My Brother's keeper

ob*scu*ri*ty- noun, state of being unknown, inconspicuous, and unimportant.

Einstein had Physics.  Kant had Transcendentals.  Kim has Kanye.

It was perhaps the proudest day of my life.  Graduation day.  Multiple times in the years leading up to this day, my life had been in danger.  My health compromised.  Loved ones scratched their heads as much in confusion as amazement.  Yet in the monologue that quipped as static noise, I interviewed, and mostly I wanted to thank the three tiny human beings who perhaps served as the Sam Wise Gamgi to my Frodo.

The baby sister will forever be mentioned as inspiration by her four older brothers, and she'll never let us forget it.  That's a given.  And she did inspire a lot.  She is after all, the brightest, most intelligent, and even the most observant of our little clan.  But I especially wanted to thank my two younger brothers.  This day belonged to them as much as it did myself.

There is a fourth brother, the eldest.  He up and pulled a Houdini act himself and has spent the last 15+ years locked away in incarceration in Washington State's Penitentiary, a place I've heard nicknamed "Gladiator School" for all the reasons you're thinking of.  He's been a ghost in my lifetime.  Most days I consciously go through without even a mention or a thought.  And I suppose the day is coming when we'll be brother's again.

But my two kid brothers meant the most to me in that moment.  Their approach to life, it's circumstances, the hand it dealt them, I spent most nights worrying if all of a sudden it would hit them how harsh it had been to them.  So I kept fighting.  A peculiar incident happened one holiday break I was home.

As teenagers are prone to do- I did it exceptionally well, appreciating consequences is never really on the radar.  I needed the eyeglasses voucher that would assist me in Montana, that my Tribe sprung for.  Thing was, it was in my brothers' car.  So my mom and I moseyed on down to the school with the simple intent of grabbing and going.  We had said our goodbyes.  Funny thing, my brother's were not in school.  In fact they hadn't even checked in that morning yet, and it was going on to like the fourth period.  Of course my moms was livid, ready to pounce and give the soapbox.  I calmly called my brothers and informed them, the gig was up, they had been found out, purely do to an accident and my forgetfulness.

We rendezvoused.  My mom had the sharp dagger glare of contempt and disappointment, as a mother would.  My brothers looked like whipped puppies with their tails between their legs. I had a bus to catch and 20+ hours ahead of me, so I carried the burdened smile of politeness.  My mom cussed like a pirate for a few moments as we drove to the bus stop. In English, maybe a little in Spanish, and I'm sure a little in Yakama.

Then a silence.

It was my turn to tirade and yell.  But I refused.  I quietly said "I came home with a happy heart.  I'd like to leave that way."

I hugged my kid brother's in the way an older brother does, when he feels proud.  And I simply declared, "you're going to be better men than I.  It'll be alright."  That moment stuck with me, and I smile when I reflect on it, for a couple of reasons.  For one, because of my past and the emotional paralysis, I am certain my family had desperately wished I had done something like this to comfort them and show I was a normal rebellious airheaded adolescent.  For another, I admired the act purely for itself.  Wicked allegations were thrown at the poor guys- oh they were getting high and skipping, or they were tipping a pint and ditched.  I couldn't believe it.  I smiled with avarice.  It was the purest act of sibling mischief I had seen in awhile.  And I was amused more than anything.

The day came.  That proud day.  And now I had a new mission, in the sacred ceremony that is being an older brother.  I had hung all of my money on my goal of getting through college.  It was finished.  They didn't have to wait their turn.  They shouldn't have had to "stand in line" or take their number.  I had gotten a ton of attention for a lot of different things, and I feared they'd feel like they were living under the weight of my shadow.  I got to thinking.  And thinking.  I try not to make sport of my brothers.  No one-ups-manship.  I have nothing to Lord over them.  They've become more adept and cultured since being back home and I can respect that.

I decided with all the newfound and recently attained knowledge and experience I gleaned being away, I would use it in a kind of superpower.  I strive to be obscure in the coming glory and accomplishments my brother's will accomplish.  It's an act of love and a small way I can thank them for not always understanding my path, but supporting it.  I enjoy working to be unimpressive, nameless, breathless, odorless, and lurking as much as I can.  I am trying to be a shadow.  A clean slate, a blank page, a curious and novel conscience.

Their approach to life is still idiosyncratic, idealistic, romantic, and my biggest chore nowadays is to be enthusiastic and a balloon of energy.  I feel obscurity is a service.  Because it gives fan to the fire of hope, not the suffocation of cynicism and callousness.  It gravitates toward faith, not bleakness.  It strives for growth, not expense of belittlement.

Mostly I try to encourage my brothers to embrace their failures and to practice failing and getting better at it.  Some kind of brother I am right?

I'm grateful.  After all, I am my brother's keeper.