My youngest brother has been on my mind, and until I write about him, it will be. He is having a birthday this month, I think it is June 26th and I am unsure of how old.
But he was born when I was in my early twenties so that makes him in his late twenties.
When he was about a year and a half old, I was babysitting him and discovered he was deaf. The doctor confirmed this and he was given hearing aids and glasses as well, for he also has trouble with his vision.
I was like an Aunt to him more than a sibling, for I would come and go and bring him places spoiling him.
He began schooling early to teach him how to communicate.
Sign language was what he used, a different language than what was spoken at home.
Some of us learned a few words, most didn’t learn at all. It seems weird to me now that we didn’t all rise up to meet his needs, but instead he was left out.
Would things have all been different if he was the firstborn and not the last? He arrived into a family that was big and going along at it’s own pace, it seemed no one stopped to let him on.
When he was a preteen my parents opted to send him to a boarding school for the Deaf. They also had to give up custody, I am unsure why, maybe to defray the cost of tuition since it is out of state.
He then was only home on holidays and in the summer.
The time we shared was less and less, until there was none at all. He faded out of our family or at least for me.
I have lost touch with him completely. This happened when he left the boarding school and didn’t come home anymore.
I can understand his not wanting to come home to a family that gave him away more or less and one that couldn’t speak his language our worlds were far apart an ocean separated us.
It seems he is very self absorbed, and as I have learned, the greater the pain the more self centered you become, I can only imagine his suffering, handicapped and being sent away, alone at such a young age.
He has said though, that it was the best thing that happened to him, and that he now has a community to be in. He found a place for him to belong, one that was separate from our family, a new family.
He not only has the handicap to overcome, but the years of being in a dysfuctional home.
It is weird to know you have a brother out there and have lost connections with. He was the first one in many who I am losing along the way.
When you no longer speak the same language the relationship unravels our common reality no longer matches.
I have fond memories of him being young, his cowboy boots, his little vests he had to wear to store his battery packs for his hearing aids, his beautiful blue eyes which perhaps seen too much at such a young age. I remember his humor at slap sticklike comedy, like the three stooges. I wonder how it is today, what kind of young man he will become?
It makes me sad to write that such a delightful soul got lost from our home, one of so damn many.
Am I losing them or is that just the way life goes. Are we connected for a while, and then we move on? Was my interaction with him only to be for a short while, was that all we were to have?
I wish you well, I know your path was not smooth, I hope you find a place where you can soar, be yourself free and in a state of acceptance. Accepting that at the time they did the best they knew how and now it is up to you.
We are the products of our childhood, it lays the foundation of who we are today, is the course work that we now have to navigate through to come back to ourselves.
I hope you find you and in doing so live a life filled with love, peace and joy! May the spark return to your eyes, the glee of humor and joy, may you once again set forth into this land becoming all who you were meant to be!
I last knew you as snowpower98!
