While the travel's magic is partly a blur of stunning views, new culinary experiences and friendships forged, a no less significant aspect is the time that it affords to reflect: on purpose, value, relationships, and the composition of one's rooted home life. Tomorrow will mark four months since I boarded the plane for Singapore, and over the past few weeks I've felt more pangs of missing my loved ones than in the early stages of my trip.
"Did you ever want to have a younger sister?" I was recently asked, while talking about family. The truth was: not really. I was always happy to have a brother, especially when my three-and-a-half-year seniority enabled me to dictate the rules of our childhood games with total authority. Those days are long gone: nonsensical imaginary conversations with a skinny, tanned seven-year-old - my age affording me the extra status of double digits - replaced by profound, soulful discussions with a broad-shouldered twenty-two-year-old, who follows his own authority rather than that of others. The age-old debate about whether it's better to be an older or younger sibling has compelling arguments on both sides. First-borns can be subject to stricter parental rules, campaigning for more TV time and later curfews that their younger siblings inherit once attained. Yet the incredible process of watching another human being enter this world and grow through it, while playing an active role in that personal history, is hard to trump. Being able to superimpose the image of a mischievous, pre-literate toddler covered head to toe in scavenged Easter egg chocolate onto the present adult, and look back on the years between, while also wondering where they went.
The poem I share in this post is not inspired by Thai scenery, but by a text chat with my brother across a time zone difference of fourteen hours. Though our small family is currently splayed across the globe, thanks to WhatsApp, those spatial distances feel smaller than they would have in decades past. As this poem explores my relationship with my brother, it also pays tribute to the importance of taking time to appreciate family and those who have known us throughout life’s fluctuating phases, whether they be geographically near or far.
For my younger brother
How are you, little brother, and what’s your life been like
since Sunday hours when we were kids, exploring on our bikes?
Since days when I still kicked a ball, and games of make-believe,
before we knew who we’d become or what we would achieve.
How are you, little brother, and does the hash taste grey
as its ash falls down to patio stones on which we used to play?
Do your thoughts keep you up at night, or light your way like stars,
and like me, do you yearn to write, fill pages up with bars?
I guess, my little brother, that you’re not so little now
and though I watched you change and bloom, witnessed the when and how -
It still seems half-improbable, a funny thing to see:
How I was taller than you once - you’re taller, now, than me.
Yes, I see the masculine in you, how you’re firm and clear and fast,
Yet know there’s tenderness to you too, and loyalty which lasts.
You can call me if you’re lonely, or if you need to cry -
And I may not always know your fears, nor understand the why
but always, I will lend my ears for what you need to say
for sometimes just the sharing helps the weight to drift away.
I miss you, little brother, from these mountains’ mists and rains -
you who shares my DNA, and hears what my lips can’t explain.
I’ll take this time to tell you that I’m proud of who you are,
and happy we still talk and laugh, even when we’re far.
If I could pick a world for you to grow in, I’m not sure it would be this one
but all we have is here and now; our dance is not yet done.
I wonder, could you tell me what it’s like to be a man?
When others cease to listen, I’m grateful that you can
and wish for us to keep our bond from now until we’re old
so I’ll send this note from Thailand’s heat to West Canadian cold:
Know you’ve a supporter, wherever my feet step,
my air sign to your water, like river meeting breath.
The journey that we tread isn’t easy by any means,
but let your way be guided by courage, fire and dreams,
evenings melting seamlessly to morning’s rising call
with family love to pick you up, if ever you should fall.