Brothers

I love my brother. Yeah, yeah, everyone admits that they love their siblings at some point in their life. But really, he is one of my best friends, and I couldn't have asked for a better person to be forced to live with all these years. Sure, he irritates me some of the time, and at other times I wonder if he even claims me as his only sibling. Nevertheless, he is my brother and there really is nothing I can do about that. Colten and I have always had a great relationship compared to other siblings, and I still get the, "Wait, you never fight?" question to this day. No, we don't fight. (This really is true).

One thing that probably keeps us from fighting is the fact that despite our ability to get along so well, our lives have been basically polar opposite from one another. He is 6'4'', and I like to say I am 5'5''. He never cared about grades; I would've cried at anything less than an A-. He liked to go out and have fun in high school while I was at home reading Harry Potter. My brother stayed in Coldwater, and I left to prove myself. I left to discover what I was supposed to be in this world, but it took me six years to realize my brother became the very same thing I had spent so long training to do.

He became a teacher. No, not a school teacher. My brother became a teacher of what takes to be a decent human being.

Colten hasn't always been the charismatic guy that everyone knows and loves. I can remember growing up, his peers would make fun of him for his size. I was just young enough that I knew what was going on, but I didn't know how to deal with it. To this day, I still feel a horrible weight on my chest when I see a child that is bigger than the rest of his or her peers, and I know it is because I love my brother so much and I hated to see him go through that. But, despite all of this, my brother never seemed to let it get him down. He takes ridicule like nobody I've ever seen and it just rolls right off of him. He shows me every day what it takes to stand up to the bullies of this world and just let it go. Some people just aren't worth the fight.

Perhaps the greatest lesson he ever taught me was one I learned just recently. My brother coaches the middle school football team alongside his very good friend from high school, and their team won the league title last Thursday night. As I stood watching the game, I couldn't help but think about my time watching my brother and peers play football on that very field. When the game ended, I watched as my brother and his friend were soaked with Gatorade, and realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

My brother shouldn't be friends with his fellow coach. There really is no rhyme or reason for it, but a moment later I knew. They are friends because my brother did something that most people will never do in their lifetime: he forgave that man. He forgave him for everything that happened in the past, and they are living proof that we do have the ability to let things go. This is something we are taught from a very young age, but as you grow older, you find it harder and harder to accept. But right there in front of me, two people I've known my entire life showed me that it was possible.

Those two men taught a crowd of people a valuable lesson that night, even if neither party realized it. They showed us that humanity's simplest virtues are still out there, we just have to be willing to fight for them. Both men presented a scenario that we have all experienced with peers or siblings, and they showed us how you can overcome differences.

They showed us how to be brothers.