I recently heard something to the extent that "you are an average of the five people you associate with the most". And I know who has been the biggest impact upon my life. When I was growing up, I had never an idol. I never had a poster of Michael Jordan on the wall, nor were there posters of rock stars from the most current hot bands. I never needed these posters, because my support and motivation shared a room with me. My best friend. My brother. And he definitely has left his impact upon me.
Our parents like to say that we have our own language, like twins do, and this statement has some degree of truth to it. It's English, but our own shortened, mixed up form. Comprised mostly of all the random, and usually stupid, sayings that we have accumulated over the years. If I were sitting on my bed at home, I could turn over and say to him "Leaving a whole bunch of questions that don't need to be answered," and he would probably smile, knowing what I was referring to. This speaks to the fact of how much time we've spent together. In fact, we shared a room until I left home to study law.
I always took for granted the knowledge that I got to spend a sizable portion of my life with my best friend almost 24/7. Every night was like a sleepover. We would frequently go to bed at night, and have random, pointless, yet meaningful conversations that were the perfect way to close days. That's not to say we didn't have ways to irritate each other. You spend enough time with someone, and you find ways to press their buttons, and heaven only knows how much fun it was to get on each other's nerves. He probably deserves a medal for putting up with me. Being the younger brother, he always had to play second fiddle to my choices. When we went trick-or-treating on Halloween, I got to be Batman, and he was Robin. When we used to play video games as kids, before online multiplayer, or co-op became all the rage, he had to wait until I exhausted my live until it was my turn. I still remember when I was about eight when I was facing off against the end boss in Donkey Kong country. Having gotten as far through the game primarily due to luck and many restarts, I had no idea how to vanquish the foe, and ended up having to restart many times. I remember chastising him for not cheering hard enough. I'm lucky he has such a cheery disposition and would put up with up with me.
People often ask me how hard law school is. They'll ask about the upcoming finals, or the required reading, when honestly the hardest thing has been not seeing my best friend every day. Three years ago I remember dreading his graduation because I was expecting him to go away to college, and leave me an empty room. Luckily, we got another two years when he decided to commute, as I did, albeit to a different school. Now that I've left thought, I feel as though I abandoned him. It was bound to happen eventually, and it's a start to a brand new chapter of my life, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with.
While I accept that life changes, that doesn't mean I have to forget about where I came from. It's why I keep a picture of the two of us as kids in my wallet. Multiple times throughout the day I'm reminded of him. The Greek language has four words for love, which I believe is far more useful and descriptive. Philadelphia, the 'City of Brotherly Love', derives it name from one of these words if you haven't guess yet. Philia. The word mainly refers to familial love, such as the sort between brothers. All in all, I consider myself blessed to have such a great best friend, and even better brother.
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