Blood Brothers
The power of two brothers
Wow, my baby brother is sixty now. Can you believe it? I’m so happy I spent a week with him in Canada, having travelled from the other side of the planet, from Australia. I crossed the Pacific in a long-haul flight of some eighteen hours, a distance of 14,000 kilometres to be with him.
When we got together, it was like when we were kids, back in Sri Lanka, where we grew up.
He’s my only brother, and he’s much younger than me. Almost nine years. But that never mattered to us. We were always close and had a great time together.
When he was little, I used to walk him to school every day. We had this game where we would power walk to the bus stop. We made it in seven minutes flat every time. He was fantastic, with long strides and keeping up with his big bro with his lanky leggies.
And he didn’t just keep up. He beat me at many things. He beat me at chess, even though he was just a kid. He was so intelligent and sneaky; I was crushed when he beat me at chess.
One day, I was listening to a replay of this old radio show I loved. It was called ‘Muwan Palassa’ and about this village in Sri Lanka where crazy things happened. It was exciting and fun, and I wanted to know how it would end. But he ruined it before l could get to the end. He told me what would happen next, for he had listened to it the previous night with our father. I was so mad that I hit him in the face. He screamed, our mother, who was busy in the kitchen, came out to see what was wrong and saw him crying. She slapped me hard on the cheek, stunning me with a surprise. I felt blood coming out of my nose. I touched it and saw red. It was the first time I ever bled from my nose. I was shocked and scared, wondering if I messed up, but I felt no pain. I was non-plussed.
Mother was also shocked, and she started crying too. She hugged me and said sorry for hitting me, saying she didn’t mean to hurt me. She took me to the bed and cleaned my nose with cotton and some stuff that stung. My brother followed us, still crying and sniffling, and watched the whole thing while I lay on my bed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to share my excitement with you. You’re still my best friend, right?”
I looked at him and felt love for him. I said sorry, too and held his hand. We were brothers, after all.
That day, I learned that family is more important than anything.
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