It's fall, and my neighbour's daughter, heading to
university, packs 17 years of her life into the trunk of her dad’s van . Her
efforts have jogged old, tender memories of a similar day in 1975.
I was leaving home at last. Life away from
mom and dad and homemade rules and responsibilities. I couldn't wait for the
late nights, the untidy bedrooms, the weekend romps, and the independence. Cutting
the proverbial apron strings wouldn’t pose too much of a problem for me, and to
say that I was itching to go would be an understatement.
As it
turned out, my brother, Chris, and I were departing for University in the same
year. He would be attending Guelph while I made Carleton my home and it had
been decided that we would travel south together. After wading through mom's
tears, we headed down the highway in "the Ghost", our old,
bent-and-beaten green Chevrolet Biscayne station wagon. As we drove, I exuberantly
lectured my brother on the new life to which we would soon be living, not being
receptive to the nuances within his silence. I just presumed that he was too
excited to say anything.
When I
look back, I can't particularly remember Chris saying much on the trip, but I
must have believed or, perhaps, deluded myself into thinking that he was just
being himself; a little more introverted than Mark and me and a little less likely to
share his feelings. Maybe my enthusiasm was a bit overwhelming, and maybe, in
retrospect, I should have been more sensitive and provided him with an opening
to share his thoughts.
When we
arrived at Guelph University late that night, we found his accommodations
fairly easily, and we bunked down for the evening. I was starting my new life
in the morning. When we awoke, I stuck around while Chris registered – a long
process for those who have been through it – and was about ready to leave. Only
one task remained: to find the Bank of Nova Scotia where Chris would settle his
financial matters.
I remember
walking with Chris into the University Centre where the bank was housed. We were greeted with a cold welcome in an immense, impersonal hall. I think it was then
that I first became aware of something that had escaped me early. For the
first time, I saw a sadness in his eyes that betrayed his true feelings. I
realized that my baby brother was afraid.
All my
life, Chris had been there - in the same bedroom, in the classroom next
door, serving on the altar at Sacred Heart Church - and now, things were changing. We were,
truly, becoming adults. And yet, childhood yearnings tethered our hearts pulling us back to
those things that were comfortable and known. I knew that this wasn’t
going to be as easy for Chris as it had been for Mark and me, and yet, I was at
a loss for what to do.
I looked at
him and every protective instinct I ever held for Chris welled up within me,
and I wanted to reach over, put my arm around him, and tell him that everything
would be all right – but, of course, I didn't.
Instead, I
said that it was time that I left. I departed with a few light, hearty comments
intended to temporarily appease his loneliness and to hide my own emotions. He
looked up at me, embraced me, and bid me farewell. No other words were shared,
and yet, in that fleeting moment of physical contact, I felt, as Morley
Callaghan put it, “…all the years of [his] life…” and, to that point in my
life, the most difficult thing that I had ever done, I did then - I let go of
him.
I walked to
the doors leading out of the building and turned to look at Chris. There he
stood, outside of the bank, small in the halls immensity, shoulders lowered, scared and alone - and I felt helpless
in my capacity to make it better for him.
Of course,
Chris was successful at accommodating himself to his new world, and, of course,
it was just the first in a series of adversities that we all face in life. And, of course he has been utterly successful since.
But the scars of those few
moments at Guelph University remain with me to this day. They are scars that
carry with them a certain pain in their remembrance, but they are also scars
that remind me of how much I really love my brother. And I wouldn't change the
agony of those moments for all the treasures on earth.
And I
continue to watch my neighbour's daughter sort through all those years.
