They say that out-living a child is one of the worst things a parent can experience. No one ever says that about out-living your younger brother. You expect him to be there when you get married and when it’s time to put your parents in an old-folks home and when you have to bury them. You expect him to bring his young wife to your home for the holidays and you look forward to playing with his children. Or at least I always did. Every family is different, but I expected him to be beside me for the rest of my life.

I miss him so much.

When we were kids, I was his protector, the surrogate mother in training when our mother wasn’t there to supervise us both. He was four years younger than I and when I was seven, I tried to carry him around the house. It never worked well and he would complain vociferously. We played together inside the house when it rained and would imagine we lived in an enchanted palace. I would imagine quests for the brave knight he would become when he carried his plastic sword. Our imaginings would get progressively louder until our mother came down and picked one or the other of us and laughed with us.

I taught him to dance when I was a sophomore in high school. Not the cheesy dancing my mother had taught me, that looked like something out of a Ginger Rogers movie, but I showed him how to dance like the kids in high school danced. I put on the Duran Duran CD I had gotten for my birthday and put his hands on my hips. I put my hands on his shoulders and we practiced for 20 minutes. He seemed to get the hang of it. I remember how he smiled in appreciation.

That was about the same time Sean started coming to me for fashion advice. I was no expert in the subject myself, but I did take a certain pride in averting certain fashion disasters in our morning consultations.

Sean had even asked me what girls thought of Soccer players. I told him girls dug soccer guys, since he was already on one of the local recreational teams. “Cool,” he said and started practicing more seriously. I remember he asked me to take him to the soccer field at the local community college after the season had ended. I obliged, since I could drive and he still couldn’t. I brought a text book to study while he ran steps in the stadium and practiced taking goal shots from different points on the field. He would move to a point and kick toward the goal. The ball would either slide, rubbing against the net or miss. Either way, he would chase the ball and take it back to the point he had just kicked it from and shoot again. He would shoot and shoot until he got three goals in a row from any point. Then he’d move and repeat. The sun started going down and I got cold. I called him and we left. He thanked me for taking him out. We repeated that practice twice a week for a month.

He got good. He tried out for the middle school soccer team and made it. Sean was small, but could run fast and was deadly precise when he shot goals. His skill wasn’t ignored by those around him. He was cute too. His body was lithe and did not go unnoticed by girls. Soon he had a girlfriend. I gave him advice on that too. Her name was Sarah and she was cute, with long brown hair.

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