Tanya | Week 15 | Dear Bhaiya
One of my all-time favorite stories to hear is of my older brother’s obsession with hand sanitizer. On the day of my birth, my brother became inseparable from the hospital’s supply of hand sanitizer, for the sole reason that you need to have extremely clean hands in order to hold a newborn baby. I am told that he would constantly ask to hold me, even keeping a bottle of the sanitizer with him for easy access. I wish I could’ve been there to witness such a rare instance of my brother being nice to me.
It has been a long, long time since that day. I find it crazy and a little unfair that he’s known me and remembers me for all of my life, but I’ve only known him for a fraction of his. But, there is a lot that I do remember over the years, and I thought I would put some of it into this letter...
Dear Bhaiya (older brother),
I miss you. Of course, if somehow you ever read this, I’d laugh in your face and call you delusional for even suggesting something so absurd. I miss playing video games together, a tradition which started so long ago with Super Mario Bros and Wii Sports, and I miss being each other’s best friends at those uncomfortable social events where we didn’t know anyone else. And I miss seeing you sit on the left side of the car backseat, subconsciously adhering to our long-established car sides, even though I don’t know why you choose to sit behind the driver’s seat when you’re literally more than a foot taller than me.
If there’s anything I can say about you, it’s that you’ve taught me so much. There’s the obvious stuff, like when you taught me how to play volleyball (by threatening to throw the ball at my head if I messed up). Like when you taught me your favorite recipes the first time we cooked together, or when you taught me how to drive a few months ago with surprising patience, even when I made the worst of mistakes (thank you, by the way, for being brave enough to agree to sit in a car with me).
But then, there’s also the less obvious stuff. Just by existing, you have taught me some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned. One of the most notable is probably how to be independent. Since I have been self-sufficient ever since I can remember, I always used to think I was just naturally like that, but the more I think about it, I’m realizing that your existence is what made me that way.
From my earliest memories all the way to present day, my life has basically revolved around whichever stage of life you were going through. Your college applications, your life in college, even your career. I think in a way, I kind of always measured my life around yours.
I still remember, all throughout your high school years, I would be the one to help you. I sat with you and brainstormed ideas for projects, and I quizzed you on everything from the polyatomic ions and chemical formulas you couldn’t seem to remember for chem honors, to a list of 1,000 SAT vocabulary words.
But when it was my turn to learn those SAT words, you were hundreds of miles away in Seattle, and now you’re thousands of miles away working in New York, and I was here, going through my Quizlet sets over and over. More importantly, I had to get used to not having instant access to your company and conversation. As much as I missed you, I think I had to learn to let you go. Not in the sense of losing you, but more like being able to appreciate that we will still remain close despite our lack of proximity.
Anyway, I hope all is well with you.
Lots of love,
Tanya
Hi Tanya! I loved the way you structured your blog this week. Although I can't relate to the feeling of an older sibling moving away and having to do things myself, I think this is a feeling I always grew up with as an only child. To an extent, the things you did with your brother, I would do with my parents. My dad taught me volleyball, helped me with math whenever I needed it, and also just gave me day-to-day advice, even if it wasn't the common “fatherly” advice. My mom, would quiz me everyday on terms I had just learned and would review my notes with me for my final the next day. I find it so adorable how your brother would carry hand sanitizer with him everywhere he would go after you were born, and how cherishable that is. I also really like how poetic your blog is in a sense, and the comparison you use in the last two paragraphs of how you were there for your brother in those times but when it came to you, he wasn't. I think that itself also just represents the different stages of life and how eventually the time comes to make your own life, to be independent, and to accept how a person won’t be there through all stages of growth. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI can completely empathize with you, Tanya! I have an older sister as well; she’s in university now studying to be a surgeon. It’s difficult to adapt to change because you’re always reminded of when things were the same. I get an entire bathroom to myself now, but I still think about how, when I shared it with my sister, we would often brush our teeth together.
ReplyDeleteEven though my sister is still in California (and she often visits) I still find myself missing her. I figure that missing the people you love is probably about fifteen percent of life. One day we, too, will leave home when we go to college and get a job and move on with our lives. And then we will be the ones being missed but still somehow remain the ones missing. It seems far away now, but with how fast time is passing, it won’t be long before we’re freshmen…again.
Your blog was a very interesting read to me for one particular reason: I am the older sibling. I have a brother who is nine years younger than me; I have been there for all his life so far but he’s only been there for a part of mine, so seeing the way you talk about your brother gave me a strange feeling. Would my little brother write about me like this when he’s older and I leave for college? Probably not, since I don’t really talk to him. We’ve been raised like two separate only-children, so we’ve each missed out on the sibling experience. I haven’t really taught him anything, and we don’t have any joint rituals like the one you and your brother had when sitting in the backseat of a car, but I guess some little part of me hopes he’ll still miss me when I leave like you miss your Bhaiya. Yeah, maybe now he’s always too loud and has no sense of anyone’s boundaries (personal space or otherwise), and he talks to ChatGPT instead of trying to find real friends (worrying, I know, but our parents don’t seem to care), but he’ll grow out of these things eventually, right? With enough time? He’ll do his own projects like I had to, study for his tests himself like I did, take the SAT and eventually apply to college.
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps I’ll help him with those last two when he’s mature enough to not be a headache to deal with, but I don't know, maybe I won’t. We’ll see.
I just hope that when he becomes his own person one day, he’ll be a good one. I guess that’s the crux of it. And hey, if I had to guess, your brother would probably say something similar about you if he were writing little you a letter. Good job on your blog!
Tanya, this blog was incredibly emotional and well written. I see myself in almost everything you describe here. I too have an older sibling, for me it is a sister, but the experience nonetheless is the same. I also remember sitting at the dining table and helping her remember her states and capitals, standing close to her in uncomfortable environments, and learning how to be independent. It really puts it into words when you describe measuring your life based on the timeline of your brother’s life. That has been how it is my entire life but I was never able to truly articulate it. It was a very big change in my life when my sister moved away to college. It was instantly more lonely, as you describe in your blog. It is difficult to go from constantly being around someone to feeling incredibly solitary. I too miss my sister, but it may be easier for me because my sister is still in the state; I likely see her more often than you see your brother with him living in New York. I loved the format in which you presented this blog as well. The introduction to your relationship with him into directly writing to him. I especially liked how you addressed him as “Bhaiya” as I always call my sister “Akka.” Thanks for reminding me about all the wonderful parts of having a sibling.
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