Jamie’s Uncle, My Baby Brother

I was three, well almost three anyway, and I was waiting for my baby brother to arrive.  According to Grandma, mom and dad would be bringing him home to live with us. “Your Mommy is in labor,” Grandma said.  I wasn’t really sure what “labor” was, but I realized it must be hard work because she was going to be laboring for so long I had to spend the night with Grandma.  Grandma gave me so much attention.  I loved attention.  I suppose she believed that I may not get as much as I was used to in the upcoming days so she would make up for that future lack in one night.  She gave me everything I liked.  Chicken with honey, chocolate, cookies, ice cream, and Dr Pepper all night long. My almost three-year-old self was wired.  At 10:00 my grandma felt that my night o’fun should come to an end and she packed us both off to bed.  I laid there, listening to her breath and really longing to play with the toys I had been made to abandon in the living room.  The television was also calling to me.  I rolled around, back to side, to side, to stomach, to side, to back.  Nothing.  Too much sugar, too much energy.  I had to escape, I had to get out of that bed and make a break for the living room I could deny the toys no longer.  I slid my legs off the side of the bed, toes reaching for the floor.  I was off the bed in a second and creeping for the door.  She had left it open, my escape wouldn’t be that difficult.  “Liz?” Shucks, foiled again!  What to tell her… she had been the one who wanted to go to bed, not me, and she could be the one to stay there.  I peered back at her through the darkness.  “One can go, and one can stay,” I stated emphatically
 and then marched myself out of the room and into the living room.  It was time to play.

When I was three, my parents gave me the gift of a baby brother, I should’ve asked for something simpler…like an elephant.

We really loved each other when we were little.  He worshipped me, and I adored him.  He let me take care of him.  When I was around he never had to ask for anything.  Instead of going to an adult when he wanted juice or a cookie he would come to me, and I’d ask for him.  He rarely spoke, but he didn’t
have to.  We could communicate with just a look, so to him words were not important. He looked to me for protection too.  Once he broke a lamp at the babysitters, he was so scared and he came running to me with tears streaming down his three-year-old face.  He made up my mind for me right there; I’d take the fall.

We played in our basement when we were little.  That was where all the toys were kept.  As we would descend the stairs in the dark, I would reach out and grab his tiny little hand, knowing he was scared to death but too ashamed to say anything to me. So, I’d reach for his hand and let him think I needed his support as much as he needed mine…and maybe I did.

Things changed as we grew. I don’t know why, maybe he changed, maybe I did, maybe it was both of us, but I missed him.  I missed the way he’d grab my face in his chubby little hands and plant a slobbery “kiss” on my cheek. (A memory my mom forever immortalized on film.)  I missed the way he would talk to me, the way we would talk to each other.  I missed Halloween, when he was a Glow Worm and I was Wedding Princess Barbie.  I missed the getting along.  All we had then was fighting.

He was growing up, and he didn’t want my help anymore.  Sometimes I would think that he didn’t want me there at all.  He was so bleak. He was sixteen at the time and so full of rage and depression and hate. He broke my heart once, twice, three times, and more. The first time time he yelled, “I hate you,” the time he screamed “You are not my sister anymore,” as he shoved me so he could walk away.  Sometimes… I felt like I had lost him.

He was there, though.  I went home over spring break my sophomore year of college.  I anticipated fighting, but I went home anyway.  I went to his room, to try to tell him about the trip I had taken and we talked….we talked about his last trip to New York, we talked about school, and we talked about life.  Then my not-so-little-anymore brother looked at me with watery eyes, “I am scared, Liz.”  So I did the only thing I knew to do.  I held his hand.

He didn’t tell me then.  He didn’t have to.  I think I’ve always known my little brother was gay, but it didn’t seem to matter to me.  It didn’t change who it was, it was a part of who he was.  It took him a while to trust me with the actual words, and I don’t blame him for that. Everything he experienced taught him that this was one secret he couldn’t tell anyone.

I still remember the day he finally broke down.  I was getting ready to take a shower and I had just laid out my towels and was getting ready to shut the bathroom door.  He popped into the hallway and asked me if he could brush his teeth. I turned to walk out of the bathroom to give him some room when something stopped me.  “You okay?” “No.” I tentatively reached out my hand to touch his shoulder and he started to cry.  I moved closer so I could wrap my arms around him.  He told me he wanted to die.  He said he was tired of being different.  He was tired of hiding, tired of being scared, tired of being unwanted.

He later told me that gym was the worst.  The boys in there were cruel.  They taunted him, called him names, threw things directly at this face.  After one particularly rough incident, he refused to go back. Instead, he hid in his car for a week and a half.  It took him that long to get up the courage to go back.  I can still hear his words in my head.  It makes me remember how he was there for me when I was afraid of going down the stairs.  And it makes me remember, that when he was afraid of walking into school, no one was holding his hand.

I am so proud of my brother.  He had a strength I could never have.  He fought a fight I can never really understand.  He struggled.  I know he struggled.  He wasn’t perfect, but he was my brother.  We grew closer once we were both out of college.  He even came to live with me for while.  He pretended to be so mad when I got engaged, because he knew he’d have to move out.  Deep down, I think we were both really sad our time living together would end again.

It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him, I think, my “kicking him out.”  He met the love of his life.  He introduced his love to my parents, and he met his love’s family.  Everyone accepted them.  About two months after Jamie was born they got married.  Deep in my heart, I felt like my brother was finally home.  He was going to be okay.  He was going to be better than okay.

He was so proud of Jamie.  He would hold him, and stare at him with the greatest sense of wonder.  He would send me articles about breastfeeding, and tips about raising a baby boy.  Closer and closer we grew.

And then he was gone.  In an instant, I lost my baby brother forever.  He went to sleep, and never woke up.  My sons look just like him.  Sometimes, when they come running into the room, I think for a second that Alan is back, running into the room to play one more time.  I wish that there had been one more time… There are so many people who need a voice.  So many people who deserve to have others speak for them.  He told me once that people need to be taught about differences of all kinds.  He was sad that we raise people to hate others so much, others whom they have no understanding of…

I know that my brother had a lot to say… I know that at one point he counted on me to speak for me…. I know that for a while I let him down… I know that I am going to try to never stop listening to Jamie the way I stopped listening to him.  I know that I miss being able to reach out for his hand as I go down the stairs