The Brother Who Had Everything I Never Had
By Jeffrey Badders
There are people in this world who spend their entire lives searching for someone to lean on. Someone to call when life becomes difficult. Someone who will stand beside them when everything falls apart.
And then there are people who have that kind of love and support but never seem to understand its value.
My oldest brother, Jim, was one of those people.
I was the youngest of four children. The baby of the family. Yet I grew up in foster homes, learning to survive without the security of the family I was born into.
Jim's childhood was different.
According to my Aunt Chris, Jim was my mother's favorite child. She loved him deeply and did almost anything for him. He lived with her growing up, and even after he became an adult, she continued helping him.
If he needed something, Mom was there.
If he got into trouble, Mom was there.
If he needed financial assistance, Mom was there.
I didn't have those opportunities.
And for years, I wondered how two brothers from the same mother could experience such different lives.
The Brother I Heard About but Never Knew
Most of what I learned about Jim came from my Aunt Chris.
She told me he was an intelligent man. He had attended college and studied heavy machinery. Over the years, he worked in the oil fields, construction, and eventually as a machinist.
He had skills. He had an education. He had opportunities.
But according to my aunt, Jim started using drugs and alcohol during his teenage years, and those struggles followed him into adulthood.
She told me about his problems with the law and the time he spent in prison.
She also described troubling things from his younger years, including an incident involving a threat to burn down a school. I never knew whether that incident had anything to do with his imprisonment.
All I knew was what my aunt told me.
And every time I heard another story about Jim, I found myself asking the same question.
What happened?
How could someone with so much potential, intelligence, and family support end up struggling so deeply?
My aunt told me that Mom had helped Jim with houses, cars, and other things he needed.
I had never even owned a house.
I couldn't pick up a telephone and ask someone to help me buy a car, cosign a loan, or rescue me when life became difficult.
I had to figure things out for myself.
And the part that saddened me most wasn't simply what Jim had received.
It was that he was my oldest brother.
He could have been someone I looked up to.
He could have been a role model.
But I had to learn how to become my own.
The Day We Finally Met
The first time I stood face-to-face with Jim was at my mother's funeral.
Imagine that for a moment.
I was there to say goodbye to my mother, and I was finally meeting my oldest brother.
He was older than me, but when I looked at him, I didn't see the strong older brother I might have imagined growing up.
He appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
And I had questions.
Questions that had been sitting inside me for years.
I looked at him and asked, "What happened?"
I told him what my aunt had shared with me.
"Jim, you were Mom's favorite child. She did everything for you. Look at where you are today."
He told me about his health, saying he was living with only half of his heart functioning and was running on fumes.
I listened.
Then I asked him to sit down so we could talk.
I wanted to understand how a man who had received opportunities I never had could end up in such a difficult place.
"Why did you do what you did?" I asked.
"Mom gave you college. She gave you opportunities. You had things I never had. And I'm the youngest one. You should have been setting the example."
I wasn't trying to pretend I had lived a perfect life.
I hadn't.
I had made mistakes of my own.
But I knew what it was like to face life without someone constantly coming to my rescue.
And I wanted to understand why Jim hadn't made more of the chances he had been given.
Then he looked at me and said something I have never forgotten.
"Jeffrey, I didn't even know what I was doing."
He told me that even after getting out of prison, he still didn't know what he was doing.
He admitted there were no explanations or excuses.
It was the life he had lived.
And now he regretted what he had done.
For a moment, I was standing in front of a man who was not just my oldest brother.
He was someone looking back at the consequences of his own life.
I couldn't change his past.
And he couldn't give me back the childhood I never had.
When our conversation ended, I extended my hand.
I didn't hug him.
I shook his hand.
I told him I didn't know everything that had happened in his life, but I wished him the best of luck.
I hoped his life would get better.
And then I walked away.
The Last Telephone Call
About a month after my mother's funeral, Jim contacted me by telephone.
We talked for a little while.
But as the conversation continued, I felt that the same problems were still there.
The drugs. The alcohol. The deterioration I believed I was witnessing.
