The Only Brother (9 page)

Dear William,

I would hope that this letter finds you well, but since you are dead I can’t know. Part of me hopes that there is something beyond what we have here and now, and that you see the world from where you are. If not, then at least I can get all this off my chest. I thought it might be a good idea to write out how I feel.

I imagine myself talking to you as I write, actually getting in a word edgewise, finally able to interrupt your nonstop talking. Finally able to say all the things I wanted to say but never got a chance to tell you. You
would never shut up. Wish I could hear you now, but it still doesn’t mean that you never did shut up.

We didn’t get along, you and I. I didn’t think that the world suddenly changed things between us when you died. I didn’t think you were some kind of saint. I didn’t gloss over the things you did wrong. Maybe it was because I was so detached from things, so isolated, that I didn’t have this big hole in my life when you died. Or maybe I did, and took out all my anger on the world. With you gone, I couldn’t keep on making excuses about why Dad and Mum paid so little attention to me.

I had to stand up and make a mark. I couldn’t keep on blaming you for stuff. Yeah, Dad and Mum did get along better with you. But that’s just how it was. Doesn’t mean they didn’t like me, or that they hated me, which in my screwed-up mind I sometimes imagined. It just means that some people get along better, and some don’t. I wish it wasn’t like that. I wish things could have been better between us, at least.

I never thought for a moment that you cared about me. Everyone insisted that you did, that you loved me, that you were this wonderful person. I never believed it because all I saw was Dad and Mum going out of their way to make your life better. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that they felt I didn’t need so much, so I was left to fall by the wayside.

They could see that I didn’t need as much from them as you, so they gave you what you needed. I should have told them that I needed more from them too.

But the thing is, deep down, I knew that you needed a lot of help; and all because some doctor screwed up delivering you. That wasn’t your fault. I know that I had lots of decent breaks in life, just because I was born healthy. I should have been more understanding. I see that now. But I was just a kid.

Still, even with the screwed-up birth and people making fun of you, you still made something of yourself. You did better than
lots of people who are perfectly healthy. You made more of a difference to the people you met than most of the smart kids, the school team players and the in-crowds. You made people forget all the bad things about you once they came to know you. And they forgave your faults. That shows how much you came to mean to them.

For some reason, I couldn’t forgive you. It seemed that I did all the right things and still ended up being compared to you. And I never seemed to come out of those comparisons well. I hated it, hated that I couldn’t stand out no matter what I did. I’d get ace grades but it was just expected of me. You stood out simply by beating the odds.

I never thought you cared. I keep coming back to that, but it’s something that I know moulded my personality. If you’re still floating around, as it were, you probably got a kick out of watching me throw up when Buzz showed me the trust fund. A last laugh for you, proving me wrong after all this time. I thought you didn’t give a damn about me. I’d just thought it was you, Dad and Mum as
one big family, while I was the odd one out. I’d always thought that you were shutting me out, pushing me aside, all of you.

And then I find out you cared about me more than you could have ever explained. You were never good with words. I figure that Buzz helped you write half your papers at university – although maybe that’s being uncharitable. You weren’t too good with actions, either. I mean, Christmas
…
that last Christmas you were here, you had nothing good to say about anything I did. Was it simply me being good at what I did that got you so mad that you had to lash out at me?

I don’t know
…
maybe I just saw it that way and didn’t listen. Maybe we both should take some blame for that.

All I know is that you made up for it big time. You took nearly everything you had and made it mine, and all to make up for all the stuff you thought I’d lost out on. The money they spent on your medical bills, on your schooling, on everything
…
I didn’t ask
for it and it wasn’t given. It goes both ways. Maybe I could have pushed more, maybe I could have tried to be more a part of the family with everyone. Maybe I could have tried to remember more of the good stuff instead of focusing on all the bad things.

I can’t really say that I loved you, Will. You were my brother, and it bothers me that you got a raw deal out of life. But I can’t say that I loved you. I just didn’t feel that connection to you. I didn’t hate you though, and I genuinely wish that things could have been different for you. I wish we could have been brothers like my friend Trevor and his brother. But we weren’t. We were just Andrew and William Simmons, always butting heads, always arguing.

It really is a shame that it took your dying for me finally to be part of the family. For a while, I thought that with you gone, I was going to be the only brother left. But it turned out that I was still going to have to compete with your memory, your ghost. Some day, I would even be the older brother. I’d be twenty-four years old and getting older
while you didn’t age a day. Forever
twenty-four
and always Dad and Mum’s beautiful boy while I continued to age.

But in my heart, you are always going to be my older brother now, even though you don’t age a day. I’m going to take what you gave me and make the best of it. You showed your true feelings by taking a big part of what belonged to you and giving it to me when you didn’t have to. Now, it’s my turn to do the same. You have a nice tombstone now, and I’m going to see about setting up a scholarship in your name. I’m sure I’ll think of other things, or Buzz and Sara and other people will give me ideas.

At the very least, I can find ways to show how much I care about you and what you’ve done for me.

Take care, my only brother, wherever you may be…

Andrew

Caias Ward is a professional writer, editor and game designer, based in New Jersey, USA, and has drawn from events in his own life to tell the poignant story of The Only Brother.