A Life with Brothers

The Crip Guy blog just reached 1000 views. I don't know if this is a big accomplishment but I am just glad someone read it. Grateful is not a good enough word for how I feel. This blog originally started as my journal during a particularly painful point in my life. It was filled with pain and loss. I used it as an emotional pressure relief valve. Eventually, this made me start to reflect on my life. I wanted to show what's it like to live with Duchenne. The painful parts and the funny, hopeful, weird, and unique parts. As a bonus, it keeps me sane. Thank you all for giving me some purpose, direction, and stability. Maybe this blog is some type of "inspiration porn" but you, crips, and non-crips inspire me just as much. It is amazing I get to share my life with you. I hope you find something important in this blog or at least enjoy the comics. Now on to the rest of the post.

It’s another illustration! I hope you don’t mind. I think all my color choices are still affected by how much power rangers I watched as a kid. This week’s post is dedicated to my amazing brothers. Also, I would dedicate this week to my grandpa who passed away this week. He was larger-than-life and told the best stories. He will be deeply missed. Don’t worry the rest of this post will still be weirdly motivational and maybe emotional (definitely, we are on to you).

When I think back to the defining relationships of my life, my first besides my parents, and arguably most influential is my two brothers, Brandon and Kenton. I don’t have a memory of a time Brandon was not in my life. He was born just eighteen months after me, so I have never been alone. Brandon was my first friend, and I could write a book just on adventures we had growing up (not a bad idea). At four years old I might have tried to assassinate him by pushing him down the stairs. I still insist that we both had a disease that made us incredibly unsteady on our feet and he fell (tell it to the judge). If Brandon ever writes for strangers on the internet, he can challenge it. At six I would spout sage advice to him like a crippled Socrates. One example happened after I was stung by a bee.

“Mom I am moving to the North pole!” I say with tears still in my eyes.
“Why do you want to move to the North pole?” my mom asked.
“There are no bees!” I sob.
I then look Brandon in the eye and say, “You won’t believe the problems you’ll have when you’re six”. Brandon nods in agreement.
He has always been my player two. I would not be who I am today without him and I love him deeply.

Now onto the youngest and least crippled of my siblings.
Kenton is five years younger than me, and I still remember the day he was born. He had big blue eyes and blonde curly hair; we fell in love with him right away. I will tell you it’s easy to feel like a big brother when you can hold your infant brother in your hands. It’s a humbling experience when that same brother now washes your butt sometimes (rub a dub dub a crip in a tub). If you ever meet Kenton, Brandon and I take complete responsibility. We raised him to do all the things we couldn’t do. For example, if Kenton ended up on the refrigerator it was our fault. Kenton was a superhero to us.

As our bodies became weaker, he could do all the things we dreamed about. We had no idea if he would survive these stunts, but we had the confidence that only an eight-year-old can achieve that he would be fine. I wish I could let you feel what it was like growing up during those early years. Some of my favorite memories happened before I was even 10 (Is his happy or sad?). Summers spent swimming, roughhousing, and spending time together with the two best brothers I could ask for. Unfortunately, time and disease wait for no crip. As close as we were a canyon was slowly separating us. Both of us have never been good at dealing with my disease. I think Kenton saw that he could not help us with our disease and distanced himself a little bit from us. To be fair my condition is sometimes like living in a different reality (a reality where my body is constantly betraying me), even for brothers that is a hard thing to bridge. Don’t worry we cope with it well by not talking about it or by telling stories and drawing on the Internet.

The one thing I have always counted on is my family. When I was younger, I just expected them to be there. My advice this week might sound lame/generic but treat every day as a gift because none of us know how long we have here. I didn’t get lucky with the health part of life, but I did luck out when it came to my family. Until next week, crips and non-crips, I believe in you.