Bundles of Boy

At six years old I found out that my requests were met. My mother and father took me aside and told me that I was going to have a brother. For a while I'd been asking for a one, someone I could play with, conspire with, grow up with. I was bored by myself. My house and my grandparent's house were too interesting to explore alone.

Many months later however, I found out that I was not going to have just a brother, but two of them. A month before my seventh birthday my mom went into labor and gave birth to twin boys, my new baby brothers, Nicholas and Jason. When I saw them for the first time, I could not believe what my eyes showed me: tiny bodies with smooth pasty skin, one a little paler than the other, small oblong-shaped heads with thin wisps of hair, facial features smaller than I had ever imagined.

"Can I hold one?" I asked, watching the baby in my mother's arms.

She looked back at me from the hospital bed, "You have to be really careful."

The look in her eyes as she enunciated each word sent fear running into my arms.

I looked down at my arms, "I can do it, I'll be careful."

"Okay," she gave in. "Sit down."

I sat down on the uncomfortable hospital chair and my father picked Nick up from my Mom's arms and placed him gently into mine. I looked down at the helpless bundle on my lap. That's all he was if he was anything: helpless. He could hardly see, he couldn't move on his own or communicate any way other than crying. I could throw him across the room and nothing would stop me, I could pop his head if I tried. But I didn't and my arms remained calm as I held him. I looked to my mom holding Jason and realized just how dependent these babies were on people, their parents, on me. I looked forward to taking care of them, watching over them, and making sure that we were always careful. Looking back, like any brother relationship, things never when exactly according to that plan, but it's the thought that counts right? It can't be called brotherly love without the occasional punch to the arm or slap to the back of the head.