To my baby brother
To my baby brother,
No one ever tells you how terrifying it is to love a child
Like a mother loves her son.
The feeling is beautiful and overwhelming and quite frankly awful.
No one ever tells you that you will live in constant fear
That one day you might lose hold of the person who matters most to you.
Someday you’ll know the feeling I’m talking about.
I remember the first time you jumped off the diving board at the pool.
Before you leaped, you looked at me.
Your eyes were so full of trust.
So you jumped.
But I couldn’t keep the both of us afloat.
I was choking, kicking, pushing you above me, trying to get you air as I fell further and further down.
In those split seconds, you branded me with fear.
A fear that my love for you was so powerful that I would put your life before my own.
And that even though I would still give my own life for yours a thousand times over,
It doesn’t always work that way.
And as you grow older, I can see it in your eyes.
You will someday live in fear too.
You learned it from me.
Because that’s just what brothers and sisters do.