When I arrived early on campus to participate in RA (Residential Assistant) training, we were asked who the most important person in our life is. Of course, I immediately thought of my boarder collie, who does a fantastic job of waking me up before 8 a.m. every time I am home. He is the perfect fluffy alarm clock, who could ask for more? All jokes aside, the answer to the question shocked me when faced with follow up questions aimed to to help find the right person.The questions were: If you were in trouble who would you run to? If you needed advice who would be the person you called? If you had to ask one person to pull you out of a dark cloud and make you smile, who would it be?

Gregory Nathaniel. My brother and I haven’t always had the smoothest relationship. I chalk it up to the fact that our parents got married when I was six and he was eighteen.Who wants to deal with a first grader who runs around like a maniac, when you’re the president of your school and are playing Juniors Cayotes ( now the Junior Falcons)? We had our awkward moments for sure. I was notorious for always staring at him. When we were younger, he once yelled at me because I was creeping him out by looking at him while he was eating. My brother is 6’7 and looked remarkably like Ashton Kutcher from that "70’s Show" when he was in high school. He was the cool guy you always wanted to be around, and all I wanted was for him to like me back. Our rooms were right next to each other, and sometimes I would peek in while he was doing his homework, psyching myself up just to ask a measly question like,”what are you up to?” only to go scampering back to my room to hide behind my books. So, that’s how our relationship went for years. When I went to boarding school, he called me on the phone sometimes, and after each time we’d hang up I’d be giddy for the rest of the day. I do have to admit, I never called him first. I was always too nervous; to me at that point in my life he was the cool older brother, that worked in finance in Boston, doing his own thing and was not to be disturbed by my boarding school shenanigans.

I guess it all really changed the summer our parents started the divorce process. He was the first person to call me to say it was all going to be ok, and if I needed, he’d help me find an apartment. Somehow, he understood. He knew exactly what to say and even offered to let me come visit him, his wife, and their adorable new born twins anytime I needed to get away. I’m not going to lie, I have always wanted to be close to him.

So in my first year of college, when we were talking almost every week, I was ecstatic. We’d shoot texts to check in, and sometimes he’d even send goofy pictures of the tiny twins or his adorable lab. It was the relationship I had been craving for all those years but never had the courage to strive towards. We still talk a lot, and I’m still getting over this awkward fear of him not wanting to be my brother. I do get it, thirteen years is a long time and having a first grader dropped in your lap your senior year of high school is far from ideal. Yet, he has always been the guy I’ve looked up to whenever I feel like I can’t make it through something at school or when family life is too hard.

He doesn’t have to be there for me when I need help,and he doesn’t even have to call me just to say hi. Yet, he does, which means a lot more than I’ve ever been able to express into words. To him at least. After training that day I meant to text him to ask how life was going, and to tell him that he was the person that I felt was the best example of who I wanted to become morally when I graduate college. Maybe its a good thing I didn’t text just to check in that day, because now I will just have to forward him this article instead.