“Hi, my name is Kasidy and my fun fact is that I have three younger sisters and we all start with the letter “K”… Yep that’s right, we are a family of girls, ha! Even my dog is a girl!”
This is the way I usually introduce myself when somebody asks for a fun fact or asks about my family. What most people do not know is that this is actually sort of a lie, because I actually do have a brother, well, sort of. I always try to avoid having to explain that I do have a brother, a half brother, my dad’s biological son who lives in the Twin Cities and is 15 years older than me, who I don’t really know that well. So, I just kept it to a simple “yep, all girls in the family.”
Then, about 7 years ago my brother actually came to live with us. He basically just showed up one day and never left. At school, nobody would believe me when I would talk about having a brother, because I always told the white lie to avoid explaining the back story. Once people realized that I actually did have a brother, because they would see him when he came to watch my sisters and I play sports at school, they would tell me how they thought he was cool because he looked like a gangster (he always dressed in very baggy, oversized clothing).
After a couple of years, he moved in with his Grandma, which was only about 15 minutes away, so we still were able to see him pretty often. My guess is that he moved out of our house because well, lets face it, 4 girls can be a lot to handle after not being around us for 14 years. It was so much fun to finally have a brother. We would go on car rides to drive around and listen to music (we jammed out pretty hard), he was my fishing partner for a couple different fishing tournaments, and since he went to culinary school, he would even cook for us – when I say he cooked for us, I mean it more as one time he made us an amazing pan of chicken alfredo (I still haven’t had anything even comparable to how good his was), and the other times he would make us sandwiches when we requested them. When he would call, especially early in the morning to wake us up or talk on his way home from work, he always answered the phone with “good morning sunshine!” He was so fun to have around, I never knew how fun it was to actually have a brother until then.
While he lived up in the area, he worked the night shift for two different jobs, he really loved them and really worked hard – or at least that is what people told me, though through his personal stories I learned that he would back a forklift up into a corner and hide something in front of himself so that he could take a nap without anyone noticing. The best part of having him around for those last 4 years was that I finally had a big brother to have around; I had always watched my friends grow up with older brothers, and was able to see their relationships, and now I finally had one of my own. I had someone who could support me, always make me smile and laugh, and who was not afraid to tell me when I was wrong. We also were able to have some really deep life talks, usually while driving around or sitting out by the bonfire. He went through a lot in his life, so being able to hear about his experiences and life stories were so special, especially when he would accidently tell me secrets that he had never told anyone else before. Overall, having him around was simply wonderful, he made life better just by being there with us.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, my brother passed away about 3 years ago. He had a very random and spontaneous heart attack when he got home from work one morning. I was actually on a bus on my way to a church trip in Indianapolis, Indiana with two of my sisters, and then had to turn around when we hit Chicago. That was the longest and worst drive I ever had to take, my sisters and I waited at a random little church in the middle on nowhere until a family friend who lived a hour away could come pick us up to bring us to Eau Claire, Wisconsin to meet my aunt and uncle, who then brought us back to their house in Minneapolis to meet my parents, before our still 3 hour car ride to get home.
Now it has been 7 years since he first moved in with us, and 3 years since his passing and I have resorted back to my old phrase, so that I can avoid having to explain to people that I had a brother who just didn’t live with us, then he did live with us, and then passed away at ripe age of 32 due to a spontaneous heart attack. One minute, I finally had a brother in my life, and the next minute he was gone. I know that I still have a brother, he is always with me in my heart, and I always have him watching over me, but I usually don’t tell people that part. I usually leave it with,
“Hi, my name is Kasidy and I have 3 younger sisters… Yep, just a house full of girls…”