happ birth, brother
of COURSE he just had to be a Libra
We were tight knit boys / Brothers in more than name
You would kill for me / And knew that I'd do the same
Always Gold by Radical Face
Today’s my brother’s eighteenth birthday. I can’t believe the same boy who once drank an entire bottle of ranch dressing in school only to promptly throw it back up is now becoming a legal adult. He might be taller than me now, but I’ll always think of him as my kid brother: pun-slinger, bone-breaker, cake-bringer, and the only dancer in his studio to fall off the stage during dress rehearsals. As I type this, he’s sitting beside me calmly eating a strawberry jello cup he almost choked on a few minutes ago. He gives off so much lovable idiot energy that you’d never guess how pristine his report cards are.
The stakes have only gotten higher as he’s gotten older. When he started driving, my mother couldn’t stop worrying about the image of a gnarled steel skeleton of a car; mechanical viscera strewn across the street; an oil spill shining on the wet asphalt. She cannot bear to think of what could happen to him. He, on the other hand, thinks he is immortal even after he was almost defeated by a cup of gelatin, much less a car wreck. Ah, to be a teenager.
I know that to him, growing feels like his bedroom is getting smaller while his world expands outward. He’s in love with his newfound wings even though I fear they’re made of wax and he doesn’t believe the sun blisters instead of blesses. I don’t want him to fall into the sea any more than our mother wants to be called in the night to identify the body of her only son, pulled from the roadside wreckage of reckless youth.
Despite my fussing, I know he can probably handle himself. He’s an adult now! He’s arguably a better driver than me! He even has more dating experience than I do, for god’s sake! But part of me can’t stop thinking about this passage written by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin:
“Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question.”
I’m not my brother’s keeper, but I am his sister.
In a way, my brother was born for me. He’s my parents’ miracle baby after three miscarriages. Dad had to give Mom injections every day while she was pregnant to make sure he made it. When I asked her why she was so bent on having another child when it was that hard, she told me she didn’t want me to be alone when I grew up. I owe my parents a lot (including my literal existence), but the best thing they ever did was give me my brother.
Even though he was born for me, I feel like I was born for him—like I was put here to be a big sister, specifically his big sister. I knew him by name before it was his. I was with him before he had a body and I’ll be there for him for the rest of my life.
He is the spark and the flicker. The key in the ignition. My ride-or-die sibling. He inherited every funny bone in the family and I’m supposed to be his deadpan straight man, but I can’t stop laughing at his jokes. Not only that but he’s grown up to be such an intelligent, kind, cool person, AND he’s unfairly attractive. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE? We used to joke about how I’m the beta version Tang child and our parents worked out the bugs before they had him. I can’t even be mad because I’m so damn proud of him.
Watching him grow made me understand why people like gardening. I could never justify the requisite dirt under my nails, but there is something about watching a sprout become green and sturdy. I once told him that he was never meant to stand in my shadow; now he towers over me like the greenest tree in the forest and I’m the one enjoying his shade.
My family is going out to celebrate him tonight. I already know what’s going to happen: I’m going to put on Call Me Maybe, his laughter is going to catch like a serrated knife between his teeth, and we’ll belt the lyrics so passionately that I’ll swear every other car on the road can hear us. I’ll look over at him, grinning, and know what I’ve always known: that I’d do anything for him.
sappily,
anna
P.S. I just went to go see what my brother was doing in his room and he was watching this California Girls otamatone cover with an incredibly serious expression on his face. God, I love him.