Brother, Where Art Thou? Tales of Lost Memories and The Present

In today's diary entry, this is mostly pertains to what happened in the past but it also mentions what happened in the future.

So, let me start off with some background information. I have an older brother. As children we didn't exactly get along much and it was due to the fact that we both had different interests. In addition to that, my brother is the type of guy who is easily angered. I honestly didn't have to do much just to piss him off. It might be the Scottish or Irish blood that runs through our family that may be the cause of such short tempers however, my brother can be fairly unpredictable at times.

An earliest memory that I had was the time when my older brother broke my collarbone. I somehow angered my brother so much that he pushed me off our front porch and I landed hard enough to break my collarbone. My mother hurried to me to see if I was okay and I brushed her off. A week has passed by. Not realizing that my bone was broken, my mother reached to help me out of the car and I suddenly shrieked like I was stabbed by knives. My mother then took me to the doctor to have me checked out. The doctor said that I had broken my collarbone but to my surprise I didn't need to have surgery because the bones were already healing back to their original location. The doctor advised my mother to limit my physical activities so that I didn't further hinder the healing process.

Now I know that was just a short story of my brother when he was young but let me assure you, he still progressed into a meanie by the time he was in high school. I remember a time when I was on the computer playing a video game and my brother asked me if I could do him a favor. I said I would after I was done with the computer. Rather than waiting, my brother flipped out and cursed me out. He stormed away proceeding to say, "what a worthless unreliable fuck". From what I could recall from the incident, he didn't make it clear to me that he wanted me to do him this favor right then and there at that very moment.

Then there were numerous times when I was in my freshman year of college when I asked for my brother's help and he absolutely refused. These moments when I needed his help were simple things. I had asked in if he could help me fix the problems I was having on my 8 year old laptop and my brother made it clear that he didn't have time to help me with his busy schedule. However he always had the time to help my little sister anytime she needed help with anything.

My brother definitely had a better brother/sister relationship with my little sister. It was mostly due to the fact that she would always help him at the drop of a hat and wouldn't even bat an eye. She was extremely reliable which I think instantly won brownie points with my brother. I'm not saying that I was a busy body or anything. It was just that I had interests in other things. My brother was always doing heavy lifting projects or technical projects which for the most part, they weren't any interests of mine. He was always a physical outdoor worker whereas I was always a homebody worker.

I don't want this to sound like all things were bad in our sibling rivalry. Ever since my brother got an N64, we played video games together. We played 1080 which was a snowboarding game and we often played coop mode in Goldeneye. Those were always memories that out-shined the moments when my brother was a jerk.

However time passed, and eventually my brother met a woman who later became his wife. My brother had dated her for years prior before he even proposed to her. Her name is Christine. At first, I really liked Christine. She was the ideal woman for my brother. She was an active lady who was also interested in the same things my brother was. She even had this farm girl attitude in which she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. Things were actually pretty great when Christine entered my brother’s life and I honestly liked her. I was very happy for my brother that he found his match.

When a few years had passed then things became complicated. Although I knew Christine was good to my brother, she somehow developed this strong dislike towards me. I can remember that things took a turn for the worse during the summertime when my family was actively involved with an outdoor concert held every year at our local park. Now I did tell you folks that I’m not really that physical of a worker however there were other jobs available for me to do at the park while the stage was being built. This however didn’t go over well with Christine. She thought that I was being way too lazy doing other things when I could be working with the others building the stage. When I did help build the stage, Christine even then continued to yell and scold me for not working faster. In addition, when one of our stage bosses assigned me to pull stage parts out of the semi-truck, Christine again scolded me for not working alongside with the others. It was then that my younger sister told Christine to back off because the stage boss told me to do that particular task. I was very thankful that my little sister helped me out. At that point even my little sister seemed to notice that Christine was too quick to judge other people.

When a week or two after the park concert was long over, some of my family members have heard Christine talking crap about me. Christine stated that I was a lazy individual who reminds her of a crappy college roommate she had of a girl who always wore a tiara while doing homework. That statement alone broke my heart because it was clear that Christine didn’t know a damn thing about me. All my life I grew up as a tomboy. I hated wearing dresses and my favorite toys to play with were jungle animals, not necessarily dolls. At this time, Christine had been proposed to and my family seemed to love Christine despite the fact that she said terrible things about me. I tried talking to my family about this issue and it seemed like they have already made up their minds and loved Christine regardless of what she said. My family dismissed what she said as, “Oh Christine just lives a different lifestyle than you. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.” I hope it was a misunderstanding. However time and time again, Christine only continued to show how disgusted she was with me. During her wedding, I helped her clean up after the party and I never received a thank you for that. And she still thought I was lazy.

Now I want to talk about what happened recently. For my family, 2013 has been a really shitty year. My grandfather had passed away. And my five year old female schnauzer had passed away from cancer.

My grandmother had passed away many years ago, so my grandparents’ house officially was empty. It was time for that painful process of clearing out the house of all their belongings. Obviously no one wanted to do this particular task because it was so painful. It was most especially painful to me because for the most part, I didn’t help out much because I was either 1.) Still finishing up in school (college) and 2.) I was mentally in denial that my grandparents were gone. Christine was very much involved with the process of taking care of getting rid of my grandparent’s belongings. However, she did snatch some family heirlooms which had belonged to both my grandmother and grandfather. I personally had nothing to remember my grandparents with. The exception being my grandmother’s blue sweater which she didn’t wear much even when she was still with us. This Christmas, Christine decided to give my family members memorial gifts of my grandparents. She took an old shirt of my grandfathers, cut the fabric in the shape of a star, and then she sewed two buttons which belonged to my grandmother. They were very nice and thoughtful gifts. However I was the only member in my family who didn’t receive one. Christine simply said, “Oh sorry Missy, I forgot about you. I knew I was forgetting someone.” I’m not entirely sure at this point what hurts more. The fact that my sister-in-law forgot about me. The fact that she doesn’t really consider me a member of the family. The fact that I wasn’t worthy enough to receive the gift that was supposed to honor and remember my grandparents.

After sitting down and reflecting upon what happened I realized something that was more important. Material goods mean absolutely nothing. What good was it to have a fabric star and buttons? My grandparents were still dead. No amount of material things would ever bring them back. If I approached Christine about the lack of gift for me, it would only further prove that I am a dragon who only wants heirloom goods. Not only that but it would create this image of me being a gold seeker than anything. I’ve told my father when we talked about grandpa that I would rather have my grandparents alive than have any kind of inheritance money. I don’t give a shit about money. I would rather have the people I love alive than bitch about money or inheritance. My father felt the same way. And so, when I thought about not receiving a thoughtful gift from Christine, it doesn’t bother me anymore. Material things shouldn’t matter. Only the memory of my grandparents matter. My grandmother’s kindness towards everyone matters. My grandfather’s epic storytelling matters. Who they were when they were alive matters. For those of you who may be going through loss, please remember: material goods don’t matter. The memories, the ones you lost, they matter. Don’t invest your emotions into objects that they once owned. As much as I love fantasy, their souls are not stored in the objects they owned. They souls are stored inside memories, and in our hearts.

Farewell 2013. I hope 2014 doesn’t disappoint.