My brother doesn’t say much.
Sometimes he doesn’t say anything at all. He hums and rocks and spins the same little green toy in his hands, over and over, and if you ask him a question he might not answer. Or he’ll flap his hands, or make a sound I don’t understand, or just walk away.
When I was younger, I thought he didn’t like me.
I used to talk to him all the time—about school, about cartoons, about my weird dreams—and he’d just stare past me, or hum louder. I’d get mad and yell, “Why don’t you care?”
He’d cover his ears and cry.
I didn’t get it then. Honestly, sometimes I still don’t. But I’m trying.
I’ve learned he does care. Just differently. Like the time I was sick, and he sat next to me for an hour holding my elbow—not my hand, my elbow—and humming this soft little tune like he was trying to make the room gentler.
Or the time I lost my favorite keychain, and he quietly gave me one of his strings—the ones he never lets go of. Just pressed it into my hand, then walked away.
It meant something. I know it did.
I watch the way he lines things up. The way he watches shadows like they’re magic. The way he gets overwhelmed when there are too many voices, or too many lights, or too many changes at once. The world is loud to him in ways I’ll never hear. Bright in ways I’ll never see.
But he feels things so deeply—you can see it in his eyes when he watches the rain. Or when a song comes on that he loves, and he jumps and rocks and flaps like the music is inside him.
I’m learning to listen with more than my ears.
To love with more than my words.
To understand that connection isn’t always eye contact or conversation. Sometimes it’s sitting quietly next to each other, both doing our own thing. Sometimes it’s a string. Or a hum. Or just… not walking away.
My brother doesn’t say much.
But he teaches me more than anyone else.
