A Hero

As I've been sitting here over the past several weeks ("here" being my computer) filling out college scholarships, I realize I have been asked some similar questions, most notably "Who has most greatly impacted you?" and "Who is your hero?" I gave the same answer for both. As I continued my perusal of ancient file folders on my laptop, I realized I had written quite a bit about my brother. And the thought came to me...maybe some day, some day soon, he won't be there anymore. And eventually I won't be able to remember him, and I'll wish I had something of him still, some small piece of him. So this is a tribute to my hero; the brother absent, the stoic one.

Oddly enough, out of all the people that have greatly impacted me - and there have been quite a few - the one I find myself immediately thinking about is the one that has been least present in my life. And perhaps the reason he has impacted me so much is for that very reason: his absence. My brother is six years older than I am. After he was born, my mother had three miscarriages, three sons that could have lived, but didn't. Instead, she got me, her second daughter and last child. Being eight years younger than my sister, it is understandable that during her youth and adolescence, I was incredibly annoying and unwanted; the embarassing younger sister who always wanted to play with her and her friends. I suppose I was a bit of an embarrassment to my brother as well, but he was always a quiet person, so he never said much about my being his shadow. When my sister scorned me, I would run to my brother and sit for hours watching him play video games or make Final Fantasy-like swords out of scraps of wood. My freshman year in high school he left for bootcamp. My sophomore year he got married and had a baby. My junior year he left for Iraq. I am now a senior, and although his absence has affected me, his silence about my presence all through our childhood makes me wonder at his patience. I could say he was a bad brother; on the surface, it would seem quite plausible. But he wasn't. He'd sometimes teach me strategy when we played Risk, or which sandpaper to use to smooth out a dagger or sword. He tried to teach me guitar - a passion of his to this day - but my hands were just too small. And sometimes, when no friends were watching to see that he had the capacity for affection, he would allow me to curl up in the hollow of his stomach and watch a movie, falling asleep to the gentle sounds of his breathing, only to awake and find him gone. Four years he's been gone; missed every concert, every victory and heartache, my parents' divorce, my sister's, the day I became student of the quarter, the day I became student body president, the day I tried my first cigarette. And I don't know if he'll ever come back. But in my darkest moments I can remember how the sunlight lit up his face through clouds of drifting sawdust in our cluttered garage, and remember that I am his sister, and he is my brother, and throughout all the changes we have faced and will, nothing will ever change that one simple fact.

"A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom."

-Bob Dylan (American folksinger, b.1941)

My brother is in Iraq right now. Two days after my eighteenth birthday, I heard from him for the first time. "How are you?" he asks over the slightly-crackly phone line. In the background, I can hear dozens of other soldiers quietly talking to their families as well. "Fine," I say, even though I'm far from it. If I were to truly unload the details of my not-so-fine life on my brother, it would be putting an unfair amount of anxiety on an already-stress-filled man. "How are you?" I ask in return. "Good," he says. Then, "its pretty much hell here."

My brother got married when I was fifteen. He was twenty-one, and hadn't been deployed yet. Nine months later, my nephew Ayden was born. Ayden is now one and a half, I am now eighteen, my brother is nearly twenty-four, and there are still twenty months until his service is up. Our parents got divorced while my brother was stationed in North Carolina, on the other side of the country from sleepy Seattle, Washington. My sister also got divorced. My father remarried, my stepsister had a baby, and my sister moved down to L.A. with her boyfriend, all while my brother was away.

My brother is my hero. He always has been, he always will be. He has been my bulwark against the world, always taking the hardest pain upon himself in his very quiet way, so that I don't have to. And now, amidst the disintegration of virtually his entire family, the shifting of everything concrete we both thought we once knew, he is in Iraq, doing his job, wishing he was home, but there, working hard nonetheless. I realize now that my brother is not mine alone-he is not only my shield anymore. He is his wife's defense, his son's, his country's. He is taking the hardest pain upon himself so that I don't have to, so that I can continue to buy my Venti, triple-shot, extra-hot, frappe-mocha-ccinos, my $40,000 Hummers, my burgers and fries and college educations and degrees and Ph.D. s, my houses and my clothes and the natural gas for my fake-fronted fireplaces.

It is highly possible that I may never see my brother again. And I hate that. My brother is my hero because he loves me enough to die for me. For his wife. For his son.

Whenever I think about you in that God-forsaken place

that you're trying to redeem

bring back from hell

I can't help but wonder why you-why God chose you,

why you, why him, why me?

And now; why now.

It doesn't hurt so bad, y'know, because I've cut you off so effectively

you're a ghost-not even, a dream of a ghost,

a spirit from a memory of my childhood,

something I'm not sure ever really existed;

on the periphery of consciousness

is where I keep you, because to keep you in clear vision

would simply hurt a little too much.

I could damn the world and damn the war

and even damn myself,

but you're still there-you're both still there.

I didn't say goodbye.  I thought I would have the time

but it didn't work out that way

and when I called the day you left

you wouldn't say you loved me,

and that, more than anything, you ass,

that's what hurt the most, even though I understand completely why you couldn't.

Maybe the understanding makes it hurt

because then I can't really be angry

because you're in a sea of pain

when I only feel pin-prick,

a splinter to a sword.

So I forgive you, for the lack of goodbyes,

the lack of "I love you"s.

I'm really proud of my bro.

(you see, he had to go (leave, depart))

What he's doing for me, what he's doing for his son;

his chubby baby boy,

my nephew, my brother's child, my mother's grandson.

Ayden. 

God, he doesn't even get to see him.

They look exactly alike.

Will he survive?  Will he continue to exist?

He's a great father.  He's an amazing dad.

I was angry with him as a brother.

As my brother.

I was angry at my brother for not being an amazing brother.

There were moments, but I was lost

and forgotten and overlooked/unseen/disregarded

beyond his sight, in his blind spot and he never turned to look, to check.

I don't believe it was intentional,

but it hurt the same as if it was.

He's so closed, I can't see in; he won't let me near,

and to some extent over the years I've learned to be like him.

Distant.

And a literal distance separates us now; separates

him

from everyone he loves.

And I'm angry, but I'm proud.

Because he's trying.

And I'm trying to let him try.

And I'm trying to not be him.

Because, as we both know, that's easier than letting people in.

A part of me says "it's time to take off the façade of indifference,"

and a part of me says "all of you fuck off 

and leave me in my delusional shroud.

Leave me untouched, unaffected, unaided:

alone.

I want to be alone."

But I'm trying to try.  I'm trying not to shake you off.

I'm trying not to expose my teeth

and snarl when you come too close for me to handle.

I finally want to open the door a crack

and let in a little light

let you all a little closer.

Distant.  It is time to close the book.  It's time to come home.

Nathan, whatever busted remnants of a memory we have of family,

it's time to come back to that,

let's come back to that.

Let's go home.  Let's you and I go home.

My hero. My brother.