For My Special Needs Brother

23 years ago today, my little brother was born. My world changed forever. 

I chronicled much of my experience with my brother in my book, A Memoir: on Love and Life, but if I had to place an estimate on it, about five percent of my love, pain, frustration and jubilance from my brother’s relationship is encapsulated in that book. There’s so much we’ve been through, he and I individually, together, and as a family, that I want to reconcile. Sometimes I think that will happen. Other times I think not. I’m learning not everything in life comes with an explanation or finality, and that’s OK. Ambiguity can breed imagination.

My brother is one of the millions of young adults in this world with Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. We are fortunate. My brother can have conversations, bathe and feed himself, and enjoy many things this life has to offer. We frequent Atlanta Braves games and visit his favorite restaraunts, Olive Garden and Carabba’s. We talk about the scores from the sports games, and he can tell you the “Baltimore Orioles suck.” He has his cell phone, and often calls to let me know that his day went well, that he cleaned the windows at work, and that he’s excited for Friday night so he can get his quesadilla from our favorite Mexican restaurant. Since I moved out of state, he can tell me he misses me, he can understand that I miss him, and we can count down the days until we are united. 

Through my experience navigating the world and helping to raise him, I found many other individuals with ASD that can’t do many of those things I mentioned. Some can’t feed themselves. Some are confined to a wheelchair and will never know what it means to walk in the park, run the bases at SunTrust Park, or play catch in the yard with their big brother. They’ll never feel the joy or experience of gathering in the kitchen with a loved one and helping to chop the onions or roll the pasta for a family meal that may be low on eloquence but high on love. It doesn’t mean their lives are any less fulfilling, but it soothes my sometimes-weary soul to know that at least some of the things I dreamed of doing with my little brother are able to come true. 

Having a loved one with special needs or disabilities is a calling. It tests and perfects you in ways nearly nothing else can. It is often said that those of us called to love those with intellectual disabilities often mourn that which could have been, that should have been. I don’t think a truer sentiment has ever been spoken. 

Through growth and maturation, therapy and introspection, I have learned to appreciate part of this as reality. Nevertheless, I have also learned that grief is OK, that’s there no moment of acceptance, and that reconciling the nuanced emotions of being deeply connected with and loving someone with an intellectual disability never disappears. In a way, it’s like continuously mourning. There’s a loss that took place when that diagnosis was given. There’s no closure. No acceptance. No point where it no longer affects you. Like every loss in life, there are good days, and there are not so good days. Through it all, you love them. Through it all, you power thorugh. 

I love my brother exponentially. I care about him more than anything else in the world. There is literally nothing I would not do for him. I love him wholeheartedly for who he is now, and I am not ashamed of that. I also mourn what could have been on a daily basis. I mourn that we’ve never played 2K together, that I can’t fly out to whereever he is attending college and spend a night or two with him, that I can’t call and vent to him about work or my relationship. All of these feelings are valid, and they don’t diminish the love I have for him. 

My brother changed my life for the better. I owe much of who and what I am today to him, his unconditional love, and his existence here on this earth. In a way, I have found that many of my needs, my areas of imperfection and shame, have been revealed, sharpened and healed through him. I am forever grateful for that. 

Here’s to 23 years, Alex. I pray to God daily for many many more.