To my brother

I always wanted to have a brother. I don’t know why but I did. So when I was 5 (and a bit) years old  and my little brother made his appearance into this world, I was absolutely thrilled! Soon after I realised though that actually I’d wanted an older brother, but even at such young age I understood I wasn’t going to happen, so I settled for what life threw at me.

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My brother on his Christening Day a looooong time ago…

I don’t remember having any major fights with my brother- somehow we always got on, were able to communicate , negotiate and play together. I think that actually me wanting him in my life was a key to our relationship being amicable and friendly since the very beginning. He would play with my dolls with me ( he’d pretend to be a girl too to get into a mood of whatever we were playing – sorry, Brother, secret is out now 😀 ), we would play with cars and building blocks… He was a bit of a copycat, this one was, but it wasn’t anything unusual I guess for a little boy wanting to copy his older and much wiser sister 😉

It was snowing here the other day…That snowy weather brought up memories of one winter holidays my brother and I had spent at our grandparents’ place in the countryside. When I was little I loved horses- I dreamt of having my own horses and stables, however that wasn’t possible when one is only in a primary school. So that winter I decided to build my own (snow) horse. Of course my brother wanted one too, so we built two horses standing next to each other. And , of course, mine was bigger- after all I was older! Our grandmother gave us thick plastic sheets, mats, blankets and what have you , so we could actually sit on our horses and gallop through the world 🙂 I showed my brother how to put a saddle on his horse, how to get on it, how to hold reins and how to clean the horse, making sure his snowy hooves were spotless.

The only bigger spat I remember I’d had with my brother was probably when I was 10 or 11 and we decided to cook breakfast for our parents. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I wanted to make pancakes, well, anyway, I needed a frying pan, which somehow my brother wanted to use as well and I wasn’t happy about it. One thing led to another and I ended up hitting my brother on the head with the frying pan! Well, although I was quite annoyed with him and wanted to hit him really hard, I didn’t as knew he’d be really in pain, so a frying pan bang on the head was more symbolic than an actual injury-causing one. Yet he went and grassed on me! I don’t remember if I’ve actually forgiven him…

There are plenty of anecdotes about my brother that I could tell , but it’d make it a really long post (plus we need to have some secrets left in the family! ) ,so I’ll just list three ‘classics’ :

  • he melted a plastic pot on the hob when he wanted to ‘cook’
  • he pushed a bit of mandarine peel up his nose at his birthday party (he might have been 4 or 5?) that he ended up at A&E
  • he used a recorder (luckily his!) as a plunger when a toilet got blocked.

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Our childhood together was actually quite cool. Things changed some years later, when our family circumstances changed too, and we ended up living together and took responsibility not just for ourselves ( school, studies, work) , but also for running the house, looking after our dog, running important errands for one of our parents… During some challenging times we went through, we managed to build a really stable, well-run home for ourselves and we worked and lived very well together. I don’t think that even in my adult life I managed to achieve such a level of work-study-life balance with anyone else as I did with my brother. That was also the time when he would become a bit more outspoken and questioned and challenged me, yet still we could just work things out peacefully. For me those years of living together as young adults and dealing with whatever life had thrown at us were the most formative years of our relationship. That was the time when I felt most connected to him and felt this strong bond that no one can ever break.

Life went on, things inevitably changed… I left and started my life in another country. My brother suddenly grew up, finished studies, started working, met a girl, got married… Although we live on two different continents, miles apart, lead different lives, have  different political, social and religious views, I still claim that he’s the closest family member I have in my life. Despite differences, we are still able to talk, question, try to listen to each other…

When I look at my brother now, I’m in awe. I’m so proud of this young (cough cough) man who has grown into this wonderful, loving and caring person, a rock for his wife and his little son. It’s wonderful to see how he came out of his shell, embraced his life and basically how happy he has been 🙂

There is nothing more left to say now but:

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best brother in the world!  I’m very proud of you and I wish you nothing but happiness now and for years to come 🙂 

 

( P.S. I might consider forgiving you for grassing on me, if you play your cards right 😉 )

 

 

 

 

 

12 Replies to “To my brother”

  1. This is wonderful! I have an older brother who I don’t think ever wanted me around. We are not close and I am so envious when people are close to their siblings. No one else in the world shares your unique history like siblings.

    1. Hi Courtney. Thank you for reading and for your comments. Sorry to hear that your relationship with your brother isn’t great.I agree with you that relationship between siblings is a very unique one. My brother and I went through some challenging times together and I feel that it really helped with bonding. We do differ and have have different views on few areas of life, but so far we’ve been able not to hang on to those and focus on things that connect us. I hope it’ll continue.
      I wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best in New Year 🙂 I like your blog!

  2. Thank you my dearest, wiser, older (haha!) Sister. It’s been the greatest present I’ve ever got from you! …. maybe except the bump on my head from the frying pan hit;)
    But honestly, you gave me few moments back from my childhood that I completely forgot about but now will stay with me for longer. Yeah, our life was rich with a mix of sunny and cloudy times, but we could manage to stay together as a brotherhood team:)
    #bestSister
    Ps. Starting to write a memoire, targeting to finish by beginning of August 2018;-)))))

  3. Happy birthday to your brother! It’s a nice gift for his birthday to write an article about him!
    Such a coincidence, that I also have a brother that’s younger than me (mine is three years younger) and we get along very well. There must be something about these little brothers – you can’t but get along with them 🙂
    And they are fun, too. 🙂

    1. Thank you, that’s so kind of you to wish him happy birthday 🙂 They can be fun indeed. But as older sisters we always need to be ready to kick their backsides too 😉

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