I graduate from college the same month Baby Brother turned sixteen. The previous December when I had gone home for winter break, I was shocked and amazed to find out he was now taller than I was. Over spring break the following March, we went a movie together. It was the first time we actually went—together, and not as Sister and Her Younger Brother.
That same vacation, he offered me some advice on what to do when I started teaching ninth grade. He brought home his binder full of assignments and allowed me to look through them. He shared with me what he liked (“I really liked making a mobile based on a book I read. I’d show it to you, Rix, but it’s in my locker.”) and what he disliked. The amazing part of all of this was what he said was … useful. I wasn’t just humoring him, I was listening to him.
And then it occurred to me that I left home four years ago and have missed a major chunk of his life. I missed his first middle school dance. I missed when he sprained his ankle (both times). I missed when he got his driver’s permit. I missed his first day of high school. I missed the day he found out he got a part in the play.
I find myself wishing I wasn’t quite so much older than he is. This way, I think wistfully, I’d be around for important stuff. Like after he sprained his ankle and he and Dad drove to the hospital watching Mom following them in the rearview, giggling as she played with her hair—the nervous tic she can’t control when she’s worried. Or getting to stay the whole weekend and having another chance to see him in his first play after he got sick the night I came home specially to see it.
So I tell myself to think of the pros of being so many years older. What are the good things?
And then I see my six-year-old self looking down at his dark pink face in the hospital. I remember how I gloated to my young self because I got to hold his head(!) while Tara had to hold his feet because I was so much older. I remember how, after he got lost at the mall, he came running to me because I was safe, I was comfort, I was special.
What are the good things?
I remember marveling with my best friend that he’s getting so old and he’s looking so grown-up. I remember playing the “Who’s the nicest, sweetest, most genuinely caring person you know?” game with Tara, and even more clearly, I remember how we came up with the same answer.
And I think to myself I wouldn’t trade that fading, itty-bitty, barely-there memory of a newborn Brennan in the hospital for a hundred other memories.
What are the good things?
Oh, everything.
Happy birthday to my baby brother. May all your wishes come true.
