My Brother

My brother and I are total opposites, as I am sure, many siblings are. While he was born in the gloom of winter, I was born in the floral fragrance of spring. While my poor mother struggled to find me ‘extra husky’ pants at Sears (which she had to hem because I was chubbier than I was tall) she breezed through the ‘extra slim’ section of boy’s Wrangler jeans. When I had to struggle with hours of homework to get good grades, all my brother had to do was show up to class. I have always liked having only a few close friends, he was friends with everyone (stoners, surfers, jocks, cholos etc..).

I am almost exactly 1 year and 9 months older than him. One day when he was 4 and I was 6 years old, I remember sitting under the kitchen table and telling him sad stories about the poor naked baby on the Pampers diaper package. I would tell him that he was only wearing diapers because he didn’t have any parents and nobody loved him. My mom finally made me stop with the stories so he would stop crying. When I got chicken pox at 6 years old, I was burning up with fever and he would wet his little hands and come and put them on my feet to make me feel better. His caring heart was always better than mine.

As teenagers, I would talk back to my mother (as much as a Mexican daughter can talk back to a mother who had, and still has, a deadly aim with her chancla (shoe)). He was always very respectful. He was a good and loyal friend and he never had a bad word to say about anyone. Me….. Not so much.

From the day my parents brought him home from the hospital, I was his protector (I even beat up a kid in front of a church once, after school, because he was picking on my brother. I arrived home with one ponytail on top of my head while the other was below my ear). I ask the Lord to protect him every day while I now do my best to protect his daughter.

My brother is currently serving 26 years in a Federal Prison for robbing banks. He deserves to be there. My mother, my father, my niece, my brother and I know this is true. He put lives in danger. HE deserves to be there, but WE don’t, and yet part of each of our hearts lives in there with him. I have not seen him in over 10 years and I only speak to him when absolutely necessary. He sends me mother and father day’s cards because he says I am both mother and father to his child.

So, why am I telling you this story today? Well, you see, today is his birthday and I miss my brother.

I spend 364 days hating him for the man he became and for what he has done to himself and to us. However, today ….today it helps to remember the happy boy that he was so I can tell his daughter something about him…….something good about him.