He Ain't Heavy

Though the new year signifies a time for reunion, we all know that brief familial idyll doesn't last forever. Inevitably the time for separation arrives not long after the earlier fanfare.

This time however the new year also marks the year my brother finally takes his leave for work. Obviously curious to see if the grass really is greener on the other side.

Me, I think it's a desert mirage.

When my brother told me about this momentous decision a few months back, I found myself literally agog. Life without a brother. Years back as a kid sharing a room with an occasionally fractious sibling, I might have thrown a party at the very thought.

But hell, I haven't thought about that eventuality in a really long time. Like everyone else, I was pretty sure we'd live apart after a while - possibly sometime in the misty future. And I certainly never imagined it to be thousands of miles away in some foreign oasis.


Brother : See. The future.
Paul : Hello. The grass is so not greener over there. The sun's a scorcher though.
Brother : Bitch bitch bitch.
So what would it be like without my elder bro around? No one to bug me, that's for sure. He doesn't have to intentionally twitch the paperback out of my hands or poke to rile me these days - but he still knows what gets my goat! No one to spread hints - or drop financial manuals - to suggest that I should curtail my endless shopaholic spending. No one to read the operation manuals from front to back, that's for sure - since a techno-himbo like me couldn't be bothered to.

But without him around, I wouldn't have that buddy around to reminisce about old family gatherings. The guy you trust to recall some silly familiar joke in our shared past.

And I'd be missing my person. Yeah, that person. That go-to fella in case something goes wrong. The personal number you give in case of an emergency. Though my brother might be crabby as hell, I'd still trust him to step in to save me ( from whatever unfortunate misadventure I might land in ) without question.

Though I'm sure he'll have plenty to say afterward.

Fortunately ( being relatively self-sufficient if I may say so myself :P ) I've never given him any just cause to play the knight-errant. Usually try my best to extricate myself from the godawful messes I make - and then hastily hush up the entire embarassing debacle if I can! But it has been pretty comforting to know that my shockingly competent brother's always been around barely a stone's throw away.

So what would life be without a brother? Certainly much less.