Date Published: September 11, 2023
Time Published: 8:00 AM
Category: Prose
Subject: Family, reminiscing, guilt
In my family I was always seen as the golden child; the eldest, the first to do anything, and the first sidekick. I was also the first one to grow up too fast. Maybe everyone should have known I would be the first to leave too. I wish I could say that no one could’ve blamed me for leaving, but he does. I wish I admitted that sooner but instead, I let my anger dictate my actions. My younger brother was just a kid when I left him behind to fend for himself in that lonely mansion. I blamed him for taking up the mantle I left behind, but there was so much he had to live up to, so much he had to surpass, to even come close to filling those shoes.
I knew I seemed impossible to catch up to. I had the skills, wit, and determination, but I also had the drive for vengeance, and my brother had to work hard to develop the right set of skills to take up what I left behind. And yet, he was the best; he wanted to do it for good reasons. He fulfilled the role in ways I never could have; he made it his own, even if he never should have nor did he ever have the right to.
I was never the best–-he was.
I wish I could have told him how much I admired him before his death—before one of my own ultimate failures. I wish I could have been a better older brother, a better hero. Maybe if I had been the golden child I was perceived as he could have lived.
In the end, I wish I lived up to his ideal of me. I knew I wasn’t perfect. I left too soon and wasn’t the best older brother, but I wish I could have shown him how much I loved him. Because he too was just a child, like I was.
Maybe he was the true 'golden child' out of the two of us.
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