My brother and I have always had an odd relationship. Well, I should say it seems odd to me. It seems like sometimes it shouldn't work, but this could be just like all the other brothers and sisters out there.
So, as I was saying, we seem to be an odd pair. Rarely we're arguing. Sometimes we're polar opposites, but often we are great teammates and friends. Often this makes us able to adapt to something new. Such as one time we were able to beat some friends at a game they had been playing a while, after only me having some single player experience with it. Or the times when we are joking with each other's girlfriends of the time.
But then there is the other side of things. My brother has sometimes been an example of what not to do. As the older brother, he was the trailblazer. I learned a lot from things that happened to him, or because of him.
I learned that you never swerve around deer on a gravel road. I learned that you don't stand for manipulating relationships. I learned that keeping a level head is often more important than being right.
And now... Now I'm learning how one should act when one becomes a father. Especially when you didn't mean too.
Yesterday I got the text message. Issac had been born. His mother was a woman who graduated 3 or 4 years above me at my high school. I'm pretty sure she was my brother's "one who got away." So when he and his girlfriend of the time were "taking a break" and she was getting a divorce from her husband, one thing lead to another, and nine months later I'm an uncle.
If that was the whole story, it could have a happy ending right? But that's not everything.
The no-longer-taking-a-break girlfriend is thrown in there too. Nine months ago there were yelling about this. Nine months ago, I would stay up later than I meant to, with my door open and a camera recording because I wanted to make sure nothing would happen that they would regret. I would let the arguments go until a line had been crossed.
I mean, my brother didn't receive anything he didn't earn, or so I thought. I mean the then-off girlfriend had some reason to be angry, as she thought they were getting back together. But when she was stopping him leaving his room to get laundry, he naturally got a bit miffed at this, and her response was something like "Hit me, if that's what you want." Rather sickly reminded me of the Joker from the Dark Knight.
But she was on the lease for our apartment. She said she was going to move out, but she couldn't find a place. My parents and I did think she shouldn't be in this apartment anymore, but she dragged her heels, and my brother let her. She even started taking a summer course.
As they kept living together, they forgot the days of yelling and arguing, and I don't know if it was her pleading and convincing that did it, but my brother progressed further and further away from Issac's mother. Even going so far as to doubt that Issac was his son, and that he wanted "nothing to do with" him.
My parents are wondering how my brother could do this, as I am. But furthermore, being the wonderful people they are, they are trying to step up as best as grandparents can. They, not my brother, were in the hospital with Issac's mother. They have been helping Issac's mother with appointments, and moving, and a whole number of ways.
But now it comes down to, what kind of man my brother is. Now that his son has a face, will he become a father, or will this be just another item in the list of things I learned from by brother?
