His proud grandma called to tell me that her grandson, my nephew, was in the newspapers. Unfortunately we don’t get the Northern section here, so proud aunty couldn’t show off to her friends. Damn.
His father, my eldest brother, and I are separated by 11 years. Suffice to say we are far removed in more ways than the convenience that is provided by geographical distance and age gap.
This is the guy who made me cry while trying to drum into me my times table. I still remember sobbing while reciting “2 x 8 equals 16, 2 x 9 equals 18…sniff, sniff!” But I have much to owe my brother in terms of a musical education. He was an 80’s teenager, so mini-me had a steady diet of 80’s pop while growing up. One of my fondest memories is of him doing an impression of the Fine Young Cannibals “She drives me crazy”. It had us siblings all rolling on the floor in gales of laughter and till today I smile every time I hear the song. Years later I found that I seemed to be able to recognize 80’s songs and sometimes even sing along without knowing who sang it and what it was called. And so I began paying attention and now I have quite the repertoire of cheesy music to be paraded during karaoke sessions. My friends call me old, but I prefer to think of it as being “cultured”, heh.
I also remember how he and my 2nd brother conned Mum and Dad into taking the whole family to watch “The Thing” in the cinema. I was about 5 years old and spent the entire movie with my hands clamped over my eyes. Oh let me tell u the brothers certainly got a sound caning when we got home and I had lovely nightmares for ages. (Aside: that’s a great movie btw, caught it later in life, was sort of a pre-cursor to “Alien”)
Now he’s a husband and father (well, has been for a while, this post is a leetle late) and it warms the cockles of my heart to witness the tenderness in his eyes at unguarded moments when he’s with wife-y and sons.
So I know we’ll never have the picture perfect elder brother-little sister stereotypical relationship. He’ll never be the elder brother I look up to and confide with and I’ll never be the little sister whom he’ll worship and over protect. But I have a sneaky suspicion that he’s proud of me and I’m secretly happy that he’s found his place in life. And as a bonus it’s nice to find that we share the same irreverent sense of humour. It’ll probably never be more than that, but as far as relationships go, I’ll take it as it is any day.
His father, my eldest brother, and I are separated by 11 years. Suffice to say we are far removed in more ways than the convenience that is provided by geographical distance and age gap.
This is the guy who made me cry while trying to drum into me my times table. I still remember sobbing while reciting “2 x 8 equals 16, 2 x 9 equals 18…sniff, sniff!” But I have much to owe my brother in terms of a musical education. He was an 80’s teenager, so mini-me had a steady diet of 80’s pop while growing up. One of my fondest memories is of him doing an impression of the Fine Young Cannibals “She drives me crazy”. It had us siblings all rolling on the floor in gales of laughter and till today I smile every time I hear the song. Years later I found that I seemed to be able to recognize 80’s songs and sometimes even sing along without knowing who sang it and what it was called. And so I began paying attention and now I have quite the repertoire of cheesy music to be paraded during karaoke sessions. My friends call me old, but I prefer to think of it as being “cultured”, heh.
I also remember how he and my 2nd brother conned Mum and Dad into taking the whole family to watch “The Thing” in the cinema. I was about 5 years old and spent the entire movie with my hands clamped over my eyes. Oh let me tell u the brothers certainly got a sound caning when we got home and I had lovely nightmares for ages. (Aside: that’s a great movie btw, caught it later in life, was sort of a pre-cursor to “Alien”)
Now he’s a husband and father (well, has been for a while, this post is a leetle late) and it warms the cockles of my heart to witness the tenderness in his eyes at unguarded moments when he’s with wife-y and sons.
So I know we’ll never have the picture perfect elder brother-little sister stereotypical relationship. He’ll never be the elder brother I look up to and confide with and I’ll never be the little sister whom he’ll worship and over protect. But I have a sneaky suspicion that he’s proud of me and I’m secretly happy that he’s found his place in life. And as a bonus it’s nice to find that we share the same irreverent sense of humour. It’ll probably never be more than that, but as far as relationships go, I’ll take it as it is any day.
2 comments:
Told you, elder bro is much better than younger bro! And especially when you've 3 of them..it's no JOKE.
lynne
classic case of grass is always greener on the other side, heh. Well at least u can boss the kiddo's around..
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