Having an older brother is kind of like having a best friend/dad/brother in the same person. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I have an older brother. His name is Darren Pasley. For those of you that do know who he is, I'm sure they know he hasn't made the best choices in his life. He is currently sitting in Lewistown County Jail. I haven't seen him since I was in eighth grade. I will be a sophomore in college in a couple weeks. I haven't talked to him since about last August. So it has been almost a year since I've talked to him, and it has been about six years since I've seen him. He is my half-brother, so we have the same dad and different mom. However, we were super close. Whether he was messing with me or I was pestering him, we were always really close. I can remember when I was 8 or 9 he took me on a date with one of his girlfriends. For those of you who have an older sibling, you know that that doesn't happen. That's how close we were. As I said previously, he has made some bad decisions and is in jail, but he never let me see it or know that something was going on. I was young when he lived at my house with me, so I am not sure I would have been able to figure it out anyway. Every time he got in trouble, he never let me know. I will never forget the last time I saw him. It was the first game of regionals my eighth grade year for baseball. He was there with my dad. They were both sitting in lawn chairs in between the dugout and home plate on the third-base side. I happened to be pitching that day. We won 17–7. I pitched really well, and I was 2–4 with a double and some RBI. After the game was over, we had our little talk, and then I went over to my dad and brother, and they congratulated me on a good game, and we talked a little bit. I was riding the bus home after the game because we were going out to eat to celebrate the victory. I will never forget what he said to me before I left. He said, "That was a good game, buddy. I love you, and I will see you later, loser." To this day, almost six years later, I'll never forget him saying that. I haven't seen him since that day. He ended up moving to Florida to get away from some trouble he got into, which I found out about a couple years later. When I turned 16, he sent me a message on Facebook that made me bawl my eyes out. It was a really long message, and he apologized for everything that has happened and how he hasn't been here for me and that he loved me.

For the people who know I have a brother, they know I don't really like talking about him or anything that has happened because it is super hard on me. Even now, six years later, I really can't talk about him around people. There are about three people I can talk about him with, and they know who they are. The reason I am typing this article is because he helped me through so many things without him even knowing. I grew up to learn not to make the same mistakes he did when he was my age. When he was in high school, he got into drinking, smoking, drugs, etc. I have been drunk once in my life, and I have never smoked or done any sort of drugs. I remember when I saw him in Florida when he was visiting his mom. We were at a spring training game. He took me down to the concession stand get some food and other stuff. He ended up smoking a cigarette. I remember he asked me, "Do you smoke?" I was 12 years old. I said, "No," and he said, "Good because if you ever do, I will find you and I'll kick your ass." For that, I thank him because I have never even thought of smoking.

A lot of people take their older siblings for granted because they always have them around or whatever the case is. Don't take them for granted, because I would do anything to have him sit at one of my baseball games again, or to help me with hard stuff I'm going through, to help me with school or to just talk to him.

I don't know if you'll ever see this, Darren, but if you do, I miss you a lot, and I love you, big brother. I will see you soon.