Tuesday, February 11, 2014

My Brother, from the other side of Earth

 
Look. You see this tall man smiling directly at the camera, all dressed warmly for chilly weather. He's leaning on a wooden bear statue; that is clad in a purple dress and holding a hanger of pink flowers. There is a girl to the other side of the bear, dressed warmly as well. She has dark hair and is openly grinning. She's appears to be younger whether it is because of her height, her jeans with converse, or the fact that he has a beard going on. They are both smiling and happy. They are somewhere.
 
***
 
Reader, let me be quite frank with you. My brother is a white boy hillbilly. He has pale skin that often burns in the sun, dark ginger hair, and the green eyes that change depending on what he's wearing. Often he's wearing green, a woodsy green that often derives from the brands Cabela or L.L. Bean. He's tall and pretty solidly build, always enjoys the outdoors and tractors as the majority goes of any boy who has grown up around the woods and country side. A place from the other side of Earth from where I was born.

Back then my hair was completely dark as well as my eyes. Not ink black. I didn't have soulless pits for eyes without pupils, but more like a dark chocolate brown. Long hair, that complements my light tan skin. I'm small, just slightly below average and my ethnicity is Asian, of some sort. No one knows for sure, but they conclude Chinese because China was where I was adopted. I have the eyes that mark me as one of them, but they're not completely slanted and I don't have monolids [type of eyelid feature]. But I was born somewhere around there, on the other side of the Earth from where my brother was born.

Fate or life decision of some sort determined us to become siblings at some point in our early lives. Indeed we were meant to be siblings. We argued with each other. Ignored each other. Fought with each other. One time I locked him out of the house. Another time he duck taped me in a box. Other times we yelled or placed blame, whether false or true, on each other. It's what siblings do. Usually.

There came a turning point in this chaotic sibling relationship. Someone we both loved, died. Someone, who today, would be quite pleased to know that my brother and I have learned to get along and love each other. This turning point, is not something can be easily described, but it's a point where something inside of you changes. You learn to be more patient and accepting. More importantly you realize. I came to realize and appreciate my brother. As well as, depend on him, as family should, and as a friend.
***
 
Look again. They are at a fair. But you cannot see that they are, or the people around them. You can neither see the animals through the open door behind the girl, in the white building behind everyone. You cannot see that the building behind both of them. You could not assume for fact that they are brother and sister, the man and the girl. You cannot have known the years it took for that rare photo of just the two siblings to have taken.
 
The photograph cannot tell you all of that. But I did.        

 

2 comments:

  1. This is a lovely account of your relationship with your brother and your own origins. Lots of great details and your voice comes through loud and clear.

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    1. Oops got this comment late, thank you very much Professor!

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