M-A-T-T

To be fair, any embarrassing stories I share about my brother could be countered by as many about me. I mention that because I'm sure he'll read this and cry foul. Please reference "Baby, You Should Drive My Car" for a primer on embarrassing Sue moments.

My brother will be 30 in August. We are three and a half years apart, almost to the day. I will swear up and down until I'm carried home that I wanted a baby sister, but now I know there's really very little control over what happens in that department. I vaguely remember my mom being pregnant, mostly from pictures and anecdotes. I know she craved vanilla ice cream with him (something that she still loves). She had preeclampsia while she was pregnant with Matt and had to be on bed rest. This I don't really recall, but I know it because she's mentioned it many times.

In the beginning, I am told that I loved my brother so much my mom had to put him in protective custody (the playpen). My mom tells me he cried for six months; I think it was colic but I'm not sure. As a small child, my brother was incredibly outgoing and mischievous. I stayed in my crib until I was too big for it; I would wait in the morning until my mom came and got me, or I would get out and immediately crawl into bed with my mom and dad. My brother, however, was well known for getting out of his crib and sneaking around like a ninja. For years, my dad would go to Weber's Bakery to buy birthday cakes for us. One year, when my brother must have been almost 2, we enjoyed some cake for my mom's birthday and went to bed. My parents knew about Matt's ninja skills, so they placed the rest of the cake on top of the refrigerator. We all went to bed. In the morning, I went to get my mom and dad and we all walked into the kitchen. There was a chair pulled up to the counter and on the ground was my brother, up to his elbows in the upturned cake.

There are pictures of me under my Snoopy umbrella, trying to protect myself from Matt's slobbering. He once flushed an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet. He broke his arm at 18 months of age, we suspect from a botched escape from his crib. He liked to sleep with his butt up in the air, rocking on his head--he would wake up every morning looking like a rooster. I loved my brother back then, but mostly I was annoyed by him. He was born around the time Adam Walsh disappeared, and so whenever we travelled anywhere my mom used a plastic telephone cord (with wrist wraps on both ends) to keep track of him. He liked to walk up to anyone, stranger or not, and say hello. I was much more likely to stay hidden behind my mom, too petrified to talk to even relatives. He liked to watch TV while riding on a bouncy horse and would do it incessantly.

Later, he became known in our household for being a bit obsessive. The first Christmas we had a camcorder, my dad set it up in the corner and literally taped 4 hours of Christmas. My brother must have watched that tape 200 times, and I am not exaggerating. We would find him watching it over and over and over. He watched Alice in Wonderland that way and Lucky Luke and, over one summer, The Weather Channel. (This was before the Weather Channel had shows--he was just watching the weather forecast, over and over again.) Whenever we checked into a hotel, he would obsessively watch the hotel information channel. He found something he liked and for the next several months afterwards, that's all he would do. This happened with Dinosaurs, Garfield, Legos and eventually video games.

As we grew older, his cuteness wore off. When we moved from Belvidere to Streamwood, we attended a small church. We would usually sit in the front couple of rows during the sermon. The pastor would ask rhetorical questions, like "who among us hasn't struggled with such-and-such." My brother would sometimes raise his hand (and sometimes not) to answer the pastor's question. Out loud. While the sermon was still going on. I would turn a distinct shade of red and fantasize about the gymnasium floor opening up and swallowing me whole. He wore glasses for a while but would always forget them. My mom once picked him up from the library and noticed that he had forgotten his glasses. She sent him right back into the library to find them. He came back with a very odd-looking pair of glasses. Apparently, he had found the Lions bin of donated glasses and picked one out for himself.

And then I turned to torturing my little brother. My favorite happened in department stores. We would go shopping with my mom and he would see the Ladies' Underwear department (as he called it) from afar. He would get grossed out, especially if we had to go shopping for my mom in that department. I would tell him to close his eyes and I would tell him when we were either past the department or to a point where it was "safe" to open his eyes. Most of the time, I would wait until we were in the middle of the department and make him open his eyes. He would groan and yell at me, and then shut his eyes again. The funny thing is, this happened multiple, multiple times. He would ask me to protect him and then I would betray him.

Even funnier was playing Super Mario Bros. with him. We would play together for hours. For those in the know, when Mario touched a star, he became invincible for a brief time. On multiple occasions, I convinced him that Mario was still invincible even after the star wore off. It never failed-he would believe me and try to run into an enemy and immediately lose a life. He would get so angry at me as I sat there laughing at him.

We were also well known for our fights. They would start off benign but after a while we would get mad and be out for blood. My mom would eventually have to step in to make sure we didn't do serious harm. I think he took this fighting to heart, though, because he is now a second-degree black belt. At the age of 33, I don't usually try to mess with him anyway but knowing this gives me pause even for the most casual blow to the shoulder.

