To Be My Mother's

I am the younger of two brothers though I feel like I am the oldest. My brother was born with an illness, Down Syndrome, to be exact. He is happy nearly all the time unless he’s not then no one is happy. We grew up just outside Fort Worth, Texas, born two full blooded Texan sons to full blooded Texan, middle class parents. Our parents have always been good to us, and my mother, had always been a good mother to my brother and myself. Growing up, I was always interested in cars and the typical boy’s stuff like sports and how much dirt I could accumulate on my clothes, but my brother had always been interested in whatever my mother did. I’m not speaking of being interested in baking or being interested in looking pretty just for the sake of these being woman things, but it was a simple fact that just being were she was made his day. It was like hearing my mother’s voice put a light in his eyes.

One afternoon, while my mother was baking a cake for our father’s birthday, Johnny (as he was known) stayed at her side, helping her with this and that, pleading with my mother to crack the eggs. I sat in the living room reading one of my comic books, dying to know if Spider Man was going to beat that Venom guy or not. I was fifteen then, caring little about what was going on in the oven or what dinnerware was going on the table, but I loved my mother. I loved her dearly because she and my father had given me life. So it’s easy to say that I loved both of my parents equally, but Johnny did not. Even upon being asked, he would admit that my mother was his favorite, and I knew that this was very true. It wasn’t that my father failed to give him attention or say I love you, but my mother was his world and without her, his world would cease to exist. It was years later and I hated to admit it, but I believed that my mother would cease to exist without him as well.

I listened one night to my mother and brother as she sat getting ready to go to spend the evening with our father. They were talking and laughing about so many different things, on so many different topics, that I wasn’t so sure my parents would ever leave the house. My father waited with me in the living room and we talked about school and about sports, and he gave me pointers on how I could improve my game, football, my favorite sports since I could walk. I was seventeen then, expected to baby sit my nineteen year old brother and I did this willingly as I knew my parents had a much needed break coming to them. Johnny and I got along rather well, but once in a while I would have to get after him about getting into the cupboards, taking down the flour and sugar like he was about to bake something with mom.

When we grew up, I wouldn’t stay behind, but Johnny would. He would stay with my parents while I went off to a good school, Harvard, where I put off playing college ball to study law. I met my wife, Angela at the law office I interned at, and we fell in love. We fell deep and hard in love for each other and got married my third year out of law school. When I brought her home to meet my parents they were in love with her too or at least displayed the Southwestern charm my wife said that she had found so attractive in me. She was from the Midwest, Nebraska, and she was happy to move anywhere I went.

“As long as we’re together,” she would say.

She was a scholar in her own right. Though she was not a lawyer, she often wrote law articles for distinguished journals and then managed a household of three children, two boys and a girl. I love her always.

My brother would not love another woman always like he had loved our mother, or how I connected and loved Angela. Such devotion, I thought, but then realized that this was not devotion just a disease that made him incompatible with anyone else. Still, there was a connection that my mother had with Johnny that I would never have with her. I often wondered what it would be like to be my mother’s world. I understand that she loved me dearly because I was her baby, but to be fair, I was not the one she worried about leaving alone. She would wonder, strongly I suppose, who would take care of her Johnny. She didn’t have to worry about me, and I loved this because that meant that I wasn’t another burden.

Who will take care of my baby when I’m gone? Truth was, Angela would take care of me and I her, and my mother knew that. I knew that too. For my mother, my brother would always be around. A mother looses a son to his wife, but she couldn’t loose Johnny, not to anyone. It was many a person who tried to tell my mother that she should have Johnny committed to a "special home", but she wouldn't hear of it. You couldn't get a word in edgewise if you wanted to speak about taking away my mother's "precious Johnny".

"I'd rather he died before me," my mother would say to my father's suggestions that she not worry.

If anyone knew my mother, they'd know that worrying was one of her greatest pastimes, something she did rather well, keeping the faith was something it seemed hard for her to do. I suppose that's what surprises me about the relationship that she and my brother shared. She trusted that everything would be okay, as long as she could take care of him. And, after having my own children, seeing Angela with all three of them, I could understand where she was coming from. No one, I believed, could take care of our children better than their mother.

So what was to happen with Johnny? Our mother did pass before her "special son", but not before pulling me aside, looking at me with those blue eyes of hers. There was this sense of pride and dread at the same time, welling in my heart, thrusting at my chest, causing it to thump. She placed her hands in mine or over mine, I am not so sure really who touched who first. My sweet mother looked so terrified.

"I need to ask you to do me a favor," she started. "When I go-"

Her sweet Texan accent tickled the hairs inside my ears, and I felt myself strengthen up. "You want me to take care of Johnny when you go?"

"He's not gonna be able to make it in this world without his family," she continued. "I know it ain't fair sweetheart, but I know you and Angela, you're so strong of a couple and you'll keep him well taken care of. Why, he'll be just fine living in his own room, he just needs the company now and again."

I smiled. "He needs you, that's all he cares about."

She placed her hand on my cheek and looked at me like I was some angel. It appeared as if some weighted had been lifted off her chest and I wondered how she trusted me so much. I had been so jealous sometimes, of the attention my older brother had received, but she trusted me.

"Thank you Robert," she said with a smile. It had been a long time since I heard my name sound so sweet, coming from my mother.

I'm not sure what really got to me the most, the sound of my mother's voice or that fact that family should take care of family. I talked it over with Angela and by God, she understood and accept my proposal when I suggested that we convert the room above the garage into "Johnny's room". She gave him a chance when many folks turned away, and I couldn't help but find some similarities between my beautiful wife and my beautiful mother.

It's been nearly fifteen years since my mother passed on, and exact to the day, my brother passed as well, a not so funny coincidence. He suffered from heart problems nearly his whole life, but he had a good life, a family who loved and cared about him. I'm not so sure what to make of all this yet, I'm still working through this life myself, but I'm damn thankful I've had the life I have. I feel like a better person for knowing my brother. We didn't play ball together or talk about girls, but we sure did live.

Dedicated to My great friend Raylene :) What if it all works out?