Memory Monday: The Art of Making Someone Bleed...

Otherwise known as Sibling Rivalry.

The Cast of Characters:

Captain America

The Flash

As many of you know, I have 4 brothers. Two, with 8 and 10 years between us, I consider to be baby brothers, and therefore worthy of my 'mother bear' protection. I happen to be smooshed between the other two with around 4 years between the 3 of us.

I'd love to say we were as indomitable as the Three Musketeers...As light-hearted as the Three Amigos... as inseparable as the Three Stooges. Scratch that. The Three Stooges always seemed really mean to each other...As magically delicious as Neapolitan Ice Cream.




In reality, it was a little more like,

I was the bologna to their peanut butter and jelly,

the pickle to their fruit salad,

Jabba the Hut to their Skywalker and Solo.

Without the drooling.


Generally, all out guerrilla warfare was being waged within the walls of our home.


Once, when we were young, I was furious when my brothers stopped letting me play with the Star Wars action figures. Granted, I had just bitten the head off the Princess Leah...(awkward, considering I was like 7 years old!)



After our baby brother was born I loved rubbing it in that as long as mom kept having boys, I'd always get my own room.

Shortly thereafter, I walked into my much bragged about domain to find my bed piled high with dirty diapers.



I'm pretty sure Captain America still has a scar in his leg from when I jabbed him with a pencil.


For Christmas one year The Flash was actually given a Buck Rogers Ken Doll. It was a glorious day for me because prior to this Barbie was never allowed to date G.I. Joe since the height difference only served to emasculate him.

But Oh the glory! The Flash and Buck were about to enter my territory; complete with a fully furnished doll house and neighborhood! Naturally, Buck Rogers, aka Mr. Barbie quickly settled down by marrying Barbie and enjoyed 15 minutes of marital bliss.

Later that day, The Flash got bored, tucked Buck and Barbie in bed for the night before granting me full custody and bid Barbie Land adieu. All was well until Mom took one look at Mr. and Mrs. Barbie in bed together, went ballistic and gave me a lecture about the appropriateness of Buck Rogers sleeping in Barbie's bed.

I was utterly confused since I was there during the marriage ceremony officiated by The Flash himself, who, along with Captain America had retreated to their world of Transformers with me having no other proof other than a domesticated Buck Rogers that my brother played Barbies with me.


Later on, I knew I'd better not mess with The Flash since he was always bigger, faster and stronger than me. That still didn't stop me from egging him on enough to get him really mad and therefore experiencing the rush of running for my life like an eleven year old adrenaline junkie.

At some point, it all began to change.

Maybe it was the group effort of rapidly blow drying mom and dad's new leather bound encyclopedias after an in-door water fight while they were on a date.

Or taking turns on 'look-out' duty while the other two watched MTV's 'Remote Control' and anxiously awaited for them to play Def Leppard and Faith No More videos.

Whenever/Where ever it happened doesn't seem to matter now.

All that matters is that The Flash and Captain America have become two of my closest and most trusted friends.

Which is why I'm so frightened.

I didn't realize how much until the other night when recalling a childhood memory to He-Man...

I was being merciless towards Capn' one day at our grandma's house. For one reason or another I was bestowed the ultimate power: I was the ice cream server. As the adults socialized, I scooped up the ice cream for all the kids. Then Captain America, my arch enemy, approached and I committed the most heinous of all crimes. I took the ice cream scooper and scraped out the tiniest morsel of ice cream I could muster and dropped it in his bowl. He protested. I gave an evil, nemesis cackle. He retreated to his own little corner and took tiny bites from his little dollop of ice cream.

By the end of the story, I was in tears.

My brother, my amazing, talented, hilarious brother, who I once deprived of his rightful ice cream, is preparing for his second tour in the Middle East. When I think about it, I want to throw up.

When I think of what he is doing for his family, for his country, I'm so very proud of him.

When I imagine the times he's going to be missing his family and feeling so alone, my heart breaks all over again.

When I think about the possibilities, the dark, horrible realities that thousands of families have faced, I can hardly breathe.

All the while, I can do nothing, except for shower him with Swedish Fish via USPS and pray. Which, amazingly is not just enough, but really the best thing I can do for him. It still hurts though.

Funny how sometimes the people we jab with pencils, elbow in the movie theater and purposely steal seats from, our archiest nemeses, become some of our greatest allies.