1.4:00 pm July 12th, 2014, standing in the front of the sanctuary of Shiloh Bible Church in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, wearing a deep-purple bridesmaid dress and witnessing my brother speak his vows to the woman he loves. It feels like a dress rehearsal, another practice run through the ceremony. This isn’t actually happening, right? I shed no tears, but my fingernails are digging into the stem of the bouquet in my hands.
2.7:10 pm July 20th, 1993, entering the world and filling my lungs with oxygen for the first time at Community Hospital in Springfield, Ohio. My mother says I was a quiet, teeny-tiny newborn. She also says that the next morning when my father came into the room with my three-year-old brother in tow, as soon as my brother saw me he toddled over to my mother’s side, clambered up onto the bed, and kissed my soft forehead.
3.Four years old, my eyes glued to the square T.V. watching Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in our small apartment living area. From looking at a picture Mom has surreptitiously snapped that day, I can see that he has his arm wrapped around me as we sit side by side on the brown polyester carpet. When Mom first shows him the picture, he explains with the solemn-ness that can only come from a seven-year-old older brother, “I was protecting her, Mom.”
4.Fall of 2005, exploring the woods in our new backyard. Our old, tiny backyard had butted up to a dermatologist’s office, and we relished in our newfound freedom of twenty acres. I was always the trailblazer, finding openings in the thicket to plunge deeper into the woods towards our mission, and he would always be the rearguard checking that we left no trace for our enemies to follow us. We would talk about life, invent epic adventures pretending we were Legolas and Aragorn, or sometimes let contented silence reign as our feet crunched the crisp leaves underfoot.
5.Thirteen years old, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet in Dayton International airport next to my mother, scanning the multitudes of faces for one person. A figure in the distance walks toward us, pulling a black suitcase behind him and sporting a tan that I know was acquired from two weeks in Mexico. We make eye contact from 50 yards away, and I abandon all formalities, running towards him with arms outstretched before colliding into him and squeezing him around the waist as tight as I can. It was the longest time we had been apart.
6.Ten years old, wielding a pitch-black, wooden katana and wearing an impressive black cape that cascades around me as I duel with him in a choreographed fight he had created, inspired by the Lord of the Rings and the Matrix. Our fluid, practiced motions are saturated in deadly grace, and when we clash blades with a sharp thwack, chipping wood as we grind down to the hilts and stare at each other, the thrill of story-creating and epic sword fights shines from my eyes and mirrors in his.
7.March of 2011, standing together on the wall of Jerusalem, Israel. We’re snacking on a cinnamon sweet roll he bought at his favorite bakery in the Old City as we gaze out over the rolling landscape of fresh green foliage that only the end of a productive rainy season can provide. The fact that we can meet together across the Atlantic even as he’s studying abroad in college and I’m on a ten-day tour with my school is sweeter than any roll in the world.
8.Fifteen years old, playing Lord of the Rings Risk with me being the green forces of elves, Rohan riders, and eagles, and him being the black forces of goblins, Ringwraiths, and cave trolls. We are familiar with each other’s strategies, always trying to guess what the other’s next attack will be while scrambling for a creative counter of our own. I rarely win any of the numerous strategy games we play, but when I do I make sure he never forgets it.
9.Senior year of high school, lying in bed and day-dreaming of graduation when I catch snatches of a low conversation he’s having with my parents downstairs about taking a girl in his major out to the Greene for dinner. I stiffen, not believing my ears. He has never dated before. I stay still and silent until I hear the front door shut and his car engine start, the signal of him heading back to Cedarville for the night, before screaming for my mother to come upstairs and demanding her to tell me every word she had just heard.
10.One month later, sitting in the parking lot of Olive Garden on Bechtle Avenue in Springfield, waiting to meet her. My brother’s car pulls up, and I can feel the blood pumping through my body faster and harder. Then they are standing in front of us. She could be nice, but she wouldn’t be good enough for him if she were Mother Teresa’s twin. They sit down on the opposite bench of my parents and me. I don’t remember what we talk about. All I see is that he has his arm around her shoulder the entire time.
11.Five hours after the wedding ceremony, standing out on the steps of the Rolling Pines Golf Course Club House with sparklers in my hands to join the crowd in sending off the couple. A car idles at the base of the stairs, filled to the brim with colorful balloons courtesy of the groomsmen. There’s a cheer at the top of the stairs, and all eyes swivel up to see him and his new wife run down the stairs through the shower of shouts and sparks. They pass me by, slip into the car, and are gone.
Andrea Martinson is from Springfield, Ohio, where she's grown up her entire life. She's been a voracious reader since she could talk, and has been writing ever since second grade in elementary school. She is a junior Biology major at Cedarville University studying to be a Park Naturalist.
