All grown up

My younger brother is a football coach at the high school we both attended back in the day. He’s 33, just a couple of years younger than I am.

Yesterday, a car crash killed two students from the high school, one of whom was a football player. This isn’t the first student death my brother has had to deal with.

If memory serves correctly, no students died while I was a student there. I remember at least one high-schooler being killed in an accident when I was in middle school, but none while I was in high school. If there were any, I didn’t know them.

So I can’t imagine the feelings my brother must be having. To know this 16-year-old boy who had his life in front of him and seeing it wiped out in a flash must be incredibly difficult. And, in his role as teacher, to have to keep it together enough to be a support to the other students has to be stressful too.

I never thought I’d think of him as an adult, but he has grown to be quite a fine person. And given our totally opposite personalities and interests, I never thought that I could say that about him. Sure, he does all those disgusting straight-guy things. But he puts his special touch on them. Like teaching his not-quite-two-year-old daughter to answer “Poop!” when he asks her “What does mommy do?” But he also taught her to growl like Chewbacca, too! Both are quite endearing to watch, believe it or not.

But today, he’s hurting and having to be the grown-up that I never thought he would be. I’ve come to be quite proud of him.