STORY FROM QUOR
I was about 8 years old, my mom had a third child.
I was jealous of my little brother. Oh, I loved him; but I hated certain things about having a baby in the house.
I hated having to be quiet all the time: I was always being shushed and chased outside.
I was envious. My father finally had a son - he was a very traditional kind of . And now, all of a sudden the entire family on his side was interested in what was going on at our house. But, really, only as far as my brother was concerned. So here, I'm finally seeing the long absent grandmother, who would always misspell my name on the emotionless Xmas card.
I found myself outside, in the sweltering heat filled with resentment and jealousy. I wished he had never been born. Wished my father acted like I was good enough.
At seven weeks of age, the unthinkable happened. I cowered behind the makeshift child gate in my room and watched silently. The grandmother who raised me hovered in the hallway keeping us as distant as she could. The paramedics came into the darkened house.
They took him away.
My parental units followed.
All the next day, we were waiting. And then, the grandmother returned from the hospital and spit out the news before even stepping onto the porch: he was dead.
I was awash in guilt. How could I ever have been jealous of such a tiny and innocent thing? How could I have resented him when he wasn't the one to blame for our long unhappiness? How could I not have seen that the adults were responsible for their own awful actions? I cried the bitter tears of karmic backlash. I wept for my own expression of bitterness. Remorse filled me.
After the funeral, my paternal unit was gone again, and our lives returned somewhat to normal. But the grandmother who lived with us was never the same. I watched as she wasted in form from her plumpness into a cachectic woman. My mother, always remembered the child she lost, sometimes forgetting the children who lived in her ongoing grief.
I often wondered what person those brown eyes would have grown into.
I have avoided jealousy since. Not so much because of a superstitious feeling that I brought this upon him. No, that moment passed long ago in my childish consciousness. But because I find it a destructive emotion and one which will only bring regret.
This was the worst thing I did as a kid: resent an innocent baby.
