No. 179 - A Profile of My Brother … and Empathy

I was sitting in a downtown Atlanta skyscraper — in a banking class for SunTrust. It was long enough ago that the computers were boxy. I reckon it was eighteen years ago because my brother had just died.

I was lost back then — drinking too much — listening to too many sad songs. Sometimes I’d sit by myself … just a bottle of Beam, cross-legged on the carpet, with George Jones. I didn’t know what else to do.

I woke up every morning, put on a tie, and went to work at the bank. Rinse and repeat, day after day, never knowing how I’d get through, trusting in the drink because it never asked how I was doing.

On this particular day I sat behind a desk while a trainer taught us something, or at least attempted to. I know I wasn’t paying attention. My brother was dead — and I was dying too.

In front of me, to the right, was a young kid with blond hair and rosy cheeks. I couldn’t stop staring at him. Luckily he didn’t know; I would’ve felt ashamed for staring.

My gaze never wavered. I got lost in his profile — for he had the same one as my brother. I started crying, but fought back the tears because I couldn’t take the attention and the shame it would’ve brought.

Being in the back corner of the room I realized no one was behind me. How I didn’t know that baffled me, but it was a relief. I could let the cold tears stream down my cleanly shaven face.

I didn’t know what was going on. I had never felt those feelings. As I stared at this kid’s profile I saw his childhood — or at least the innocence his mother saw in her baby boy’s face. He turned into a child in front of me and my heart broke for him — and I didn’t know why.

I saw his whole childhood in a few moments … through my eyes. I saw my brother’s childhood too … and it broke me.

I lived like that for many years: confused, sad, hopelessly lost. But I always had the liquor to soothe me — to tell me I’d be alright — to let me cry uncontrollably, to abandon myself.

His profile has haunted me ever since. I see him in other men’s faces — beneath the years of tragedy, I see men in the same light: what existed before the trauma.

Our faces tell our stories — every chapter written into our brows, our fears living in our eyes, our hearts on display when we smile.

That kid changed me forever. He gave me permission to feel. He taught me empathy.

And we never even shook hands.

*Composed, Edited, and Published in Atlanta, GA