I don’t like to think that my life is defined by a single moment. I am not who I am because of a series of events, I am who am I because of what I have learned and observed about the events that add up to shape my life. I like to think of myself as a pretty well-rounded person. I like to think that I am okay at most things, and that I can excel at some things as well. My life, for the most part, is not that challenging. Every day I wake up to the blaring of my alarm clock, and the eye-opening smell of coffee. Each day starts almost the same as the one before, and most of them end the same way. Only a few days in a person’s life actually seem to mean anything to them. Most people can’t tell you what they ate for dinner last night, or what their biggest worry was last week. For a day in a person’s life to stick with them, to have a significant impact on who they are as a human being, must be marked heavily by emotion. Emotion is what makes anything memorable. If there is no emotional stigma attached to an object or a person, why does it matter? If it doesn’t affect your life in the grand scheme of things, then why remember it?
******
It’s almost strange how clearly I remember the day. It was September 7th, 2004 and I was sitting on the floor in my first grade classroom at Russell Elementary School. The sun radiated through the open windows, permeating the room. We were sitting on a purple and red rug at the front of the room and my best friend Kayla was sitting beside me, whispering about a boy she liked.
“And then we went to the tree and, pretended to be King and Queen! And his friends were the Knights!” she giggled.
I was jealous. I didn’t have someone to play King and Queen with at recess, and Kayla was supposed to be my friend! She was supposed to play with me at recess!
I frowned.
“That’s cool.” I said, “Can I play with you guys too?”
Her smile waned a little bit. “…I don’t know if they’d like that… they don’t really like you...”
I was upset. Why didn’t they want to play with me too? It wasn’t fair that they liked her and not me.
“But whyyy?” I wined.
The teacher shushed me, but then returned to reading Charlottes Webb, not really caring if I had actually stopped talking.
“I don’t know,” she whispered back, glancing at Ms. Spiller, trying to make sure she didn’t see. “They just don’t think you’re cool…”
I crossed my arms. “Whatever.”

I turned away from her, and focused back on the book. I didn’t really like Charlottes Webb because of the fact that Charlotte was a spider and it made me cringe. Why would pig become friends with a spider? It made no sense to me.

Just then, my Papa (grandpa), walked into the room, handing the teacher a pass and saying that he was here to pick me up. I jumped up, grabbed my crayons, and shoved them in my pink Barbie backpack quickly. I wanted to leave. I followed my Papa out the door, down the hallway, and out to the parking lot where his car was parked.

He told me that we were going to listen to George Bush’s speech, that he was running for president and that we wanted him to win. He was a real American, my Papa said. He was a Republican and he had good morals. He would do what was best for our country. I could have really cared less. I didn’t know who George Bush was, or what being president really even meant.
*****
The only thing I could remember was being outside in the hot sun. I was on my Papas shoulders, and George Bush was leaning into the crowd, shaking hands. I shook his hand. It was rough, callused, and slightly wrinkly. I didn’t know why, but I knew I didn’t like him. I didn’t like what he stood for, even though I didn’t even know what he stood for at the time.

