A Family Farewell: Why my brother leaving for college left an unexpected vacuum

The first thing that struck me was driving to the first day of school all by myself. No first-day-of- school picture with Luke standing beside me a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and a thumbs up, no extravagant pancake breakfast my dad always prepared for the four kids and no more last minute coffee run — just me standing alone while my mom teared up behind the camera. 

Two weeks ago, my baby big brother (the younger of my two older brothers), Luke, drove 12 hours away to start his freshman year at the University of Michigan. Yes, maybe this left me with my own bathroom — which I’m not complaining about, but I’d rather have my best friend back home to calm me down after I total my car in the East parking lot and be my go-to for late-night Starbucks runs. 

But now that I’m alone, I realize that while my bond with Luke has offered me many great adventures, the safety blanket of having someone always there to pick me up when I’m down has left me feeling stranded in his absence. Now I wish I had seized the spotlight earlier in order to avoid such a harsh withdraw.

My once lively house is now filled with awkward silences and glances towards Luke’s chair at the dinner table while my parents wait for me to fill the gap in conversation. And it’s been hard to cope with his absence — Luke and I are the middle children of a six-person family and are pretty much inseparable.      

Since we’re one grade apart, our shared high school years have given us plenty of common ground: debate, IB, East Fund and pretty much every other activity I am involved in. Luke was the person I told everything to and the one that helped me wipe away the tears caused by high school drama. 

During my 17 years on this earth, I have somehow hacked the system: I found what I thought to be a bulletproof plan of hiding in my brother’s shadow for my whole life. It’s been surprisingly easy considering the fact that my brothers have always been the golden boys — straight A’s, varsity debate and a pleasant attitude (most of the time). Their success allowed me to chill in the background while I spent my hours singlehandedly supporting the reality TV business. 

But it’s hard to be in the shadow when there is no one standing in front of you. Ever since Luke made his speedy exit a month ago I’ve been stuck flailing while I try and balance school, my parents and spontaneous family outings I “can’t miss.”

This means my mom is breathing down my neck about college admissions, and my absence from Tuesday night dinner is VERY noticed. Even when I am there my one word responses about my day as made the whole family miss Luke’s  20 minute debates with my dad about the importance of Dungeons and Dragons seem like a riveting conversation.

So while my brother is tailgating at Michigan football games, I’m left alone with just my dogs to distract me from my parents’ weekly skyward check-ins. Oh, and a 12-year-old sister, who is just starting those annoying teen years — I mean come on how many times can I tell her not to take my shoes. This makes me nostalgic for the days I had a built in buffer at home who could save me from my dad offering to drive me to school so we could “spend more time together.”

When I come home fired up about how the most incompetent drivers decided today was the day they were going to start following the speed limit, Luke isn’t there. And let me tell you, my sister and parents are poor substitutes — with their only advice being “be nice” when Luke would have backed me up. 

This leaves me with my dad constantly asking who posted the funny Tweet I sent him or what my weekend plans are. And although my sister tries to help, her solutions for boy problems aren’t cutting it. Sure, there are texts and FaceTime, but there is nothing like my brother telling me to “leave him alone” in person. 

I am in no way saying my relationship with my brother was perfect, we got in our fair share of fights: like when I was in love with his best friend (shoutout Jet) or when he constantly ignored my texts to pick me up from tennis practice freshman year. But at this point I am so desperate for one of his condescending hugs (for when he turns out to be right about something) that I would fly to Michigan myself, even to only see him for an hour. 

I am still not exactly sure if I like receiving all my parents attention and praise — which is something I never thought I would say. With four kids my parent’s attention has, understandably, been stretched my entire life. But now there’s only two kids left.

In my short period of isolation, I have even started counting the days in my planner until Luke comes home — 65 days to go because if I have to listen to one more discussion over whether or not my sister can wear a crop top to middle school, I’ll lose my mind. So I guess my only hope now is that Luke transfers to KU next semester and drives home every weekend. Well, that might be a little extreme, but I’m not sure how much longer I can keep dodging these family dinners.