GROWING PAINS

When I was three years old, my father died in a car accident. I don't remember enough of him to be sad by losing him. Sometimes, I feel a little empty or a little hollow and that's what I'm sad about. I'm sad that I didn't get the chance to even miss him. After all, I didn't have a father to play ball with, or to teach me how to ride my bike, or any of that stuff. That was okay, though, because my big sister did a good job of doing those things with me. She raced remote control cars with me, she taught me how to play baseball and soccer, and she helped me plan playful practical jokes against other kids. Even if it was awkward for her to be playing with a bunch of kids six years younger than she was, it never stopped her. She always let me know I was her top priority---her little brother, her little everything; and even though she teased me lots, there was no doubt in my heart of her love.

When I was nine years old, I lost the best friend in my big sister to a super-hero. At first, it was all okay---I mean, what's cooler than your big sister having a super-hero boyfriend! He taught me how to fight, and he gave me the confidence to get my first girlfriend. He always supported me, even if it made him uneasy. In a way, he filled up the other part of me that was missing that my big sister just couldn't fill. I really looked up to him---he was my hero, and I wanted to be just like him. But as the years went by, and his world became more and more dangerous, my big sister and her super-hero boyfriend just weren't around as much as they once were. The visits faded. My sister managed to come back from time to time, but by then something had changed about her. She looked like my big sister...maybe a little tanner, maybe a little stronger...but she had changed. There was something in her eyes I couldn't understand. She just looked too wise, too old to be a teenage girl, to be my big sister, my best friend. More than that, she just looked tired; constantly tired, very lonely, and a little sad. She looked so old. And in those few times she was home, looking distant like that, I tried my best to take care of her---I really did. I was her brother, and it was my job to protect her, right? I mean, I had always told her that I would protect her from anything when we fought with the boys across the street, and back then she had smiled and agreed. I protected her from bullies and I listened to her problems and made her feel better. But after she changed, that stopped. She was still willing to listen to me, as she always had, no matter how tired she was, but I couldn't help but feel like she was just too tired to really listen to me anymore. My problems were so small compared to hers and even when she listened it was like she was in another world; as if she'd moved beyond me. And even if I asked her what was going on in her life, about her super-hero boyfriend and her second world, she wouldn't tell me. She just smiled and said everything was fine. I don't know if she did it to keep from scaring me or if she thought I wouldn't understand. Maybe she was just too tired. Either way, all of those excuses offended me somewhere deeply---and it was then that I realized another change about her. When I looked into her eyes, I knew her thoughts were no longer about me. They were about the bigger world. I was no longer her top priority, her little everything. I was just a little something.

When I was thirteen years old, I lost the image I had of my big sister. They say thirteen years old is a big age to turn because you become a teenager, so much closer to being a big adult. I had a really big, exciting party. Mom managed to get me a really nice new bike, and all my friends came over. However, the one thing I was looking forward to the most, I didn't get. My sister didn't come back that day. She didn't even drop by late at night. She returned home a week later, and she apologized to me a lot. She really wanted to make it up to me. She said she would take me out and have a date with me, and it could be just us two, like it used to be. But I refused. I was so hurt. She had already missed birthdays before, and it was not like she was going to be around again any time soon---so what was the point? It was never going to be 'just us two' again. It would be a lie, because her thoughts would be somewhere else even if she was sitting across from me. I wasn't a part of her life anymore, no matter how big a part of mine she was to me. I started ignoring her after that. She was no longer a cool big sister to me anymore, she was the lame idiot who abandoned her family for her stupid boyfriend. I told her so, and she looked a little hurt and her eyes softened, kind of like the way a mother looks when she realizes her son is being beaten up at school each day. I just turned around and stomped off. For a long time, things continued to get worse like that. Each time she left, she became less and less my sister, and each time she attempted to reconcile, I became more and more disgusted with her. In some way, I felt as if she had really damaged me. Finally she gave up trying to talk with me.

When I was fifteen years old, I lost my sister forever. When her super-hero boyfriend brought her home, cradled in his arms, she looked asleep. But she wasn't. She had been cleaned up, but there were stains of blood on her clothes and in her hair and even on her skin. They were the patches of blood that wouldn't rinse away. Her chest did not rise and fall, her cheeks did not flush. Her eyes did not cry and her lips did not laugh. She was just gone. I can't say what I felt when the realization hit me. All I knew was that there, there was the man who had once been my hero---my role-model---looking broken and very small with my big sister in his arms. After her funeral, her super-hero boyfriend took me aside and talked to me. It was the last time I ever saw him, and it was also the last time I ever talked about my sister.

"Kid," he said, sounding so drained and empty, "you might've expected something grand or heroic or even stupidly mushy to be her last words. But they weren't. They were about you. She wanted me to apologize to you for her. I don't know why, I guess because she died. She also said she loved you. She said no matter what, you were her little everything. I think that girl honestly believed you could do no wrong."

And my hero turned away forever, and I never saw him again.

After he left, I fell to my knees and cried the first time. They say men don't cry, that a good man always holds back his tears. But at that point I didn't feel like a real man. I was washed over with guilt, and the only thing I could do was cry. She had not even told her boyfriend about how things had gone wrong between us. She never blamed me for acting the way I did. She still loved me while I was hating her. Every time I cursed her, she blessed me. I was filled with so much grief, so much guilt, but there was no way to apologize to her now.

I wasted anything I could have salvaged.

She was gone.

Just gone.

When I was fifteen years old, I lost myself. Some part of me stayed buried with her.

I don't know what it feels like to really be in love, but I'm convinced there's no bond deeper than that of two siblings. For years I spent my time agonizing over what I had done before finally coming to realize something. My sister had already forgiven me, and I knew she always had forgiven me for everything, and always would have forgiven me for anything else. That's how brothers and sisters are---you make mistakes to repair them. Lovers' hearts are frail, to be broken like a mirror---once shattered, the image sails away in shards, which cannot be repaired without cracks and distortions. But the connection of hearts between siblings is something entirely different. It's like the earth: it may get weary and old, but it always supports given a little bit of time to heal; it always lets new things grow. And after I discovered that, I didn't feel like my sister was gone anymore. Just waiting for me at some other destination---not because she was obligated to wait for me like a friend, not because she was desirous to be with me again like a lover, but because she just wanted to be with me. She just wanted to be with me.

And I forgave her that day.

The End