A GHOST BROTHER

I think I would have liked to have an older brother. The thought hit me with an incredible violence, bringing tears to my eyes without warning. It is strange to mourn the absence of someone who never existed. To cry for a ghost.

If I’d had that older brother, I would have wanted him to be my shield. To stand between the world and me. I would have wanted him to protect me from the stares and the blows at school. To take the hit—or at least teach me how to duck—whenever violence forced its way into my home. I would have loved to have someone there to take the lightning first.

I had to move through the dark, alone. With no one to warn me about the abyss of my addictions. No one to explain how to survive my first heartbreaks, or how to keep from being devoured by my traumas during my first relationships. I discovered everything by crashing headfirst into the walls of my own fears.

If he had been there, he would have talked sense into me when I was acting out. He would have cheered for the small victories, the diplomas, or simply for knowing how to bounce back from this severe, chronic depression that never really lets me go. He would have been there in the morning to pull me out of bed, or to sit beside me during those semesters where I racked up hundreds of absences, pinned down by the void.

Deep down, I know his presence wouldn't have erased everything. I probably still would have sought the same escapes. Chaos would have found other paths, but the core of my flaws would have remained the same. The difference is that the fall might have made less noise.

But by searching for this guide in the void, I eventually understood one essential thing. I had to become my own big brother.

I had to build this dented armor alone just to survive. And the greatest victory in all this disaster isn't just being alive. It’s having broken the cycle. I didn't have a shield, but today, I am a very gentle big brother to my little bro. I absorb the chaos, so he never has to mourn a ghost brother.