My little brother

    My only sibling, my younger brother, has stage four metastatic colon  cancer. These are words that I would never have imagined uttering three weeks ago. Avi is two years, two months, and eight days younger than I am. While I have always been the one blessed with book smarts, as the outside-of-the-box thinker, he is wiser than I could ever dream of being. He knows how to dissect things and make them work, regardless of whether it’s a business, a piece of machinery, or a person. He has a knack for working hard and getting things done with a tenacity like nobody else I have ever met.
  I can clearly recall the exact moment at which I discovered that Avi is physically stronger than I am. I was on the receiving end of what were probably well-deserved punches to the gut, when I realized that I could not fight back. I have recently discovered his seemingly endless emotional strength as well. That tenacity, the never-say-die attitude, will undoubtedly get him through the very difficult months ahead of him.
   Avi and I don’t always get along. We will go months without talking due to a miscommunication or a disagreement. We actually had a fist fight at my father’s bedside as he lay dying of cancer. But I have always recognized Avi’s purity of heart. He is a man who feels the pain of others. He has helped lost souls find their way back to productive and positive lives, many more souls than I can count. Despite his lack of patience for stupidity, he displays great steadfastness when it comes to the people he loves.
   Avi is all I’ve got. I count on him more than I’ve ever realized and I need him to be ok. It’s selfish. But I need him to live. I’m just not ready for him to be sick or gone. So whoever is in charge of stage four metastatic colon cancer, please please make it disappear. Because my obnoxious kid brother still has a life to live and I still need him.

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