I never knew you and I would always wonder who you were. The only details I know about you are from an old photograph taken in 1994 after you were born. The photograph looks like any other baby picture, yet yours is different, because you only lived a few weeks until you were taken from this earth. Relatives say the cause of your death was that you suffocated in your sleep. It terrifies me that a tiny life can be taken by a short breath. I have the pamphlet from your funeral service that was passed down to me and inside of the pamphlet is a withered rose that once was bright and blossoming. That rose I keep in the creases of the pamphlet remind me of the light you brought into this world when you were born, because you were our father’s first born and you carried his name. That rose now reminds me of the hole you left behind, because the rose is a dead, lifeless flower of crusted petals and leaves. I talk to relatives who spoke at your funeral and told me how beautiful the service was dedicated to you. They tell me you don’t even have a plaque where you are buried, because our parents were too broke to afford one. I always thought of visiting you even though I wouldn’t be able to find you in the cemetery. I would just want to sit there and reflect on the good life I have been given that could have been yours. You came into this world like a gust of wind; you blew by so fast and then your wind was silently calm.

If you were still here, I would have been the middle child instead of the oldest. Today, you would have been 21 years old and in your junior year of college. You could have been the first generation in our family to go to college, instead of it being me. I envision what you would have looked like. You would have had hazel eyes just like our father's, beige skin, and curly, mixed hair like your siblings. I imagine what your voice would have sounded like. Would it sound like your youngest brother whose voice is deep and masculine? Would it sound like your younger brother whose voice is partially squeaky when he gets high-pitched? Or would your voice just be a voice of its very own? I wonder if you would have been sporty like our younger brothers, playing football, basketball, wrestling, or running track. Maybe you would have been artsy like me, performing in plays and musicals, dancing, writing lyrics and poems, or singing. I contemplate if you would have been short like me with my 4”11 height or tall like our younger brother who exceeds the height of our father. I think about if you would have been outspoken as the joker like our youngest brother who is loud and obnoxious or if you would have been like our other younger brother who is quiet and reserved with a peculiar mind to analyze the complexities of life. Yet, I realize you would have been your own person with your own interests and features that define your uniqueness instead of being like any of us.

I bet you would have been like all other older brothers who pick on their little sisters senselessly, but our younger brothers make up for the picking on, because they live to make me annoyed whether it be about guys I have a crush on or my nature to nag at the stupid things they do like farting on me so I can be engulfed by their disgustingly smelly fumes. You would have been the older brother to fight the guys who broke your little sister’s heart and the older brother to defend me when girls were so mean to bully me on my appearance. You would have been the older brother I would go on late night bike rides with, going as fast as I can to feel the breeze on my face and the older brother who would play tag and hide-n-seek with me on the playground with all the other children. You would be the older brother who I would bribe to keep all my secrets from our father and I would sucker you into giving me money so I would keep all your secrets. You would be the older brother to stand by my side in family photos, smiling at the camera in matching, color-coordinated attire to give to relatives for the Holiday Season saying, “Greetings from the Hutcherson family!” You would be the older brother I would play-fight with and no matter how much I tried to kick your butt, I would say mercy and let you win. This is how I hoped you would have been, even though I don’t know who you would have been. Maybe you would have been the complete opposite of an imaginary brother I am describing, but regardless I would have loved you for the older brother you became.

I look at the photographs full of 20 years of memories with you in none of them. I wonder how different every Thanksgiving, every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter, and so on would have been if you were there laughing with us, smiling with us, eating at the dinner table with us, and most of all, making memories with us. Your life was taken too soon and you didn’t even get to decide who you wanted to be and to figure out who you were like all humans who go on to become doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, businesspeople, engineers, scientists, etc. You didn’t get to choose as other children who grow up to pursue a career, to get married, to have children, and above all else, to grow old. Our father doesn’t even mention your name anymore as if you never existed, but there will always be someone missing from our family as I look at each photograph of one invisible presence: you.

So, brother, though I never met you, I hope you know you have three unconstrained siblings that when we come together, it is unbearable to tolerate all the commotion, and a little sister who possesses a quality amount of sass and feistiness that loves you endlessly. Siblings are a necessity, because though our younger brothers may drive me crazy, loneliness does not sound pleasant.

Death was a concept I did not comprehend, but has become an event that is a part of life, because whether someone be young or old, it happens like a gust of wind that blows life into someone’s lungs and then stills as the wind calms like someone taking their last breath. Your death, like deaths that occur every day, is part of the wheel of the world as it keeps turning around, because the world cannot stop for anyone. If there is one thing I have learned from you is that life is beautiful as a baby takes its first breath and an elderly person takes its last. Life is precious, because it can be taken at any second, any minute, any hour, any day, and any year.