Oh, Charlie...

I remember our shouting matches, that more often than not became screaming matches, straying toward hair-pulling, biting, and then, later, timeouts. The early years, ah! We hated everything about each other when left too long with just each other...yet, there were pockets of time even as young brats that we bonded and set the mark for all of our cousins and social acquaintances.

The tween and teen years were most difficult, when there wasn't much cause to bond, and we were at the age that you're so busy hating the world, why not throw your brother or sister to the top of the heap—because, you know, I have more acne than I care to accept, my hair has a mind of its own, I want everything while being able to afford nothing, AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

Then, I moved away...a long ways away...1,200 miles away. The night before I left, you wouldn't even look at me, you didn't say goodbye, saying instead something ugly that, by grace, I've forgotten entirely. It was no skin off my nose, because I didn't care for you anyway. Maybe a small part of me was moving to get away from you.

So there.

Mom kept telling me, as she had for the past two decades at that point, "One day you'll be happy to have a brother, and he'll be happy to have you." You and I would both smile a fake smile when she'd say this, to appease her gentle heart...and then we'd smirk at each other behind her back as if to cheer silently in unison, She thinks I'll LIKE you one day! And then for a startling second it felt as though we were on the same side of the row, and that wasn't right at all.

But, in ways that make no sense to me, the distance brought us close. When you visited me in North Carolina, all I wanted to do was hug you and I even cried the night you, Mom and Dad flew back to Wisconsin. I missed you before the plane had taken off. This whole brother thing was a lot easier to deal with when I hated your stinking guts.

And then, Mom got sick. Once again, we had cause to unite, one that we didn't have to explain to anybody, this uniting of sworn enemies. Mom made us her world, and we made her ours. I don't think that either of us had a higher priority during those years than her, and I don't think that either one of us regrets that decision, nor will we ever.


The past year has been a quiet one. It's harder to go to holiday meals when the woman who made the holiday any sort of special is no longer here...and it felt awkward to be together at times after having constructed such a tripod with Mom...the balance was missing. I will never forget the words you spoke to me when I got to the house the morning she died, and I sobbed that I hadn't gotten there in time. You told me that she was still warm, still like Mom, go say goodbye now, because the room still felt alive with her presence...and then you quickly left the house on that January day as your own tears began to fall.

We've grown to be a lot alike, you and I. We're both quieter, knowing when to listen...we're both tenderhearted, striving to empathize with the world...our touch is light and our voices soft...see, the "problem" has been that we both carry so much of Mom in us. (Which, considering our heated death matches, makes me wonder about her relationship with her sisters, know what I mean? Or are we blaming that one on Dad, who used to roll around on the floor, wrestling, with his mother when he wouldn't eat his green beans or clean up his room?)

But it's better now, I feel it...don't you? It's a joy to see you now, a subtle hint like an eyelash fluttering over my cheek, I feel the smile tapping the side of my mouth, vying for attention...and I know it's because I have you, I have a brother. Someone who shared something incredibly hard with me and the only one who can only feel that particular emptiness the same way that I do...someone that will be there for me always, no matter which direction life goes...Charlie, I DO like you—I'll even go so far as to say that I love you.

So there.