Brother, My Brother...

April 15th 2005 my life changed forever. 15 years later I am still not the same person. Now I have some questions that I want to hurl at the world? Have you ever lost a sibling? What would it do to your life ? How would you cope if you thought you were responsible for this person's death? What if someone tried to make you harm this person? How would you feel? Keep these 4 questions in mind because I am about to take you on a journey that will blow your mind.

How would losing your sibling change your life? My brother was only 22 months younger then me. I only had one brother and no sisters. I remember him when he was a toddler and he was hungry all the time. I used to raid the ice box for him and get him whatever he wanted. My brother, or "Bubby" as I called him, also had a temper tantrum if he wasn't in bed by 7pm on the dot. Bubby was a dare devil. He started climbing on everything. He would climb on top of furniture and appliances just so he could jump off. I, on the other hand, was terrified of heights.

When Bubby hit kindergarten he decided he was a Power Ranger. He started collecting every Power Ranger toy on the market and practicing his karate moves all hours of the day and part of the night. When he hit his tweens he got into Legos. I would step into the living room to find an elaborate city built in the living room. Sometimes he would lose his legos and I would find it later when I stepped on it. He also collected Pokemon cards. We would play each other for hours and he would always win.When Bubby hit his teens he got into a Japanese anime called "Gundam". He started collecting Gundam models. When we got a computer he started pirating software and coding. He would take pictures of his Gundams, scan them and create 3D graphics of them. Bubby also had 200 plus Super Nintendo games downloaded into his hard drive. He put those games on a 2nd hard drive and shoved it into an Xbox. I got to play all my favorite Super Nintendo games on a Xbox as a birthday gift one year.

When I was in high school I was afraid to drive. My brother, on the other hand, loved driving. He would drive like a bat out of hell! He would do stunts with my dad's truck and drive on the highway going 90 mph. It took me all four years of high school to even get my driver license. Then I had a wreck and totaled my car shortly after I graduated from high school. I only had minor injuries but I could have been killed. I was traumatized. After I totaled my car my brother decided that he needed a car. I made a deal with him that he couldn't refuse. "I'll will pay almost the entire car payment, give you gas money and give you extra money so you can pimp your ride. Just please take me to school, work and to my boyfriend's house." He rolled his eyes at me at first. Then he drove me to the auto parts store and took me inside. He pointed at some seat covers, paint and racing stripes. "I want all of this. If you will buy all of this, give me gas money and help me with the car payment I will take you to work and school. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, is an asshole and I will only take you to see him if he helps me pirate some software. Do we have a deal?" I knodded and we shook hands. I'll never forget how excited he was about those seat covers.

I was enrolled in the CNA class at my local community college. My brother was 3 weeks away from graduating high school and one week away from his senior prom. He was about to get promoted to manager at his job at Long John Silvers and he was scheduled to start community college as soon as he graduated. Rumor had it my brother was Salutatorian but that was not set in stone. He dropped me off at the nursing home that I was doing my clinicals at and told me that he was going to skip school. "The whole class is skipping school. I'll pick you up at 2pm. You owe me $20. See you!" He waved at me and drove off like a bat out of hell. He was so excited that he was going to spend the whole day goofing off.

It was 3pm and I was waiting outside of the nursing home. My brother was supposed to pick me up at 2 and he had not arrived. I was becoming increasingly worried because I had to be at work by 4pm. "He's going to make me late for work. Where the hell is he?" I walked back into the nursing home and I tried to call him from their phone. I got no answer. Then I called my father and asked if he had heard from my brother. That's when I got the news that he had been in an accident.

My brother was having so much fun with his class that he lost track of time. He tried to call me, but realized that I didn't have my phone. The nursing home won't let you bring you phone to clinical. Then, he got stuck behind his classmates who were in a line of cars driving down a country road. He decided to be a daredevil and pass them all. He was also driving too fast. When he tried to pass his class mates he come up a hill and a saw a van coming his way. When he tried to get out of the way of the van he lost control of his car and spun out in front of a semi. He hit the semi head on. He passed away 3 hours later.

After the funeral I checked my voice mail on my phone. My brother's last words to me were, "I might be a little late picking you up." I erased the message and tried to forget, but I will never forget. The days, weeks and months after the funeral I was so caught up in trying to keep my parents together that I couldn't feel anything. I was numb. Then my parents bought me a car with his life insurance money. They took me home from work and there it was sitting in the driveway. Most normal people would have been thrilled. Not me. I turned 5 shades of pale but I had to pretend like I was happy. I didn't want to hurt my parent's feelings. "We cannot drive you everywhere like he did. We work different schedules then you. You have to drive. You have to." They gave me the car keys and they left for work. I stood there with the keys in my hand for a minute. It was taking me every ounce of energy I had to not have a panic attack. I went and put the key on my key chain and I noticed the spare key on the chain. When my brother and I bought the car together he made me a spare key and said. "When I go off to a 4-year University 2 years from now I will not be here to drive you everywhere. You will have to drive yourself. When I saw that key it hit me. "My brother is dead because I wouldn't drive...My brother is dead because he was coming to get me." I started throwing up and I had to call into work.

