When I was pregnant with my second child and found out I was having another girl, a little piece of me was sad that my older daughter wouldn’t grow up with a brother. Having a brother was the only sibling relationship I knew and I worried about the sister rivalry that might occur. More importantly though, was the loss of not having the brotherly figure in her life. From the time I was a little girl, all I ever wanted, was to be ‘cool’ like my big brother. He had a paper route, I wanted a paper route. He knew how to ski, I wanted to know how to ski. He liked Led Zeppelin and Beastie Boys, I wanted to like Led Zeppelin and Beastie Boys. He smoked weed, I wanted to smoke weed. He was a pervert, I wanted to….. Some might say that I am who I am because of his influence.
To know my brother is to know me and vise versa. I often tell people that he’s me, except he has a penis (and some body hair). We have a relationship that not many siblings have with each other and one that during the years of beating the shit out of each other, I never imagined we would have. But my mother always used to say, one day you will love each other and be best friends. YEAH RIGHT! Well… of course, mother is always right.
I’m not sure when it actually started – maybe sometime around 5th grade when he thought it would be cool if I dated his girlfriends little brother so we could go on a double date together to go see The Outsiders. By the time we got to High School he accepted that I wanted to go to the same parties with him and drink Old ‘E, dive down flights of stairs, other stuff I wont mention and watch reruns of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. My parents trusted him with my life, for some odd reason, and left us alone for 3 weeks while they travelled to Spain. Needless to say, we spent all of our spending money on the way home from dropping them at JFK and then proceeded to fill our house with paraphernalia and party for the next three weeks. I’m actually shocked we ever made it to school during that time and that all of our friends (most notably Stein) made it out alive.
One of the saddest days of my teenage years was when he decided he was heading out west to finish up his last two years of college (which actually took him another 4 years and graduating 2 weeks after I did). I ate tubs of ice cream and played Going to California by Zeppelin over and over and over again for weeks. It was a breakup like no other. But even 3,000 miles couldn’t put a damper on our relationship. Visits to the Del Mar apartment, San Diego Zoo, Board and Brew, Concerts at SDSU, Los Gatos, road trips to LA and many many more awesome times were had.
By far, 41 years is the longest relationship with a man that I have ever had… and we are closer now than ever. We only get to see each other and get our 4 girls together a few times a year, but the trips are priceless and we make the most out of them with visits to electronics stores, home depot and some other place to get some other part to try and fix some other thing. He’s the only person that could convince me to give up meat for a year and I’m probably the only person that could convince him to do a Tough Mudder.
Today he turns 44 and while I know he’s aware of how much I truly admire, adore, support, trust and love him, I wanted to share with everyone else. Although he is not perfect by any means (no man is for that matter), he’s the most amazing brother any girl could ever ask for.
I love you B. Happy happy happy birthday. Wish I was there.
WTHayley
wthayley 