Often when I refer to "my little brother," people think I'm talking about a kid brother in grade school. My little brother, however, is twenty-six-years-old and thankfully finally out of grade school. At various times, I am his stern older sister, a disapproving surrogate parent, and on rare occasion, reluctantly a humbled peer.
My little brother, you see, is a little bit of a genius, but as his older sister, I have to keep that genius stomped down, much like the way I used to sit on him when we were kids. When my mother became pregnant with him at thirty-eight, I thought not much of the whole affair; it was entirely abstract until a rather tactless neighbor asked me, "So how do you feel about no longer being the littlest one?" I realized then, in a sudden moment of terror, that I would have to cede my title of Most Adorable One and Family Brat. There was a little bundle of joy on the way who, despite his complete lack of any sophisticated cognitive skills, was going to seize all of that glory from me.
His arrival was uneventful except that I remember that for whatever unrelated reason, my father's false tooth was missing the morning my little brother was born. There's nothing weirder than being told by your father while he's missing a tooth that you now have a new baby brother! I remember dragging a photo of my little brother's rather swollen newborn self to kindergarten, where I had never in the past participated in Show-And-Tell before. I sat shyly on Mrs. Schneider's lap, holding my puffy-eyed little brother's picture in front of my chest, letting the class put two-and-two together their own, offering only occasional affirmative nods to such probing questions as, "Is that your little brother?!"
After his initial arrival, I recall only other a few other memorable snippets. He was a pee fountain the first time he took a bath (pretty typical). If you put him in the swing and practiced your kindergarten reading skills on him, he would magically fall asleep. He preferred Pampers over Huggies. His favorite baby food was Gerber's Turkey And Rice. My little brother was undeniably cute. Even I could see this plain truth. I did also think that our baby pictures looked awfully alike, so perhaps I was only complimenting myself. To this day, I think my parents could have made millions if they had only exploited him in the media.
As the years went on, however, my little brother became more complex. He developed a penchant for biting - me - as well as his fingernails. I once caught him spooning a tub of margarine that he thought was ice cream. He had this strange habit of making a lot of noise when he breathed, a habit that I proudly forced him to break so that he would someday be a socially acceptable human being. (He still disputes whether I should be "thanked" for this.) I also began to notice that he was not exactly like me. For example, I once found him jumping on my parents' king-sized bed while playing his Fischer-Price recorder to an episode of Star Trek - entirely by ear! He also could draw like nobody's business - rendering pencil drawings of Michelangelo's sculptures at seven and a half. I had some modest talents, but nothing like this.
By the time he reached young adulthood, we were quite different, despite my diligent efforts at early brainwashing. He showed a fondness for snoring (so advanced for his young age!) and for sleeping long uninterrupted hours. He enjoyed laziness and lacked attention to detail. He broke my heart once when I was in college by running away from home. I later learned that he "ran away" in my mom's purple minivan with the family TV in the backseat. He is also the kind of guy who doesn't notice he's wearing two left shoes.
Despite all of this, in recent years, I've come to very much respect my little brother. I tortured him through his youth, forcing him to pretend to be my imaginary dog to whom I fed imaginary doggie kibble. I once reduced him to tears by accusing him of being a Democrat in a family of Republicans when he was too young to realize it was a good thing. But nowadays, I see how much we have in common, beyond our adorable baby pictures.
I think my little brother and I share a similar emotional universe, only mine is diluted, for better or worse. I find it ridiculous that we ever understand each other at all. His mind wraps around the world in a similarly odd fashion. In the end, perhaps I am just relieved that he is around to make me look just a little bit normal. And for this, thank you, Little Brother!
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