QUAND MON FRERE NE PLEURAIT PAS…
My older brother George was a bully, bottling up his tenderness. His scorn for me ended up in a “Hate your Sister Club.” When our family Springer Spaniel died I cried for a week, inconsolable. One day a stray, skinny mutt followed George home and clung to him for two weeks. George was ecstatic, a true love. Then George came home one day and announced, stoically, “Danny died.” Sitting on the porch concrete wall, I could not believe him. “He did not, he did not,” I repeated like a taunt. What ailed me? Was it true disbelief? Or was I instinctively provoking his ‘inner belly of vulnerability’? He couldn’t take it. He gave me such a punch I fell backward off the wall into the bushes behind. Catching my breath in the leaf litter, I realized Danny had indeed died. It is often hard to read other’s emotions.
Mon frère aîné George m’a beaucoup intimidé, masquant sa tendresse. Son dédain l’a poussé à créer un “Club de Dépit pour les Soeurs.” Quand notre épagneul Springer est mort J’ai pleuré toute une semaine, inconsolable. Un jour un cabot errant et maigre a suivi George à la maison et il s’est accroché à lui pendant 2 semaines. George était extasié avec ce fidèle. Mais peu après George est rentré en annonçant avec stoicisme, “Danny est mort.” M’asseyant sur le petit mur concret des marches à notre maison, je ne pouvais pas le croire. “Pas vrai, pas vrai,” j’ai répété, le provoquant. Qu’est-ce que j’avais? Etait-ce une vraie incrédulité? Ou voulais-je exposer sa vulnérabilité cachée? George, furieux, m’a donné un coup de poing si fort que je suis tombée dans les buissons derrière moi. Là, dans les feuilles mortes, j’ai réalisé que Danny avait vraiment expiré. On a de la peine à “lire” les émotions d’autrui.
Julie Jots Bonjour 
This is a powerful description, Julie. You convey so much in a few words.
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Thank you, Anne….I have shown some not very admirable traits in me as a child…our daughter commented, “Mama, you were a brat!” (Now I can point out some things she said to a sister she may not remember!!) I bet we all had our (still have!) our brat moments….
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Sadness!
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Yes, sad, but part of learning and growing up….our daughter has read several of these and says,
Mama, you were a brat! Were’nt we all, at times? : )
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C’est tellement triste, helàs :t… (et, quelque fois, sûrtout dans ton cas “familiale,” -ta mère, ton frère,- d’etre “brat,” c’est necessaire pour simplement survivre)!
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Ah, tu as saisi l’essentiel….mais même ton père avait ses moments ‘brat’, en mettant feu aux bois en Illinois…
On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 4:46 PM Julie Jots Bonjour wrote:
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Ah, tu as saisi l’essentiel!!! Mais tout le monde, même ton père, avait ses moments ‘brat”, mettant Feu aux bois pour s’amuser en Illinois…
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Hi! I’m not usually a commenter, but I really was captivated by your compact but powerful story. It packed a lot of punch 🙂
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Thanks, Alexis….but have you just read it now, or did you really ‘stumble’ upon it earlier? I’m really curious when I get
these notices from WordPress that ‘So and So likes my blog…I might like theirs’….whether it is WordPress doing that?
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It’s a fair question.
Every night, I pick a topic and search for posts that come up with that topic. I like to keep the topic very general to get a good variety of posts. Tonight I picked “brother” because I have a future idea I’m thinking of writing about my own brother. Brother pulled up your story, and I liked it!
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I think that answers the question! I should take these WordPress notices more seriously then….and return the compliment by reading others…
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I think that answers the question….you actually found it…I should take these notices as genuine and respond….!
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