Follow the Fortune Cookie

Day 20 - Good Through The Bad

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 
Day 20: Good Through The Bad
Write about the good times
(without bringing up the bad)
of a past relationship that went wrong.
Prompt Creator: kristiana

         One of my older brothers and I haven't talked in about three years. There has been betrayal, hurt, lies, and pain; it has spread throughout the entire family. However, this isn't about the worst of our relationship. This is about the best. This is about who my older brother used to be.

         C-- is nine years my senior. When I was a little girl, when I wasn't ghosting our mom, I was trying to hang out with his friends to be cool. For the most part, he did his best to give me the time of day. Whenever I was going to "runaway from home" (I would announce it to the family, pack a backpack, and head to the corner of the block. Couldn't cross the street on my own...) C-- would always come and sit with me for a while. We'd talk. He'd give me the logic. I'd relent and we head home. A big brother, indeed.

         I remember back to our summer ploys, back when my brothers and I were still all under one roof. Our mom is disabled, has been since I was an infant. Doing the laundry could be difficult, taking the basket up and down the stairs, especially when she was in a great deal of pain. One summer afternoon we decided to help her out. I was put into a laundry basket with the dirty clothes on a piece of cardboard and sailed down the stairs into a pile of pillows. Mom was horrified, at first. C-- and I flew down together in a box. S--, the eldest, took his boogie board down the stairs. My mom and I even went down in the laundry basket.

         It was the laughter that made is special. We were the best versions of ourselves for a while. No one was worrying about the chaos that usually filled our house. There were no screams and shouts and arguments and tears. That day, and those few special days to follow, were the best of us as a family. How I miss those days.