And I knew I had to make a decision.
I told him there was nothing more we could accomplish by continuing the conversation the way things were.
"You're the same person," I told him. "The drugs and alcohol are destroying you. You're deteriorating."
I wasn't willing to become part of that life.
I had already traveled too many difficult roads of my own.
I told him that if he wanted to continue living that way, it was his decision.
But I wasn't going to participate in it.
Then I said something that became the last thing I would tell my oldest brother.
"If I never see you again, good luck on your journey in life."
And I hung up.
I haven't spoken to Jim since.
The Connection That Disappeared
For years afterward, I continued talking with my Aunt Chris.
She kept me informed about Jim.
I eventually learned that Jim had also lived with her and that he was her favorite.
She continued telling me about his life, his intelligence, and the struggles that had followed him for so many years.
About a year and a half ago, my aunt passed away.
And when she died, another connection to my family disappeared.
Jim is still alive.
He lives in Wichita, Kansas.
But since Aunt Chris passed away, I haven't had any further connection with him.
Sometimes I think about the strange reality of that.
My oldest brother is still somewhere in this world.
We share the same blood.
We came from the same mother.
But we have lived almost entirely separate lives.
And I cannot help wondering what might have been different if he had reached out to me when we were younger.
He knew I existed.
Yet he never came looking for me.
I don't know why.
Maybe there were things happening in his life that I will never understand.
Maybe there were reasons he never shared.
I can only speak about what I experienced and what I was told.
But one thing I know is that being someone's brother means more than sharing a family name.
It means having the opportunity to be there for one another.
And that was an opportunity we never truly had.
The Only Rock I Ever Had
If Jim were standing in front of me today, there are things I would still want to tell him.
I would tell him that everyone travels different roads in life.
We meet different people. We experience different hardships. We make decisions that can change everything.
But at some point, we have to look at ourselves and take responsibility for the lives we are living.
I would remind him that Mom was his rock for so many years.
When he needed something, he could turn to her.
When he got into trouble, she helped him.
When he needed financial support, she was there.
I never had that kind of safety net.
The only rock I ever had in life was God and myself.
I had to learn how to stand when nobody was standing beside me.
I had to learn how to believe in myself when the world gave me reasons not to.
And I had to learn that no one could live my life for me.
I would tell Jim something else.
"I wish you would have changed, but you didn't. And you had your fun. Now you're going to go through life with what you have done."
Those words aren't about wishing suffering on my brother.
They're about understanding that our choices have consequences.
And sometimes those consequences stay with us long after the moments that created them.
The Greatest School Is Life
I've always said this, and I will always stress it.
No one is going to save you.
Life isn't simply about happiness.
Life is about pain and learning.
From the moment we come into this world, we begin experiencing things that challenge us.
We meet people who are stronger than us.
People who are smarter than us.
People who are wiser than us.
We encounter different personalities, different struggles, and different lessons.
Life is like one enormous school, filled with people who are all learning something different.
And sometimes the most difficult lessons are the ones that teach us the most about ourselves.
It takes a strong spirit to keep moving forward.
But strength doesn't mean we never fall.
It means we learn something when we do.
I have learned to keep myself in check.
To believe in myself.
To invest in myself.
To love myself.
And most importantly, to get to know myself.
Because if I don't understand who I am, how can I understand the person I am trying to become?
Jim and I came from the same family.
He had opportunities I never had.
I faced hardships he may never have understood.
But I don't want my life to be measured by what he received or what I was denied.
I want it measured by what I chose to do with the life I was given.
My brother's journey is his own.
And mine is mine.
I still wish his life had turned out differently.
I still wish he had found the strength to change.
But I cannot walk his road for him.
All I can do is continue walking mine.
And if there is one positive seed I hope this story plants in someone's heart, it is this:
Don't spend your entire life waiting for someone else to become the person you need them to be. Learn who you are. Take responsibility for your choices. Believe in yourself. And keep moving forward.
Because when the journey finally comes to an end, I want to know that I didn't give up on the person God gave me the responsibility to become.
Myself.
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