My brother was also famous for his homemade jokes. I can't remember any of them because they were quite lame, but I can tell you he thought they were hilarious. There wasn't a Scholastic book with the title "101 Best Jokes" that he didn't own. We uncovered some of them recently while cleaning out his room and had a giggle. Our family's sense of humor is slightly twisted and we discovered The Far Side when I was younger. Matt would "read" us Far Side comics from the back of the car on long road trips. I suggest you try that if you can't see why it would be so funny.

I watch Bekah and Jeremy now and I see how much they love each other and look out for each other. I don't know if I was like that with Matt ever. I feel like I spent a lot of time caught up with me, which is probably true but then I could have been very affectionate with him and forgotten about it. My mom said he was always lovey-dovey with her, but aside from him slobbering on me, we have never been much for hugs and kisses. It's just been within the past few years that we hug each other often, say we love each other and (gasp) give each other a peck on the cheek.

He is now the introvert of the family. My mom, dad and I will carry conversations for hours with minimal interaction from my brother. If you ask me a question, I will answer you in half-hour segments; if you ask my brother a question, you may get a few mumbled sentences. Most of the time you can be talking right to him and he will have no idea; he will have been nodding along with you but not really listening. He isn't known for sharing openly and my mom, dad and I have to conference with each other to get the full picture of what's going on with him. Usually, he'll tell me one part and my parents another. Once we have had a chance to talk to each other, we can finally make heads or tails out of what's going on with him. I finally had to sit him down and order him to call our mother once a week. He didn't understand why this was such a big deal; in his mind, he had nothing new to say so why should he call? I tried to explain (as patiently as I could) that our mom simply wanted to hear his voice and hear that he's okay. I think he finally took that advice to heart. He has a kind and tender heart, but he struggles with how to articulate all of those feelings. His favorite medium for conversation is e-mails or online chat because he can edit himself and take the time to construct cogent sentences. We often comment that he really is the "engineer" type.

A few years ago, he got tired of all of us bossing him around and decided to join the Navy. Yes, there is some irony in that sentence. Since I've been together with Brian, Matt was given the nickname "The Saint." It still seems at times like my brother can do no wrong and I can do nothing right. It seems like he's my parents' favorite, although he will swear that I'm the one receiving the favor. He is still brilliant but mostly clueless. Ask him about a nuclear reactor on a sub (that's where he serves) and he will talk circles around you. Ask him what he thinks about your home decor choices and expect to hear crickets. He has struggled to find a mate and for a while I thought it didn't bother him. Lately, though, he has started dating someone and I am hopeful that he won't be a confirmed bachelor.

Our relationship has changed from being contentious to one of mentor/mentee. There was a lot of healing when I made amends to him several years ago. I had to confess that I had taken money from him on several occasions (to which he replied, 'oh, I wondered where that money had gone'). Since that point, we have slowly grown closer. He calls me more often than he ever has before. He is in love with both of my kids and flew us all out to California last summer for a vacation. He and Jeremy especially are thick as thieves; he is in  town now for a week and when Jeremy heard about this he said, "Uncle Matt comes to our house to play blocks." He is a good uncle to my babies, spoiling them and also looking out for their future. He has helped us out of a few financial scrapes and has always been willing to watch the kids whenever he's in town.

There are parts of his story I won't tell because that's for him to share. He is an amazing man now, someone I respect immensely. He has always been better at managing money than I. I would barely have a few nickels to my name and he would have a healthy balance in his bank account. He is driving a car now that he bought a year or two before he joined the Navy. He drives with the windows down because running the A/C costs too much money. He has simple tastes and I'm hoping his new girl will eventually take him to task over his wardrobe, which leans toward 3 Stooges t-shirts and blue jeans. He has participated in triathlons and running races. He still plays video games (I think), but has recently cut way back on that as well. As a navigator, he's clueless. He could get lost going from one side of town to another. Our conversations continue to be a bit one-sided, although we had a lovely conversation the other night.

I only have one sibling. I have no perspective on siblings aside from my own. I know that sibling relationships change over time. My mom and uncle have never been that close; my dad barely speaks to his three surviving brothers. My grandma, on the other hand, is still close with her two sisters. I know that it's tough to share DNA with someone but seem to have nothing else in common. I have watched my brother over the years grow from awkward boy into an awkward (but slightly more confident) man. He is ever changing, just like our relationship. I had to share some advice with him today and I don't know how he took it. I felt it's gotten to the point where I need to be the protective older sister rather than the one who tricks him into opening his eyes in the middle of Ladies' Underwear. I hope he can understand that the advice came from a place of love.  I'm not perfect; I still get jealous of him. I still feel like he gets preferential treatment. But the twinges of jealousy are fewer and far between; they have been replaced by far greater twinges of pride.

I wonder what I'll write about next.....