My closest brother in age graduated high school in the middle of the Obama administration. He wanted to join the military. He had always wanted to. He loves structure, and leadership, and determination, and our country. He has always sought out spaces where those values propelled him. As a chubby kid he spent hours in our backyard learning the intricacies of throwing a baseball, until the motion became habit and habit became nature. He would go on to win almost every little league championship he played in. When he grew too old for little league he moved to cross country because his friends were on the team. His coach told him he was the least talented runner he had ever seen. By his senior year of high school he was the captain of the team.  Captain Caston, I think he liked that.

When he told our parents his plans they said “Don’t, please, it’s too dangerous now. We don’t know where this country is headed.” We were in the car, and he made my dad pull over. He walked the ten miles home. He spent the next few years working at a food pantry, building up another cross country team from the ground up, winning championships, and becoming a teacher. He joined the Marines after Trump became president. He’s in Okinawa now.

A year before he left we drove to get lunch together. He talked politics as he always does, and when I was wasn’t receptive he turned to me and asked “Tim, are you a Christian?” And I said no, and we didn’t talk for a while. How do you love your brother in the car when thinks you’ll burn in hell?

My oldest brother created the fencing team at our high school, his name is in the record books there. Teachers would ask me if I was his little brother and would smile when I said yes. He built computers in his spare time, and did I.T. work for the school district before he graduated. His only goal was to go to Penn State, and when we couldn’t afford it he went to the local university and dropped out in his final semester.

My oldest brother has four kids now. I don’t like kids, but I love his. He has always been my oldest brother, but I haven’t always been his youngest, and I’m not his youngest anymore. His kids are kids. They are loud, and often shortsighted. His oldest shares his namesake, and our father’s, and our grandfathers, and our great grandfather’s. My brother puts a lot on him. I watched him slap his son in a moment of rage. I saw the tears roll down his son’s face as he looked up, confused at his father, and I didn’t do anything. Later we drove to work on his house and we were silent. How do you love your brother in the car after he’s hit his son?

My other brother has always been different from the rest of us. He didn’t care about sports, or music. My mother will tell an anecdote at parties about him being too busy picking daisies in the outfield to know what was happening at little league. He loves video games, and fantasy, and science fiction. I’ve never met anybody who knows more about those things than he does. I watch Star Trek, because of him. 

My brother is deaf is one ear, and in that way he has been marked since birth. It has always taken him longer to find his footing. He left our high school due to issues he had with the administration and took a while to graduate from the local community college. But now he has a good job, and a wife, and two dogs, and he lives in Indianapolis. Before he left he gave me a ride to the train station to spend some final time together. He spent the car ride listing off some conspiracy theories that are too vile to repeat here and when I responded to them sarcastically he told me I needed to get my priorities in check. How do you love you brother in the car when he believes in white nationalist conspiracies?

I haven’t come up with answer yet, but I’ll let you know when I do.

-Tim Caston