A librarian, her brother, and a birthday.

Hi everyone, here is the personal post about the special bond my brother and I share. I hope this post gives you an entertaining account of our childhood together and the life we have lived with a shared birthday!! 

Well, to begin with I must say that my brother was the cutest baby ever!! If you look closely to the top left picture you’ll see him as a small baby in my mum’s arms while I stare at my birthday cake!! He grew up to be a cute little boy who just couldn’t keep still. Yes, he had so much energy and was always running or climbing something. You’d think he would slow down once he started school but his love of sports just spurned it even more. I’m not complaining as I think this quality of his helped him reach many of his goals. As an older sister, back then, I think all I wanted to do was be a good big sister and help my parents as they had two small siblings for me. I did try my best during those years to instill some values and teach them what little I knew.  

When I grew up though and had to go to boarding school in England, it was leaving them behind that was the hardest. I hadn’t felt homesickness for our house, but for their laughter and the crazy things they both did!! Returning home to hugs from my brother and sister as they ran to meet me at the airport will always be a treasured memory for me!! I truly felt at home when their laughter and craziness filled the house!! They say home isn’t a place; for me home is when those crazy kids were around me!! And my parents of course!! When we moved back to Sri Lanka in the early 1990’s all three of us had to make a huge adjustment. I suppose my siblings, mostly my brother, grew up there. School, trips to visit friends and hanging out with our cousins filled our lives. My brother thrived and his personality as a bit of a joker emerged. Mind you, he’s still a joker, but these days it takes the form of really bad puns and Dad jokes!! It was after we migrated to New Zealand and I started university that the gap between us widened. I started facing different challenges to him, and our experiences changed us. Being a university student meant I received a student allowance for my expenses. Since I lived at home, what I had left over was spent in helping out the family with additional things like sports shoes, clothes, and even the odd school fees for my siblings!! Yes, I was the boring, responsible older sister everyone knew me to be!! The librarian in me was still hiding!!

I know I haven’t told much about my bond with my brother but it’s one of those things that are a bit hard to put into words!! Sharing birthdays for thirty odd years now, it’s been second nature for me. When we were both younger, the anticipation was exciting!! Both of us received not just gifts from friends and family, but our mum would bake us a cake each and the party that followed was always fun for all of us!! Even my sister would receive a small gift when she was younger from those who didn’t want her to feel left out!! Yes, we were so spoiled back in those days!! Back then those gifts were accepted gracefully but deep down I knew I didn’t need much more in my life as I was given the best gift when I became a big sister!!

Although we’re both different genders, my brother and I actually have common interests in the movies we watch and some of the music we listen to. And then there’s the mutual respect for our parents and extended family!! Our bond has shaped into a different one over the last few years and is what you would call fairly plastic!! What I mean by that is with everything we both experience, our bond adjusts accordingly. We find we both learn more about each other and have grown to become unique individuals who just happen to have the same birth date!! Now that he’s a father, I can see that he’s changed in many ways. Although he’s trying to be firm and discipline his kids, the cheeky boy he used to be shows from the edges!! It’s there in the way he participates with them, plays with them and entertains his friends. We’re actually both the jokers in our workplaces!! 

Sorry if I’ve gone off tangent but like dad the relationship is quite a hard one to put into words. We’ve had moments where our interests have diverged; which is natural as siblings grow older. But for the older siblings, younger ones don’t change as you still remember them in diapers and early stages!! We’ve had epic arguments but we tend to patch up quickly as he only has me here to help with mum and dad since my sister in between, the peacemaker of the family, is across the globe!! 

For me, my brother has been a pillar to lean on as an adult. He’s helped with all of our digital questions and it’s thanks to him and wife that mum and dad have a nice house to live in for their twilight years!! We have had some nice outings together as a family, dinners together and fancy places visited. I hope we can have many more in the years to come so our bond can deepen with age and ripen as the years pass!!

So, there you have it, a small account from my life!!

Malli, if you have made it this far, Have an awesome birthday from me!!

Stay safe everybody and keep reading

Miss Mahee