If it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be family

22. My brother’s birthday is today. He turns 26. I wish I’d started my 100 things about me four days earlier so that it would be coincidental. I once calculated that he was born 3 years, 2 months, 11 days, 1 hour, and 11 minutes before I was. ((With the 1 hour and 11 minutes purely made up.)) To this day I repeat this statistic to anyone who cares. . . but I’ve yet to find anyone that cares.

It’s funny how two or three memories end up becoming how you remember someone. A little bit ago, I was trying to think of my brother and my relationship as we were growing up and all I could remember were some stories that people had repeated to me. The actual events weren’t really as vivid. Then, in much the same way the ‘100 facts about me’ paints a picture of a personality, I began to remember things that my brother had done when we were kids…..

• When I first got to high school, I fell asleep on the bus on the way home. It was a 45 minute trip and I wasn’t prepared for it. Plus, I was pooped from having such a long day. One of the guys on the bus thought it’d be funny to touch me in inappropriate ways. ((Touching anyone while they’re unconscious is inappropriate.)) My brother stood up for me and told him to stop, presumably in a forceful tone. I only know this happened because my brother told me it did, which, come to think of it, is a great way to get undeserved praise.
• When I was in first grade, I expected my brother to ride the bus to school with me, but he was a cool fourth grader and didn’t want to be seen dead with me. Though we never sat together, I was still sad when third grade came around and he started riding a different bus.
• My brother once picked me up after school from a mock trial meeting. Though he’d made fun of it before, he ended up joining and became a ‘lawyer.’ Sadly, he was much better than I was. Awkwardly, the night before the big ‘trial,’ the kids in the club had a ‘truth or dare’ session that made it doubly embarrassing to say or do anything.
• When my brother was a junior in high school, his group of friends got together every weekend and hung out. Though I was barely a teenager and they were about to graduate, my brother would always bring me along. I truly felt like part of the group.
• My brother was a social butterfly in school. Everyone knew me as “Frankie’s little brother.” He loved attention and was great at holding on to it.
• My brother wanted to be a pilot when he was in middle school. He probably never thinks about that, but I do. And for some reason, it makes me sad that he never became one.
• Once, my brother made fun of an Army commercial by saying that people in the Army were people who had fucked up so bad in everything else and didn’t have any other options. Two years later, he had signed up. I’ve never brought this up to him, because I worry he still thinks that.
• One fourth of July, my brother planned an elaborate surprise to come home. He convinced my parents that he was away, then got me to pick him up at the airport. I still have pictures of how excited my parents were to see him.
• My brother told me that he was planning on joining the Army about six months before he did. He asked for my honest opinion. I gave it to him. I told him I didn’t think he had it in him and that he would drop out. He made it through his entire six year commitment, but I’m not sure how much of that was will and how much was the death penalty for desertion.
• My brother came home once and made fun of all of his friends for getting married and having kids. He said that he didn’t see that happening for at least six years. Six months later, my parents and I flew out to his wedding.
• My parents didn’t tell my brother that they were separated until five weeks after the fact. That day, he called me crying. That may have been the only time I ever heard him cry and it shook me to my bones.

My brother is married and has a child now, but he seems lost every time I see him. He plays WoW every day for hours on end and always has a scowl on his face. He talks about how he’s not sure if he ever was in love in the first place and questions why he should even bother. He still talks about how he always tried to stay friends with his buddies in high school, but they never extended the same luxury to him. I only ever see him smile or laugh when it’s at someone. I worry that his time in the Army has changed him.

On my better days, I hope he can change back. But today I just hope he has a happy birthday.

22. My brother’s birthday is today. He turns 26. I wish I’d started my 100 things about me four days earlier so that it would be coincidental. I once calculated that he was born 3 years, 2 months, 11 days, 1 hour, and 11 minutes before I was. ((With the 1 hour and 11 minutes…