My parents were not handling what happened to my brother very well. They started fighting and talking to each other less and less. When it occured to me that my parents were probably going to end up divorced I hung the spare key up on my wall. I made sure that that key was within sight so that I would notice it first thing every morning when I woke up. Why? I wanted to remember what happened. I wanted to remember that my brother is dead because I wouldn't drive. I wanted it to motivate me to drive no matter how afraid I was.

I was living in a country village 15 minutes away from my job. There was no public transportation where I lived. I knew that if I could just get to my job I could survive. My college classes can be taken online with no campus visits. I got into my car for the first time and started it. Then, praying, cussing and crying I made it to the end of the drive way. I got to the stop sign in front of the high way. There were car speeding past me and shaking my car as they drove by. I put my emergency blinkers on, opened the car door and puked on to the road. I turned on my car radio to help me calm down. It was Linkin Park, my brother's favorite band. "I wanna heal I wanna feel like I'm close to something real. I wanna find something I've wanted all along. Somewhere I belong." Then I felt the holy spirit come upon me and it was like Jesus had taken the wheel. From that day forward, I was at least able to drive to work. I would drive to work and then walk everywhere else I needed to go.

A year later I was finally able to drive everywhere. I was able to drive to work. I was able to drive to school. I was able to drive to the grocery store, church and even a boyfriend's house. I got my CNA and started doing home health care. I was driving all over the county I lived in, picking up old people and taking them to the doctor. When I realized that I had faced my fears, I took my spare key off of my wall and I put it in a locked safe. I never threw it away because of what it symbolized.

10 years later I got married to an Asian man with a black daughter. Before I got married I thought the world was worth saving. This is why I became a CNA in the first place. I wanted to help people and make a difference. Then I realized the sick, sad truth: everyone is racist. Everyone, regardless of skin color or financial status, can and will at some point in their life be racist. It's part of the human condition. June 17th, 2005 I was at work and I saw the news on every TV. Some white, racist moron walked into a church in South Carolina and shot a bunch of black people. He killed 9 people in the church including the pastor. The weeks following the shooting there were calls to ban the Confederate Battle Flag from government cemetaries. The murderer had a Confederate Flag so the N.A.A.C.P wanted it banned. I live in Illinois, which is a Union state. Illinois had plenty to say about this subject and many people were devided on the issue. There was a protest in Harrisburg, Illinois against banning the Confederate flag just 30 minutes from where I live. I knew one of the ladies who was attending and I had to get to the bottom of it as to why.

One of the ladies who I knew was attending that rally I had known for years. She was not a racist, white supremecist moron with a white hood hanging up in her closet. She was very well educated and a very Christian, Godly woman. She was one of the sweetest, most compassionate women I had ever met in my life. I had to know why she was hell bent on keeping a flag that causes people to lose their minds. I messaged her on Facebook. "Why do you own a Confederate Flag?" The story that I got in response blew my mind. "One of my ancestors was living in Illinois right before the civil war. His family was in the South. He left the south to work up north and live with his wife's family. When the civil war broke out he knew that they were going to send him to fight the south in the war. He also knew that some of his brothers were going to be there on the battlefield. Rather then risk killing his brothers he defected and went back to the South to fight for the Confederate army. He wasn't in it for slaves and neither were his brothers. The South was at war with the North over slavery, but my family didn't own any slaves. I keep this flag because I am defending my family. I keep this flag because I don't want history to be erased because it makes people uncomfortable. We need to learn from our history and embrace it so it doesn't repeat itself." What she said made sense to me. I started researching the civil war a little deeper and what I found was interesting. Both the Confederate Army and the Union Army was drafting children as young as 11 to fight this war. 250,000 to 420,000 children under the age of 17 fought in this war! The Native Americans fought in the civil war, mostly as Confederate Soldiers. They were kicked off of their land, relocated to the South and fought Confederate in order to keep their land from being taken away. This is who is buried at Confederate cemetaries. It was one of the saddest wars ever fought in history. 750,000 people lost their lives because of this war and for what? The slaves gained their freedom only to be forced to work as sharecroppers for the very people who enslaved them. No one stopped and thought for one second where the hell the black people were going to go after the war. Its not like they could go to Burger King, get job and rent an apartment. They got stuck working for starvation wages for the very people who oppressed and enslaved them for decades. Not a happy ending!

When this woman told me her story all I could do was think of my own brother. If I was living in Illinois and my brother was living in another state during a civil war would I be willing to fight on the side that might kill him? Even if the war was fought in the name of ending slavery, human trafficking or genecide would I be willing to sacrifice him to fix it? My brother wouldn't own slaves, traffic under age girls or kill Jews. No! I would be writing my politicians nasty letters and telling them to figure something else out. Could you kill you family because they were living in the wrong state at the wrong time? If you are quick to answer yes what does that say about your relationship with your family?

I lost my brother. I blamed myself for his death. I used my spare keys to his car to motivate me to drive. Now I embrace the past no matter how much it hurts. I want to prevent history from repeating itself. The car keys and the Confederate Flag, to me, are the same thing. Embrace you pain and use it make you stronger.

References: Digital History (www.digitalhistory.uh.ed)