For the Sunday morning

“-DAminykai,” Pa mumbles with a mouth full of toothpaste.
“What?” her brother replies, brushing his teeth.
“Can you look here—” I can’t see exactly, but I guess where she’s pointing.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to look there.”
“Can you at least look for a moment, so you can tell Mom that I did a lot of ‘poos’ before bed?”
“Then you tell her yourself…”
“No, you look and tell her. She’ll think I lied again.”

“And you never lie,” Pa finishes, and I can’t help laughing.

Sometimes I listen to their conversations and hold my breath, just so I won’t be noticed eavesdropping. And every time I think:
—How good it is to have an older brother.

I remember childhood days in the yard… when friends who had even slightly older brothers were already somehow superior.
“I’ll call my brother…” they would say. And everyone knew that meant the highest-level punishment.

Those brothers often did nothing; sometimes they were even shorter than younger girls in the yard and weren’t “fearsome” in appearance…
But the fact that an OLDER BROTHER would be called to defend a sister already made you plan your evacuation home.

Everyone else’s threats like “I’ll tell Mom” or “I’ll call my sister” or “I’ll complain to Dad when he gets home” never had the same weight as the older brother.

So I sincerely envied my friends “blessed with older brothers.”
My Pa was gifted with a brother almost five years older.
I don’t know if older brothers feel blessed with princess-type “little monsters” around them,
but the fact that sisters feel safe behind them, like competent walls in every matter, constantly tapped by tiny fingers, is undeniable.

For the BRO,
V.