Superhero

I’ve been thinking a lot about my brother lately. With his move to Las Vegas, and leaving our world in Omaha behind for good. It’s true what they say about you never being able to go home again. I realize that I was always relying on him being there, as my safety net. I knew that if things got to be where I just couldn’t handle them anymore; there was always Omaha to go to, because Neil was there. Because he has always had this way of making everything better.

He is older than I am by 18 months and growing up he was the very embodiment of coolness to me. If you had told me that he got up five minutes before me and put the sun in the sky, I’d have believed you. He was a superhero in my eyes. With just a few magic words he could make me feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, he could slay the dragons of doubt and worry and could make my problems disappear.

I remember that as children, our bedrooms had been right across the hallway from one another. And when I woke in the night, frightened from dreams or thirsty or just lonely, it was Neil that I went to. I remember his bedroom was decorated with Pac-Man wallpaper and that he had a matching comforter. Oh how badly I wanted to trade my Strawberry Shortcake décor for the cool Pac-Man.

I keep a picture of my brother and me as kids on my desk. And as I pick it up and look at it now I remember the easy days like that when we were young together. I remember walks and birthday parties, vacations and family get togethers where there was no dark specter of life circumstances shadowing our happiness.

And now, as adults, I still wish I could feel the way I used to. I wish I could be as easily comforted by one simple talk or gesture from my protector, my brother. I wish that there was a way that I could make everything okay for him with the blink of an eye the way he used to for me. If I could wish upon a star, I would wish that I could someday repay the favor…and return the world to the yellow light of Saturday mornings and Coco Crisp cereal for him.