I Pray the Rain, the Rain Won’t Fall

Oh, Lord don’t let it fall,
Keep my brother safe from harm.

Something that’s remarked upon quite often to me is my relationship with my brother Mike. “You’re such good friends,” people say. Well, it’s true, we really are. I wanted to talk about it a little because it’s one of the few extraordinary things about my life. It took me a while to realize that being friends (not simply co-existing) with your sibling isn’t a terribly common thing, and so I started thinking about how this kind of thing came to be.

I was 20 months old, almost to the day, when Mike was born. Young enough that, I can honestly say, I don’t really remember life without him. I don’t remember going to the hospital and meeting him for the first time. The earliest memory I have in relation to Mike is that I was holding one of my dolls in my room one morning and my mom was holding Mike. I happily threw my ‘baby’ up into the air and caught her again, and told my mom to do that with her baby, too. She said her baby doesn’t really like being thrown. So, I think he must have been pretty young at the time. I also don’t personally recall re-naming all my dolls “Michael” when he was born, but my mom tells me that I did. (I do know that over time, only one kept the name while the others eventually were called their original names once more… Strawberry, Maria and Michelle.)

If asked, I would have told you at the time that I loved my brother but really, I think I was too young to know what having a brother really meant. I didn’t feel protective of him yet. I just don’t think that’s an instinctive feeling for a one and a half year old with sufficiently protective parents. If you watch the home videos of us, it really looks like I resent him. It really looks like he’s stolen my spotlight and I’m willing to do just about anything to get it back. By the time he was walking and talking and drawing and doing interesting things, (not just crying and pooping! What do mom and dad see in this blob, anyways?) then he started to be my playmate. I’ll be honest though. I do remember thinking, and I suppose I was around four or five at the time, ‘how can mom love Mike and me the same, like she says she does? I run faster, I draw better, I know more words, I can count; I do just everything better! How is it possible that she doesn’t love me more?’ I laugh when I remember thinking that. I really did!

We played together a lot, and had a great time. But it wasn’t always pretty. Of course there’s no such thing as siblings who never fight. We fought, and we fought good. For awhile in elementary school, I was mad at my brother often and he was mad at me. He told me more than once that he wished he could trade me for our (admittedly much more gentle and caring) older cousin, Julie. I just wished he’d stop being so annoying all the time.

There was a short time when I felt like I didn’t care about my brother. I loved him begrudgingly because he was family (and you have to love your family, don’t you), but I didn’t think I could muster up anything deeper than that. Then came Nick. I can’t really remember the whole story but the long and short of it is that this kid in Mike’s grade who was once his friend, turned on him and was giving him a hard time. One day it got around that he was planning on beating Mike up after school. I have to say, I was completely unprepared for the intense, fiery rage I was thrown into when I heard about it. I couldn’t think straight and my hands were trembling. All I could picture was me ending the little snot who had threatened my brother. I gathered up my friends and we walked Mike home from school. I knew in my heart of hearts that even in anger I wouldn’t really try to hurt the bully even though I did see him. If memory serves, there wasn’t too much trouble with Nick after that. Perhaps having an entourage of sixth graders kind of sends a message when you’re in grade four.

Still, this is a pretty common childhood. Why are we friends now?

One of the things that can really mar a sibling relationship is breakneck competition. I have to say… I never felt like I was in competition with Mike. I think the reason for this was that (apart from not being the same gender, which is a factor) our talents were just different. I didn’t really mind that he was fantastic at math while I struggled through it. I was sweet at art, I took ballet. He was great at physics, I was great at bio. It just all evened out.

This is a bit of a side note I guess. It’s funny, I don’t consider myself a competitive person overall. I kind of like winning but I don’t need to like some people do. What it comes down to for me is, in each case, what would winning or losing really prove of me? At my most competitive, there’s almost always some hidden implication behind a loss. For example, I hate losing more than about half the time when playing thinking games with André. I get so mad at myself! Of course, it has little to do with each particular game of Scrabble. What it comes down to is that I need to feel like I’m his intellectual equal. (A Virgo who thinks she’s stupid is a very, very unhappy Virgo.) Probably the most competitive I’ve ever been was with Mark in school in grade nine. Pretty much every mark we got back was a contest between us, because we were close enough friends to bear each other’s ribbing when the other won. That year we were pretty evenly matched, and in the same home room, with the same teachers. We couldn’t compare marks across the board after that. In grade ten we took different levels of classes and had different teachers.

Anyways, another reason to mention Mark is this – he was probably one of our first mutual friends. Not to the same degree as the many, many that would come later (in school I considered him primarily my friend, but now WoW has changed that I think!), but still, when Mark came over to play with me when we were just kids, Mike joined in a lot. I think that got me used to the idea that a brother could be a friend.

Something to note also, is that, growing up, I was disastrously shy. Meeting new people was the scariest. Even interacting with newer friends was stressful. The thing about Mike was that in a lot of situations, he was always there. I don’t really mean that sentimentally. I just mean he was always there, physically. When mom and dad took us to the company parties and there were kids everywhere, well, at least I knew Mike. At least I was safe with Mike. Even earlier, when I was old enough to go to Children’s Worship at church but Mike wasn’t, I stuck to Elaine Umbach like glue. Glue! Once Mike was there too, I was fine. I clearly remember the day when I realized he was now old enough to come with me, and not just stay in the service or in the nursery. The relief that washed over me was amazing. I mean, it was potent enough that I still remember it, probably more than fifteen years later.

And of course, the reason above all: shared interests and similar personalities. I mean, put it this way – even if we weren’t related, I’d still hang out with Mike. That’s a friend, not just someone you’ve been forced to live with since forever. In that light, of course we need to have some common interests. We like the same movies and music and events and TV shows (mostly). We play the same games, we get ideas and agree when they’re good.

The thing about siblings is that they really are in this thing with you for the long haul, whether they like it or not. Love your brothers, love your sisters, because at the very least, it’ll make for a whole lot less pain for you if you treat them nicely. At the very most, it becomes a bond that transcends mere words.