I have the best baby brother in the world. He truly is like one of my kids to me. I was 13 when he was born and I just took over as a little momma hen from the moment he arrived. I taught him to show respect to adults. I also taught him that out of everyone I am the one to fear when misbehaving because I am the one who expects the most from him. I just knew he was destined for greatness and I pushed him to show that.

Now flash forward 18 years, he is a senior and has his whole life ahead of him with a bright future. He is learning to drive and be an adult and everything that means.

About a month and a half ago, my mom called around 5pm. Which was unusual and I knew something was wrong. First thing out of her mouth was Brandon and 2 of his friends had been in a car accident and he was driving. She sounded calm but I was an instant mess and I was driving at the time. Thank god for my back country roads with no traffic! Not trusting anything my mom says sometimes, I was yelling is he ok. Do you physically see him in front of you and he is ok? Then she was like Oh my god, the cars are totaled. And I am trying to judge how fast I can make it from my little city to the big city at quitting time. But she assured me that he was ok. So luckily I was 5 minutes from home when this phone call came in. I was shaking and had a ton of questions.

So a couple hours later, I needed to hear from him that he was okay. And I was overjoyed when I heard his voice on the other line. I even had my cousin go check on him the next day since they both go to the same school.

Needless to say, Brandon was very worried about the other driver and took responsibility like a man. He worried about the financial aspects of it since my brother decided a 2012 Lexus was the perfect match for his 2000 Chevy Malibu. Would he owe on what his insurance didn’t cover? But listening to him fret over real world stuff made me both proud and heartbroken.

Proud because I feel like he is the man I wanted and knew he could and would become. And heartbroken because I don’t have that smarty pants little baby brother who thought it would be fun to run into a wall to see what a fly felt like.

Graduation will be in a month and then he is off to boot camp for the National Guard for about 9 months. 9 very long months without my first baby boy!