''No, we just ran out actually.''
''Really. Well how long do they take to make?''
He was getting kind of bossy with the girl. It was embarrassing, and when I told him I didn't even want the cookie cups, that I was just telling him about them, he still wouldn't let up. ''Come on, how long?'' He said. The mall was about to close, but when my brother said that he would buy the whole tray if they put in a new one, they agreed.
My brother...is interesting.
I had gone home to visit him because he and his girlfriend had just had their baby three months earlier, and I hadn't seen him yet. I wanted to see him. I had never been an aunt before, and I knew it was important to see him, but that was not why I went. I went because my brother wanted me to. I had planned on going later in the year, at the end of the summer or in the fall, but that was not okay with him: ''The end of the summer? Tracy, he's going to be walking and grown up by then.''
I love my brother, and even though I didn't appreciate how that day in the mall he was making petty demands of the Mrs. Field's worker, I did appreciate the laughter he and his girlfriend and I shared as we tried to hold and eat the fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie cups. The cookies were so soft that when I tried to grab one and pull it out of the bag, my hand basically went through it, and I got chocolate and frosting all over me. I was laughing so hard as I tried to bite it all off of my hand, and my brother was laughing so hard at me. Then he tried to pull one out, and he did the same thing, and we were all laughing so hard. It was a good time.
Most of the time when I see my brother, he's either sleeping on the couch or being angry about something or telling jokes that are either crude or sexual. I mostly hate that he does all of these things, but when I think about the fact that the reason why he's angry is because I can't have the cookies I want, and that he's trying to be funny because he wants me to laugh, I start to think that he's just trying to be my brother, and maybe I should start applying the rule about there being good in everyone, to him too.
I know there's good in my brother. I can see it in how he cares for his employees. He listens to them and remembers things about their lives and tries to make them laugh in the midst of their problems. He's not the perfect small business owner, but he's good, and I like to see him working in his giftings. When he was younger, he liked to draw and do gymnastics. He was so good at both those things, and I was proud. I wanted to be exactly like him. I remember when he taught me one day in the car how to draw a ball and make it look 3-D and like it's rolling. And how he used to line up all the couch cushions on the floor and get on his knees to spot me for a flip flop. I was so scared to jump back, but he would work with me and wait for me and keep pushing me. I loved that. My brother was the coolest, and I loved being his sister.
That's why it was so hard for me my freshmen year of high school when I found out that he had been doing drugs. This was six years after my parents had divorced, and he had been living with my dad and his wife and her daughter. He had recently come back to live with me and my mom and my stepdad, and this was when my mom got a call from the police saying that my brother and his girlfriend were caught smoking pot behind the White Hen.
I remember sitting in my room with the door closed that night, staring at my homework and wondering what was the point of doing it. I felt like my life was over, and when I heard my brother walk up the stairs to go to his room, I knew I would never be able to talk to him the same. I never have.
I talk to him on the phone about once every few months, and we usually talk for an hour or so, but our conversations run as deep as the new dialer systems he just got for his company and the better techniques I can use when I do my fundraising. It's interesting, kind of. He's good at business, and I've been trying to raise money for school, so it's cool to hear his tips for me and the things he's been teaching himself, but it's sad.
I wish we could talk about something else. I wish I could tell him about how much I love school and California and the people I'm meeting and how much I'm learning through my job and everything I'm going through. But I can't.
I can't because ever since we were little my brother has not really gotten to be my older brother. He had barely finished high school, while I had gotten all A's and then graduated early from college with a 3.8. ''Why can't you be more like Tracy?'' people had always asked him. ''Why can't you be more like your sister?''
He must have hated it, but even more than that, I hated it. I hated people acting like I was better than him, especially my parents because even as a young girl I knew that words were powerful, and I didn't want to be a source of insecurity to my brother. I wanted my brother to love me. I wanted him to be my older brother. I wanted him to be smarter than me and make more money than me and be able to buy me things and make me laugh.
I want the same things that he wants, but it doesn't work because he doesn't know me anymore. I live in California, and he lives in Illinois.
I love my brother, but we're two thousand miles apart.
Tracy Edwards is 24 and just completed her MDiv at Fuller Theological Seminary in Northern California. She works in the high school ministry at South Hills Community Church, and despite how distant she is from her brother right now; she knows there's still hope for their relationship.
Do you have family members who are struggling with drugs? Estranged from you or far away from God?? Send in your Prayer Requests and we will pass them onto our Prayer Team.
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