He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

Neil Diamond
1970

As I’ve written a few times already, my little brother Terry is (and has always been) my best friend in the world. But this story’s not about my little brother.  It’s about my three older ones, Kevin, Neal and Michael.  And, I suppose it’s also about Most Holy Rosary, which long served as my family's parish church in the Bellevue Heights section of Syracuse.

I was a kid when we first moved to Syracuse from Auburn, and first staring attending Rosary, maybe seven or eight. I was also not yet in a wheelchair, at least full-time. My folks and doctors were still trying to get me to use crutches as a way of propelling myself from Point A to Point B. But that turned out to be something of a losing proposition. For, while I could stand okay on crutches, moving around (much less doing so quickly) was something else entirely.

For that reason, when it came time to accept the body of Christ each Sunday, rather than me using my crutches, one of my three older brothers would simply pick me up and carry me to the altar with him.

And, of the three, it was the oldest, Kevin, who most resented it whenever it was his turn to do the schlepping. Kevin was more than just a teenager. He was something of the McLane family maverick and a young man teetering on the brink of adulthood. He was also just discovering the glories (and smells) of pretty Catholic girls. And was just discovering, as well, who he was as a man and, I suppose, the importance of always trying to be and look cool in front of one's friends.  And, as you can well imagine, none of those things went hand-in-glove with carrying your stupid kid brother, a cripple at that, up for communion in front of a bunch of your classmates each week, not to mention their older (and often way cooler) brothers and sisters.

That’s why, even as people stared at me and one of my brothers as we made our way up the aisle as a single unit; some of them, no doubt, with a mix of pity and admiration, whenever Kevin was the one with me in his arms, he’d do his best to wordlessly remind me what a favor he was doing for his pain-in-the-ass kid brother; pinching me incredibly hard on the butt as he held me aloft, hiding his resentment and humiliation behind the faintest of half-smiles as he walked and concentrated on the task at hand.

Yet, Kevin loved me, I knew that. And though that love didn’t always manifest itself in the day, over the years it became more and more apparent to me, especially in his most unguarded moments.

So, while we never were nearly as close as Terry and I, Kevin and I always had a special bond – one that was probably based (at least in part) on his guilt over the resentment he once showed when he was too young to know any better, and me (at least in part) because I never realized that every time he was pinching me on our way up to communion, he was telling me in his own way that he loved me far more than he resented me.

Kevin’s gone now, and I do miss him. I wish he were here, if only for a moment, and if only so I could tell him thank you for all those rides when we were both still kids tooling around with life’s training wheels on.  And I offer this little known version of this classic song of brotherly love in memory of my big brother – which, my sense is, speaks to exactly what he was feeling (and, for that matter, Neal and Michael) so many Sundays in Most Holy Rosary Church a lifetime or so ago.

God bless you, Kevin.  And Neal, Michael and Terry, too. I love you all.