, the eyes I will never forget.
5 Comments
this is amazing. i love the part about not knowing what it’s like to have a brother, but not knowing what it’s like to not have one either. it’s exactly what you said: what a peculiar thing to be a sister. thanks for writing this =)
And thank you for your post, which got me to thinking about this again…
Having a brother is a good thing, but they’re all different. Such as mine, he’s definitely “different”…
Brothers definitely do that protective thing, which is always nice.
Correct me if I’m wrong…but I always get a feeling like you feel as if the absence of your brother in your life is caused by something you did, or something of that nature. It isn’t, you know. Maybe the divorce of your Dad and his Mom hurt him deeply, and he just never wanted to associate with your family that much anymore due to the pain that the divorce caused him. You (me and Jesse too) are blessed to have parents that didn’t divorce, and that makes us abnormal in this day and age. Your brother obviously has issues, because you would have been an amazing sister to him, and I’m sure if he gets his head out of unknown regions one day, he’ll realize that. Being the forgiving person that you are, I’m sure that you would have no problem welcoming him into your life. Or maybe you’ll never have that connection to him, who’s to say? You should feel very blessed to have been raised as an only child. Just think of how close you are with your parents, or think of all of the opportunities that you had because they focused all of their attention on you.
It’s great to think about the past and reminisce, but it’s important at other points in time to realize that you are who you are today thanks to all of the circumstances that occurred during your lifetime thus far, and that you are an intelligent, beautiful person. Who would want to change that?
Does Becki miss her half brother? Becki’s relationship with Aaron is somewhat like yours to your half brother, but he lives much closer to her.
Becki: I think in the past I have definitely taken some of that responsibility on myself, and I have had to confront that notion (however subconscious it was) and change how I see the situation. I think he’d like to be back in touch with us, but I don’t think he really knows how to make that happen. It’s something our family does, for whatever reason.
I do feel blessed to have been raised an only child. I had a wonderful childhood.
Vicki: Good question–you should ask Becki!
I’ve thought of that, too–we both have half-brothers who have been varying degrees of involved in our lives. I’ve talked to Jesse about his relationship to his brother as well, and I think we had two very different experiences, even though from the outside the situations seemed similar. I wonder how many of my friends have similar experiences too. I think it’s not all that uncommon.