loving my brother

sometimes, the most wonderful gift you can get from God and your parents is your older brother. brothers are meant to fuss over you, fret continuosly, scare the living daylights out of your potential boyfriends and ocassionally treat you to a McFlurry or Double Beef Cheese Burger at McDonald's.

at least that's what i observed among my friends.

my brother is nine years my senior. between us is my sister who is 5 years my senior. my brother is a quiet young man who keeps to himself and likes to remain in the background.

i love my brother. i really do. doing things for him fills me with bubbles it's riddiculous. every weekend when i don't make the trek back to my village in another town with my parents, i'd cook him a simple breakfast and make his favourite pot of coffee. it's really something i've memorised about him. when i happen to be tinkering around in the kitchen and he suddenly approaches me i know it's coffee he wants. nothing makes my brother's day like a caffein fix.

he's an action figure freak. my brother loves collecting action figures. he has almost everything from Lord Of The Rings to The Matrix, Terminator, Alien vs Predator etc. he's a fan of Scorpions and like every other guy i know, he can't get enough of cars and bikes.

unfortunately he doesn't feel the way i do.

the other day, he gave me a call on my cellphone. it was the first time in all the months i've been away from home. the first sentence he said was 'Yin, where do i buy software to play dvd on the pc?'. i gave him the names of a few shops and he ended the call. no hello and no goodbye. no how-do-you-dos either. everything was straight to the point.

i was brokenhearted. crushed.

for as long as i could remember, my brother never said more than ten sentences to me. there is no such thing as empty talk between us. he talks to me when he has questions or favours to ask. other than that, he's a stranger living under the same roof as i.

we know so little of each other and the relationship we share is so cold and distance it's a wonder we're even siblings. what hurts the most is the fact that he is closer to my cousins, nephews, nieces and aunt than he is with me.

one night i was having a girl talk with my cousin, who happen to be my brother's confidante. imagine my feelings when she told me he always took her for rides around the city on saturday nights and they spend hours sitting at coffee shops to chat, when all the time i was left alone at home, wondering when will he be home. as the night wore on, i realised just how little i knew about my brother compared to her.

i can take anything from my brother but not that.

since i was a child, i choose to surround myself with male friends. even now as a youth, i still run around with my guy friends more than i do my girl friends. i suppose it's my way of replacing my brother. still it can't eliminate that emptiness in my heart.

is it so much to ask for my brother to love me? i wish i was born a guy. maybe then my brother would have loved me..