While the crowd began to clear out, my Papa was talking frantically on his phone. His face was a scared yet, excited shade of red. He flipped the tiny sliver phone shut, and looked over at me. He got on his knees, so we could be at eye-level.
“Well, Aba-boo, ready to go meet your new brother?” he said.
Memories of the day seem to blur together after this point. I don’t remember meeting him. I don’t remember seeing my mother afterward, but I do remember that I loved him before I meet him. He was my brother, and we were bound by blood. I would know him for the rest of my life. I knew him on the first day of his life, and I would still know him on the last of mine. I was going to have little brother to tease, one that would mess with my dolls, and one that would hunt and play football with my Dad. He was going to be the best friend of my little sister, Amber, who was three at the time. He was going to be “Momma’s Boy”.
****
At first life was exceedingly pleasant. My mother was recovering from giving birth, and we were all excited for the new little person that we were going to get to know. However, this was not the way my life was meant to be.
I remember the rather particular smell of the day clearly. It was mid-October, and the leaves had just started to turn. The air smelled like freshly-cut grass, and a Yankee Candle my mother was burning upstairs. I was sitting on the scratchy blue and green-checkered, stale smelling couch in the basement, watching Disney channel. I was home sick from school with bronchitis, and I was miserable. It was so sunny outside; all I wanted to do was run outside, to play on the swing-set, to jump on the trampoline. I knew though, that even standing up too fast would cause me to throw-up. I lay sprawled out on the couch, withering in my misery, staring blankly at whatever cartoon currently occupied the screen. I heard my mother’s muffled voice from upstairs, calling my name. She was calling me “Abigail”, which meant it was probably important that I go see what she needed. Today though, I didn’t feel like it. The headache and the growling, yet achy stomach were my main concerns. I was only six, and felt that she should be seeing what I needed, not the other way around.
But the calling turned to shouting, and I finally mustered the strength to wobble off the couch and scurry up the stairs to Austin’s bedroom down the hall, which has belonged to Amber until about six months prior. Amber now shared my room and slept on the bottom bed of my bunk-bed, which I was not all too thrilled about.
My parents had painted the tiny room light blue, and it had dark blue and red trains as the theme. There was a big fluffy, although slightly scratchy, train-shaped rug in the middle of the room. Austin lay on the changing table, and my mother hovered worriedly over him. Austin was crying, and it was absolutely ear-piercing.
“Whaaaat?” I wined at my mother, childishly covering my ears and scrunching up my face.
“Honey,” she began, “I know you don’t feel good, but I need you to go downstairs and get the stethoscope from the play room. I think there’s something really wrong with your brother.”
This simply frustrated me. Why was she making me do this? I was sick too! I mattered too! Just because Austin had been born, didn’t mean my existence was any less important. Nevertheless, I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the strength. I would go retrieve what she asked for, and then maybe she would leave me alone.
I stumbled down to the playroom. An assortment of various dolls and plastic eating-utensil’s lay scattered on the floor. I combed through then, looking for my play-doctor kit. In it, I had plastic stethoscopes, fake syringes, and even a mask. Pretending to be a doctor was my favorite thing to play. My friends seemed to grow tired of it after a while, but I never really did. I ended up finding it under a pile of ruffled doll clothes. A friend of my mom was a doctor, and when she found out I liked pretending to a doctor, she gave me an old stethoscope for my 5th birthday. I had been thrilled.
I crawled back up the stairs, and handed the stethoscope to my mother. Austin was still wailing, but I didn’t think anything of it. Nothing could be wrong with him. Babies cry all the time.
“Thanks honey,” my mother said quietly.
Again, I didn’t think anything of it. I nodded my head, and made my miserable way back down the stairs toward the TV. I hadn’t really noticed anything wrong. As I lie on the couch, and let the TV drown out my thoughts, I wasn’t aware that my life was about to take a drastic, important, horrible, yet complete unavoidable 360.
****
The first time I saw him like that was horrible. It was absolutely heartbreaking. It didn’t matter that I was only six, or that I couldn’t completely comprehend the situation. My brother was hurt; he lay in a hospital bed, covered in a mass of various tubes. Part of his hair had been shaved off, and there was a swollen flap of skin, and a long, jagged, stitched-up incision on the side of his head. The hospital smelled sterile, and the florescent lights overhead flickered. There was a small window, but that didn’t matter, because it was pouring outside. The rain created a sense of irony, it seemed to mock both my mother and my father, who were holding hands, tears streaming down both of their faces.
I didn’t know where to look. I couldn’t look at Austin because that would hurt too much. I couldn’t look at my Nana (grandma), because she was fidgeting in the plastic chair that sat at the edge of the room. My mother was also crying, but silently. It was my father who killed me the most. He had stepped away from Austin’s side, and was now sitting in a chair opposite of where my Nana was. He was bent over, face hidden in his hands, shoulders heaving. My father couldn’t cry. Big guys like him didn’t cry. Nothing could hurt my daddy, he was big and strong.
Seeing him cry was what really tore my world apart. Austin was in the hospital for weeks after this. I had to stay with my Nana, because my mother had to stay on the hospital with Austin most of the time, and my Dad had to work.

I wanted everything to go back to normal. Before Austin was born, we were a happy family. I didn’t mean to, but my subconscious blamed him for his illness. I blamed him because he was sick. I blamed him for making my father cry; I blamed him the countless times I would see my mother cry. I blamed him for the hassle and the strain that he put upon my family. It was completely all his fault. For years after I blamed him. I blamed him for what he was. I blamed for him for that which he had no control over.

Austin had severe brain damage. He was disabled. He could never, and will never talk. He will never walk. He will never lead a normal life. He will never be everything we hoped for him. He will never be the brother I wanted. Austin will never be the one that my dad goes hunting with. He will never grow up and have kids, he will never get married, he will never have a job.

The circumstances of the life he lives are difficult, but not impossible. Austin can laugh, he can smile, he can coo, he can suck his thumb. He knows when you are there, he knows when you are talking to him. He can love.

My resentment towards him has never really completed faded, but he is my brother, I love him, and he loves me. He is a string of thread in the patchwork of my life. He will forever be entwined there. After a while, you have to come to terms with the grief and the pain and the anger. You have to learn to accept it as it is, and lean to live with it. You don’t have to be okay one hundred percent of the time. You don’t have to be happy with the situation, but you have to learn to live with. Acceptance of what is all I can do. I can love my brother and be there for him. Acceptance is all I have, and all I need.
******
It was October 29th 2012. The air was crisp and chilly. I sat outside on the patio at my grandparents’ house, and I was holding Austin. He is 8 years old now, but he’s still light enough for me to carry. He was cooing and sucking his thumb. Every time I tickled his head, he would giggle. Every time he would coo, I would mimic him, which would make him squeal louder. We continued this for what must’ve been about an hour, until both of our voices became horse. It was about five o’clock, and the sun was setting. Austin and I were having the best conversation I have ever had with anyone. There were no words, but we didn’t need words. I don’t think I had ever fully understood my brother until that moment. You don’t need to be able to speak to tell a story, you don’t need to be able to walk to know where you’ve been. All we need is each other. And in that moment, I think I was more at peace with the world than I had ever been before.