I have been thinking about my brother quite a bit lately. I'm not sure why, but a memory of him pops into my head at random times, or I see someone that looks like him. Some times I read articles and stories about other people and their struggles and journeys, and it helps me to put my own journey into perspective. It is especially helpful to know that I am not alone in my struggles and others have had similar episodes in their lives.
While my journey may not be all that exciting, there is one person that provided me with some good stories to share. My brother, Mike, struggled every day of his life. He always seemed compelled to see the negative aspects and to argue with other people. I am sure he would not want me to blog about him, but something is pushing me to share his story with others. All the stories included in this blog are my memories and are most certainly skewed by my perspective, reactions, emotions, and time. I am sure my parents or sister would remember the same incident differently. But I will start with what I remember, and which story wants to be told next.
Mike was born on August 7, 1971. I was 16 months old. I don't remember this day. But I remember playing with Mike all through my childhood. He was mostly a happy child and a willing playmate. I am sure I bossed him around as the older sister, and took charge of our play time. One early memory of him was in grade school. I was called to see his first grade teacher. She showed me the laddie pencil (remember those big, thick, blue laddie pencils?) Mike had been chewing on. I guess she wanted me to take it home to my mother. I think Mike had chewed up the whole pencil. I took on the mother and protector role for my brother, trying to watch out for him. I remember confronting some older boys on the playground who were teasing him. I am pretty sure Mike did not want my help or protection, but I felt that was my job. It's not that my parents weren't around and also his advocates, but I was taking my role as older sister seriously.
However, later in high school, I was often embarrassed by what he did. Here is one of my favorite stories.
As you may have guessed, Mike was often teased and made fun of in school. He retaliated with anger and sometimes mean actions. One day, he was in biology class, and they were dissecting fetal pigs. I can only imagine how hard it would have been for someone to be his lab partner. Anyway, I was leaving a class, and in the short time between class periods, several students ran up to me and said "Did you hear what your brother did?" After the first person asked me, I of course said "No." They proceeded to tell me that Mike got mad at his lab partner for something (it didn't always take much to set him off) so to get back at her, he took the tray with the fetal pig and shoved it into her backpack!! I was horrified, and wanted to deny any relation to Mike the fetal pig thrower. But when I think back, can you imagine how that girl felt? I am sure she had to throw away her whole back pack with all its contents. The smell!! It makes me laugh just thinking about the scene. She probably stayed far away from him from then on. This story comes back to me since I am now a high school science teacher (although not biology) and I can applaud Mike for sticking up for himself. I am sure he felt pushed to the breaking point, both from having to dissect the smelly pig and the comments from his lab partner. But the poor teacher that had to deal with that situation. What did the phone call home say? Is there a punishment in the school handbook for putting slimy, smelly dead things into another student's backpack? Oh, Mike.
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