Pain. Suffering. Love. All three come along with the job of being the youngest of three children.
Examples. Pain: Age 13, when my brother threw me 10 feet into a wall for flicking a dog toy at him. It did hit him pretty hard, unintentionally. It was also my first experience getting the “wind knocked out of me”. Suffering: Age 7, my sister holding me down, projecting a decently-sized wad of spit into my mouth on our own front lawn. I couldn’t even scream, or I would swallow it. Love: Age 18, my mom coming home from Thanksgiving dinner to find my brother, sister and I asleep together in her bed.
I’ve got to say, it’s been a journey, but there’s something unexplainable about siblings of three. There is an indescribable balance and bond distribution. Two kids don’t provide enough contrast or drama; four kids and you’re likely to get overlooked or lost in the mix. At least with three, when one of them is your enemy, the other’s bound to be your friend.
I mean, in reality, where would I really be in life without my brother and sister? How would I have learned about the world and the important stuff? Who would have taught me the real things, like what’s acceptable in middle school and what’s certainly not? I understand now all of those (thousands?) of times my brother and sister verbally assaulted me for something I had done or said, something so unbearably uncool and try-hard of myself. I was the constant object of belittlement. My sister’s favorite line for years? “Chill, you’re 12.” It was a constant reminder of my young naive age and state (she went on to say it years after I had surpassed age 12), and my low position in the hierarchy. It was a joyful time period.
But as we got older, just as everyone had said, we became best friends. We became a team, a united front. We all went on to go to the same college and lead very similar lives. But that’s not what held us together. It was the years we had spent together; the experiences we had all endured together over a span of 18 long years. We had conquered, we had divided at times, but at the end of the day, we stood together as a whole. My brother had made me change my outfit in seventh grade when he didn’t deem it “appropriate.” (He also told me I smelled like a prostitute; it was Hollister Malaysia perfume.) My sister had held me in bed and explained to me that my mother was going to shortly lose her hair because she was sick. I spent a long period of time sleeping in both of their beds for some reason (my brother from first grade to third, my sister from third to fifth). Both of them shared duties of driving me places, making sure I had dinner when my mom worked and ensuring I wasn’t hanging around with the “wrong crowd.” (What does this even mean?)
And you know what I never realized? They never did these things for each other, or had these things done for them. They had a mutual contract, and I was the child of that contract. I was (I am) the mutual duty, the responsibility. When something goes wrong, as it tends to, I am the first one considered or concerned for. I am the cub, the fawn, the runt that the brood must watch over. And I can’t say I’ve made it considerably easy on either of them. My siblings take on the role of another set of parents. They have job I will never understand, an obligation that goes beyond my experience — and that is me.
I am the youngest of three. I am thankful. I am blessed. I am wise beyond my years for the things my brother and sister have taught me. Family is not just a sporadic guess of humans the universe throws together. Family is blood, it is what makes us whole and alive. Family is the truest and rawest form of love we can even endure as humans. Family is forever, whether that rings happily in your bells or not. I am a part of my brother or sister; they have parts in me. We are solely three creations of the same artist. And that’s why, despite the spit, punches and words that hurt more than both, I will always thank God for making me the youngest of three.
