Bjcorbin's Blog

Yesterday my oldest brother (Tom) had his fiftieth birthday and it caused me to reflect on our relationship over the years.  Tom is only a year older than my brother Kevin and two years older than me; so as with many other things in our lives, Kevin and I will quickly follow his lead toward this significant milepost.  As is typical of oldest siblings, leading is something that comes quite naturally to Tom and I am ashamed to admit that for many years I let that be a point of contention for me.  For most of that time I wasn’t conscious of my role in creating that charged atmosphere, but after having children of my own, I began to gain some clarity on it.

Though I have a step-daughter, who is six years older than my oldest son, her influence on the sibling dynamic was greatly mitigated when she decided to move in with her father at age twelve.  In her absence, my son Patrick has generally played the role of oldest sibling.  Our twins, Andrew and Rebekah, were born before Pat’s first birthday and thus we unwittingly created the perfect storm for sibling rivalry.  As those three are now reaching their teen years, that rivalry can at times become fierce and ugly.  Though the boys have their moments, the most contention seems to exist between Patrick and Rebekah, who happens to be the youngest by 1 minute.  Though Bekah is generally a sweetheart, from a very young age she seems to have resented any input from Patrick, including his attempts to help or protect her.  This baffled me at first, because Patrick has always been very loving and not one to torment his younger siblings; but as I’ve watched, I began to see myself in Bekah’s behavior.

Like Patrick, Tom wasn’t one to torment Kevin or me.  The only thing he seemed to want from us was our respect and as the youngest brother, with a big chip on my shoulder, that was the one thing I refused to give him.  He and Kevin tended to compete on a more level field, which at times got heated; but because I really couldn’t compete with either of them, I simply developed an attitude that they couldn’t tell me what to do.  This wasn’t much of an issue in my relationship with Kevin, because he was naturally quiet and not one to give a lot of input.  But with Tom, this attitude caused me to interpret everything he said as an attempt to control me.

Looking back, I now realize that this was ultimately rooted in my own insecurities.  Tom was a genius, who spoke like a thirty-five year old, when he was in Kindergarten; Kevin was a golden haired, star athlete, who quietly got straight “A”s.  Then there was me, the near-sighted, emotional train wreck, who seemed to find trouble at every turn.  Though I never sensed that this was how my parents or my brothers viewed me, it was absolutely the view I had of myself; and that caused me to take on some misguided quest to prove my significance to them and the world.  Of course, the harder I tried, the more frustrated I became and the worse my attitude got.  Eventually, I did give up on trying to compete with my brothers and for the most part, Tom gave up on trying to say much to me.  Through our mutual love of rock and roll, we even managed to share some pretty good years of friendship through our late teens; but the bitter root of this thing was still in me.  As we moved into adulthood, it sprouted in a new way, as I somehow managed to make Tom out to be the man I didn’t want to become.  I judged him as being too serious, too rigid, too religious… and I promised myself that I’d never be like that.  For more years than I’d like to admit, it was a promise I kept.

When I was eleven, my sister Mary came along, but that didn’t really change the sibling dynamic which was already firmly established between my brothers and I.  Mary eventually grew into the best and the brightest of my parent’s children, but thankfully that happened too late for me to use it as evidence in the case I was unconsciously making against myself.  At nineteen, I joined the Navy and moved away from my family, which seemed to allow me to turn a corner in my mind.  For the first time in my life, I began to find some success and build a little self esteem.  Again, this isn’t because they were holding me down, but because of the way I saw myself in reference to them.  While this period of my life seemed to be better, it was a time when I invested my sense of significance in the wrong things (e.g. achievements, my marriage, what people said about me…).  Unwittingly, I built an emotional house of cards and in my early thirties, that house collapsed.

Once again, feeling as though I was completely lost, I cried out to God for help; and in His mercy, He made Himself real to me.  It took some years, but I slowly began to realize that my significance lies in the fact that I was made in God’s image and that He calls me His own.  Over time He’s shown me that I’m not the warped, damaged piece of goods that I’d always imaged; and that He actually created me differently for a reason.  As only He could, He convinced me that I was not the least among my brothers and that I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone.  Needless to say, it was like having an eight hundred pound weight lifted from my shoulders.

Freed from this oppressive insecurity, I began to see my brother Tom and our history as brothers, in a new light.  For the first time, I realized that Tom and I never really had a problem with each other and that ultimately, the problem had always been mine.  Though he isn’t perfect, he’s never really done anything to be worthy of my scorn or belligerence.  I can’t help but be ashamed of the way I treated him and moreover the way I thought of him throughout those years.  The truth is, you’d be hard pressed to find a finer man than my brother Tom.  He is still madly in love with his high school sweetheart Fawn; he is the father of two wonderful children (Erin and John), who both managed to find amazing spouses (Ben and Melissa); he is the grandfather of four beautiful grandchildren (with a fifth one on the way); a man of faith, whose “yes” means “yes” and whose “no” means “no”; a man who is always willing to serve and always ready to lead.  He is a man of wisdom, compassion, character and integrity; and at 50 years old, he is rich in all the ways that truly matter.  I will die a happy man if my life bears the kind of fruit that his already has.

Ultimately, I wrote this piece to not only confess my sins against my brother, but also to hopefully make others aware of this blindness that comes from sibling rivalry.  It has become somewhat of a punchline in our society to describe our families as “dysfunctional”, but it is no laughing matter.  In these last days before Christmas, there are many who dread the idea of being with their family and even some who will choose not to participate in such gatherings because of it.  It is my prayer that God will help each of us to see past these deceptions and to find the value in the people He’s placed in our lives.  I pray that one day; my own sweet daughter will understand what a precious gift her oldest brother is.  As for me, I am thankful that my eyes were opened before it was too late; and today, I’m glad to celebrate the life of my big brother Tom, who is a truly good man and worthy of such praise.