On being a big brother...

I posted this elsewhere back in mid-June 2006 but it is still poignant to me and bears posting again here.

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I’ve always enjoyed being the oldest of four children, but this weekend was extra special as I got to spend a lot of quality time with my youngest brother. There is quite a large age distance between us (I’m 33, my next brother is 32, then my sister is 20 and the youngest brother is 19) and for reasons that are too detail-laden, I was not there for the younger ones growing up. I remembered them as wee ones, and the next thing I knew I was being introduced to two young adults who I hardly knew just a few short years ago. Once I reconnected with them, my sister and I bonded immediately, and she and I are good friends. My 32 year old brother and I have always been close, so it was the youngest one that concerned me.

Whenever we’ve seen each other at family events we’ve had a good time chit chatting, but we rarely, if ever, did anything outside those functions. I tried getting together with him a few times but for whatever reason there was we just never got together except for a handful of times, and then it was with our significant others. It wasn’t until a month or so ago that an opportunity came about that I knew I needed to pounce on. He had indicated he was looking to transfer to a school in Long Beach, CA to finish his degree and was very excited at the prospect of going to school in California. I told him that I’d take him to visit the school when his current semester was over, and he was ecstatic. Unfortunately, a few weeks later he found out the school didn’t offer the degree program he wanted, and he was crushed. Seeing an opportunity to be the good big brother, I told him I’d take him to California anyway. He was beside himself with happiness.



From the moment we got in the car to go to the airport until the time we got home, we had the most amazing time. He and I talked about everything and anything, something which I feared would be a problem but turned out to be the exact opposite. We landed in LA, picked up a convertible, and just drove. We stopped in Venice Beach, Santa Monica, drove up Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu and back, then through Beverly Hills and finally West Hollywood where we spent the weekend with a friend of mine. The next day we spent driving down to the beach communities of Orange County as he wanted to see Long Beach (where the school is) and we wound up wandering all the way down to Laguna Beach. There we hopped back on the highway and headed back to WeHo where we spent the evening with my friends and friends of theirs. He hit it off with all of them, and one of my friends dubbed him “Joey” because “he’s like a little kangaroo bouncing all around”. It was very cute and for the rest of the weekend, he was known as and introduced as Joey. Sunday was LA Pride, and I had warned him about it on the plane, and he said he’d be ok. You see, growing up in rural areas, even in New York, you don’t encounter too many gay people, if any, so his exposure to gays was limited pretty much to me and Nick, my partner. He had never seen drag queens, transsexuals, and the host of other types that populate our culture, and I wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t freak out and would be comfortable enough in the situation. We wound up missing the parade, but there were about 10 of us that made it over to the pride festival with Joey in tow. He fit right into the group as the token straight, and all of his “gay uncles” watched out for him and made him feel a part of the group. He took it all in and seemed relaxed and ok with his surroundings. Afterward we went back to a friend’s place where we partied some more and then collapsed from exhaustion.

We awoke yesterday and got ready for our trip home, stopped at the beach to get his girlfriend some sand (at her request) and headed to the airport. As we sat down on the plane, he said to me, “I had a great time, and I definitely learned a lot this weekend.” I asked him what he learned, and he said “I learned that a lot of what I perceived to be true about gays was wrong, and what I was taught both from family and friends was based on fear.” Throughout the entire weekend I had been giddy with joy at spending quality time with my little brother, but at that moment I was overwhelmed. I always try to set an example, not only for strangers but for family and friends as well for them to see a normal gay man in a normal gay relationship, but hearing him say that made me nearly cry tears of joy. We talked most of the way home, made plans to do something next weekend and when it came time to part ways, we hugged, said I love you, and meant it. I haven’t been this happy in a long time, and I’m so glad I got to connect with my youngest brother.

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Post Script: Anthony and I are very close now. He and I talk constantly, and get to see each other more often than before our "excellent adventure" in LA.