He ain’t heavy

I wonder, sometimes, what it’s like to live in Phin’s head. Life often seems big and overwhelming for Phineas, who floats through his days with us as his anchor, telling him what’s to come, and how to stay safe, and when to come to the table for meals. Life with a cognitive impairment means, for my precious boy, that every morning could be Christmas, and every tried-and-true routine is fresh and potentially has a different outcome.

Other times, I wonder what it’s like to be Phin’s younger brother. I know what it is to be his mom, you see. I know what it is to ache when a milestone is missed, and to feel that fierce, almost feral kind of protective love that is usually reserved for newborns around the clock for years on end. But what about the heart of the little man just underneath him, the ones whose wing he should be tucked under just about now, as they round the corner of 10 and 8? What does it feel like to be the younger brother of a perpetually “little brother” soul?

I look back to the season when my older boys were these ages, and I remember it with a kind of soft focus. Mathaus and Jack have always been almost mercurial opposites personality-wise, and yet, at 10 and 8, they were somehow a team that complemented one another in the best of ways. They spent hours building sprawling, elaborate scenes with Legos. They dug a German-style WWII trench at the foot of our back hill and manned it an entire summer, taking more than a few meals down there in the dirt. The kicked soccer. They fell into bed every night and still weren’t done with one another, so they kept talking, and talking, and talking until we’d finally tell them it was time to go to sleep.

As Phin and John Mark headed into this summer, I wondered what it would be like for them. Actually, if I’m being totally honest, I expected that nothing would happen at all. Phineas would continue as he always has, gravitating more to the current preschooler in the family. And John Mark would be on his own with his burgeoning imagination and newfound capacity for more, bigger schemes and dreams.

And to some degree, this has happened. My father visited a few weeks after our move and built a sandbox for the children, and it has become Phineas’ favorite space. He will gleefully mound piles, fill buckets, and bury his toes just as long as I’ll let him, pretty much daily.

But then John Mark will call.

“Phin! Come on! Let’s be knights!”

And then it happens.

Phin’s head pops up, and he searches for me, asking with his eyes if this is something good, something safe, something for him.

“Go on! Go play with your brother. He’s calling for you,” I tell him, and quick as a flash, he is jumping out of the box, sand flying, chasing John Mark across the open grass.

And though he can nearly beat his 14 year-old brother in a sprint, though he can hold his own against much bigger kids on a soccer field, I see John Mark slow down just that little bit. Just enough that Phin is in the game, and that this journey they’re embarking on? It’s together.

I asked John Mark one night, as he helped me bring a load of dry laundry in off the line, about his favorite things to do with each of his siblings. The answer was the same every time. Mary Hannah? Anything. Mathaus? Anything. Jack? Anything. Simon? Anything. Birdie? Anything. Jude? Anything. Phin? Anything.

“Anything, huh? That covers a lot of stuff,” I told him.

“Well, everybody plays different. And that’s o.k. You just play the way they play, and it’s always fun,” he answered.

So it turns out, God knew what He was doing after all. John Mark isn’t pining away for that next-stair-step-older brother I was worried he didn’t have. He isn’t wondering why Phin isn’t leading him on grand adventures or why they aren’t staying up until midnight blasting each other in the eyes with their headlamps. (Yes, this has been an issue here before.)

Phin and John Mark are brothers. Each pulls his own weight, each plays to his ability, and no one feels cheated or like he is pulling more weight than he ought to bear. Brothers, after all, aren’t heavy. They’re just brothers.