Adam

by Rachel Pusateri

The most noble thing an author can do is be honest— honest with self, and honest with their audience. What a life-long task. That being said, the hands that write this today are tired. The heart that felt this today is weary, yet ever so full. The mind that thought this today isn't necessarily running out of things to say, but has so much to say, it has not a clue where to begin. So as I write the first entry to hyphen, I begin with transparency. Whatever words I owe to you, brother, I hope they are portrayed in this mess of mine.

Rarely does blood dictate the oneness two souls can experience outside of time or reason. Although I’ve found this to be true more often than not, there is something to be said about sharing DNA with another human being. There is something set apart; something miraculous about it all. Free-will struggles to even separate the two from being so much like one.

I have met a handful of people in my life that I could easily refer to as a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ to me. Yet, no one is quite like Adam. Since he grew up without an older sibling to look up to, I can’t expect him to understand the natural response that comes with being the younger one. No matter the day, to do anything less than adore my brother is as inescapable as the common blood in our veins. The same morning I would scream at him for not getting my way as a child would come right before the same night I’d stay up for hours playing guitar so that I could be like him one day.

Beyond the standard he set for my music, my brother also instilled faith in my art and myself, if there’s any difference. Before I knew I could draw, he knew. After accepting a task I did not believe I was fit to accomplish, I created the piece that would be the beginning of, what some say, I am best at. I owe quite a bit of this to him for seeing what I could not yet see in myself.

Although he could see what I was capable of, the influence he made on me as a person is far greater than I think either of us can see. The weight his words resound over what anyone else could’ve said a million times before. The love he gives imprints me to through and through. The times he has spent with me will always, always, always be in my memory. And this is a gift of being a big brother.

I will leave you with this, Adam.

The thing that surpasses what you do for me, who you choose to be, or the life you live outside of what I can see is this— the love I have for you. I honestly don’t know much about your day to day life, or what it was like to grow up in your shoes. I don’t know much about you at all. But the things I do know, the things that matter, lead me to see nothing but something beautiful. There’s no one I’d rather call my brother.