Big Brothers

I realize I am not your stereotypical woman. I hate shopping for clothes or shoes. I'd rather just wear jeans, a pair of boots and an Irish knit sweater. I own just one dress. It's black, it's velvet. It's for the symphony. I own more guns than I do pairs of shoes. When I was young, I mostly hung out with "the guys". I never fit in with the the clumps of popular girls who giggled and posed and used their bodies to attract before they were even old enough to figure out what the attraction was. They clustered together in their own little gatherings in which dolls and accessories and small fluffy toys held sway. Their interests were foreign and their forced interactions with me were tinged with derision. At that age their scorn had the finality of a curse.

My best friend was my brother R. We were adopted and bonded before we could speak. Mom and Dad had planned on just adopting one child, they were of an age where all their friends were already grandparents. But they ended up with not just one, but two. Though my brother likes to tell the story that on the drive home from the Children's Home Society, he, being older, got the lone child booster seat "because they liked me better".

We bonded together because we were survivors of survivors, and we took on the world like the Great Santini said . . ."eating life before it eats us". We played Secret Agent and Storm Trooper and Soldier, staying out until the mountain sky was washed with charcoal and we had no strength left in our limbs. He once fed me a dog biscuit, but I stole his Rat Fink ring (he sent me a funny little note once that he wants it back, he knows I still have it). But we never fought. Ever. For two redheads that says something. There was a code between us, that we would always be there for one another and our parents, as if we both knew how important the bond of family can be. If the girls at school were mean to me, because I was geeky and too tall, someone put a possum in their bathroom. Not sure who, probably the same person who sent them the toad in the box. They might still not have liked me, but with my brother in tow, they respected me.

We grew up and continued as survivors, he as a Submariner, And myself? I was out playing with aircraft that wanted to kill me.
One of us underneath the sea, one far above, both of us drawn to the blue and to service to our Country. Though as adults, with much distance between us, the bond remained strong.

That cord that connected us developed its first fray on 9-11. The images of the burning Pentagon on TV, a building in which my brother spent a lot of time. It took me hours to verify his safety. Hours, for I was someplace in gear, a dark place that my education had prepared me to enter but my innocence had yet to acknowledge was possible. But he was in another state that day, safe. My boss relayed the message out in the field that he was OK, and we were strong, invincible again.

Then there were the motorcycles. He was always big into riding. Myself, not at first glance, but after one year where I lost pretty much all that mattered, he took me on my first cross country ride. I didn't want to go. I had little energy for anything and I was more than a little bit nervous. . . .but he said he'd take care of me. He always took care of me. By the time we got back, miles and miles with us both in leathers, smiles as wide as the road, I was hooked. It took about 3 days to get the grin off of my face. That was about 13 years ago and we had many more rides together, cruising the high roads, racing down steep grades just as we did as children on our bicycles, plummeting down, fast and breathless, as if banshees themselves were at our heels. We road all day long, the brisk Fall mountain air whistling around us, past us, burnishing our checks, tickling the back of our throats as we laughed into the wind and were not cold.

The last time I saw him whole was for my birthday a couple of years ago. We went for a walk out into the warm summer air to talk into the openness of a country night. As we headed back to the house he was suddenly engulfed in tiny bits of brilliance, a swarm of fireflies that we disturbed as we moved through the grass. For a moment he was all I saw, laughing as the glow of those small lights surrounded him, tiny dots dancing around his face. Then just as quickly, they moved away, leaving us there in the dark. With the darkness, came an unexpected chill.

The call came just before that Christmas.

I knew something was wrong before the phone rang. There was that chill again, tickling along the back of my neck. I just knew. I called my Dad to see what was wrong. Dad said all was fine as far as he knew. Fifteen minutes later the call came in, my brother had been badly hurt, no head injuries, with the helmet and luck, but a leg was crushed, among other injuries. The cold stunned shock of it flowed through me like current, sorrow rising into questions. Where is he? Does he need blood? Is he aware? And a thousand miles away, in disbelief, I lay down on the bed and felt the pain of my inability to protect him. After a round of surgery that stabilized him and five hours on airplanes, I was able to finally see him, hugging on the parts that weren't in a cast, feeling his large body gone soft and shaky, afraid that his ribs might break, like a snow man on the first warm spring day.

In ICU for Christmas, I bought him this tiny little crystal angel ornament that hung above his bed. It drew in whatever light could be gathered in that place, fragmenting them into tiny spots of light that shone around his face as he lay breathing, gathering strength as I simply sat next to him, praying the light would not fade.

It did not, and the next year, though we couldn't be together, he found my very old Christmas stocking and filled it for me, with things that he knew I liked and most people never would think of.He's still my brother, just minus the full use of a leg. Now perhaps it's my turn to look after him for a change, for if I can't be his little sister then what would I become?