My brother had a system of folders already laid out: School, Family, and Life. Grant and I would go after the School folder first. Somehow, I doubted that I was ready for the other two.
We started with a collection marked “Kindergarten/1st Grade.” Two of the images were from our sixth birthday party. Ten kids were grouped behind me and Sean and the amazing cake/art provided by our mother. Lacey and Kimberley had been there, both with pigtails and missing teeth. Yeah, I would be keeping everything in this folder.
After a hesitant start, Grant and I got into a groove quickly. We saved most, cropped a few, and discarded the rest.
We were halfway through the seventh grade when something struck me that I’d never noticed before. There were dozens of photographs of Thalia Ryder, mostly at basketball games when she was cheerleading. I’d been a cheerleader, too, and I was conspicuously not visible in many of the shots.
My brother had developed a crush on Thalia in middle school, and I hadn’t been tuned in.
I set my iPad on the table and slumped on the couch, staring through the skylight to the cloudless sky. There were bound to be many things I would be discovering about my brother that I hadn’t known. This one, though, was really surprising. Had I been too self-focused to pay attention, or had he carefully shielded this information from me?
Which answer did I prefer?
Grant closed the lid to the laptop and turned to me. “He found that young lady endlessly fascinating.”
“I can see that.”
“He didn’t speak of it with you.”
“No.” Why not? I’d kept things from Sean too, especially when I knew he’d be disappointed. Had that been his reason—that he’d been wary of my reaction? Or had he just wanted to have secrets?
I picked up the iPad and forged on. The interest in Thalia faded before high school. Once there, he’d crushed on the nearly-as-smart-as-him Tonda, except clearly he’d been brave enough to do something about it since they’d dated for two years. His high school photos centered around Tonda, academic competitions, and me.
The last photo in the high school folder was taken at our junior prom. He broke things off with Tonda a few days later. And then he got sick...
Wow. There were only three weeks between the breakup and his diagnosis. I’d been so frantic at the time that I hadn’t made the connection. Had Sean already suspected that something major was wrong? Had he been feeling too bad to stay in their relationship?
And where were all of the photos from his senior year?
I clicked on the Life folder, and there they were. School had stopped for him after his junior year—and he’d moved on to Life?
I put the iPad down again. It felt voyeuristic, getting peeks into his private world. A world that I hadn’t been completely included in. “I think I’ve seen all I can handle for today.”
“Are you certain that you should postpone the rest?”
“Really, Grant.” I rolled my eyes. “Is there a rule in the genie handbook that requires you to challenge every decision I make?”
“You have stumbled over something that was unexpected, perhaps in a hurtful way. Your natural inclination is to recover in private, a choice which I believe will only prolong the pain. It would be far better to continue, given the probability that good surprises await you, too.”
“Are you trained in human psychology?”
His mouth relaxed into something resembling a grin. “As much as it is possible.”
“In this case, your counseling skills are working.” I reached for the iPad. “So we were about halfway through Life.” I paused, letting my last statement echo in my head. Halfway through Life?
No. For me, it had started over.
“Shall we proceed, Sara? I think that once we’ve completed this section, the Family photos will bring you much pleasure.”
I smiled at him gratefully. “Then, yeah, let’s go for it, because happy images would be a pretty good thing to have right now.”
It was nice, the remainder of those pictures. Not sad at all. Just random shots of things he loved. And people. Mom, Dad, Kimberley, Camarin. Me.
The truth of someone was unexpectedly humbling. My brother had been both more and less than my memories.
Status Report #10
Monday’s wish: Organization of Photographs
