I Only Knew You...

I don’t know why I never realized it before, but, my brother’s actually afraid to cross the road.

Growing up, my brother and I had always been there for each other, with our father six feet under and our mother trying very hard to put some food on the table, as well as a cryptic grandmother, all we had was just each other. Still, on most occasions, I would do whatever it was every other big sister in the world would do; I would pester around and drive him mad, who can actually blame me? He is my little brother. Of course, that was never all that I do, in fact, I believe at one point in my life, my mission was to keep him safe and away from the bullies.

Looking at my brother now, you’d never believe he was once a small and frail young boy. Age had helped him outgrew his former self, but when you’re a big sister, no matter how large in size your brother gets, he would always be just that, your little brother. It is the same case with me, sure, now my brother towers over me, but I could still remember when he would need my help to reach for something on the shelf, always needing my help, always following me around and doing whatever it was that I was doing. My mother was never pleased about it.

Well, when you’re not the average girl that plays around with dolls and prefer to climb trees and race downhill with your bike, having your brother take you as example could never be a good idea at all. I was maybe five and my brother was four. It was the year that our father died and all my brother and I had left to remind us of him was each other. I can’t remember when or where or how, but for as long as I could remember since that year, my brother was always there, a step behind me. When I learn how to ride a bike, he would do so, when I jump off two staircases at a time, he would follow.

He was never that far behind. I’d like to think I know him. However, I just realized that it was not the case. I no longer knew him. The thing that came with getting older is the fact that it would at one point be no longer cool to hang out with your older siblings. The things you did when you’re kids, the TV Shows you’d watch together, the places you’ll hang out just to pass the time, well, it would slowly became irrelevant. You’d grow up and you couldn’t be more different. My brother and I, we’re atypical. We’ve always had time to hang out and I could never be embarrassed walking around with him. Well, except when girls start to flock around or swoon over him – I’ll just disappear into the wind.

Today, well, we’re out attending to matters like we’d usually do, we’d pay the bills for our mom, we’d shop for a few groceries and we’d argue over the fact that my brother needed something new, his clothes or his closet or whatever I could think off to irritate him. But, today was different too. It was one of those odd days for us; we actually got to pay the bills at the very last minute. It was very unlike either of us. We’d pay everything early; in fact, we’d pay it on time. That lead to what happened.

If we had done things as we did like every other month, I probably wouldn’t have really figured one thing about my brother. He was actually scared of crossing the road. My fearless and large brother was scared of crossing the roads. I’d like to say I didn’t laugh, but I certainly did. Hey, I am only human; expecting me to act noble or understanding in that situation was something that would never happen. Still, I feel bad, I never knew he was scared of it, I just assumed... Amazing, how little I know about him after all these years...

And I Miss You...

All my life, I try my best to hang on to things, memories and people. I have two small boxes filled with gifts from friends over the years and I have three USB drive filled with words I’ve written as well. I don’t delete anything and I keep whatever’s precious to me close to heart. However, doing so was never a good thing to begin with. I’ve known that for a very long time – hanging onto a memory, it could very well weaken your resolution, and I, I like to hang on to every fond memory I’ve ever had, that’s why I kept writing everything down. Now today, out of the blue, I decided that I wanted to write a blog, so I started one, but I still keep a copy of what I write in a word document. Is there such thing as a cyber hoarder? Maybe, or maybe I just started a revolution, I’ll never know.

Still, that’s not the reason why I wanted to write. I just felt like I should when I came across an old document, a short post of which I made during one of my saddest moment, the day I lost my grandmother. In the post, I wrote about just how much I missed her even when she had just left me the day before. Reading it, it made me realize, I still do, miss her. In fact, I haven’t stopped. I don’t know how to stop and I have no idea on how to miss her any less. Not when my mother would mentioned her during dinner, like what type of food my grandmother had loved when she was alive, what type of dishes she would make, all of it, all of it made it hard for me to miss her less.

Funny, we’ve always known that we’re losing her; still, we can’t stop missing her. I was maybe ten, it was then she got really sick – breast cancer. It was detected late and my grandmother never recovered from it even after extensive surgery and treatments. Everyday, we watch her disappear bit by bit leaving the shadow of her former self behind. Her once strong stature slowly changed, she got thinner, her face was hallowed, and her taste bud was no longer working properly. We were already losing her, but we refused to acknowledge it, I refuse to acknowledge it. It was hard, growing up, she was my protector, my big and scary grandma, the one who can chase away all the bad things and make me feel safe.

I was losing her, I was terrified, too scared to move too far from her. No one in my family was ever really good at saying the words; I love you, but we all have something in common, we have always shown it in our actions. My grandmother didn’t pass right away. She lived for many years after that, but only as a lesser version of herself. I didn’t care, she was there, I know she was there and that was enough. But I was scared to move, to make big changes; I didn’t even dare to accept any offer to study far from home because at the back of my mind I knew, if I go, I would have missed the chance to see her one last time.

I never went anywhere, not until the day she died. The day that started like any other day, the day that I lost her and the day I still wish never happened. And I, I still miss her.