Sweetie
I’ve always loved light. Light is my steadfast comrade in coaxing a timid bromeliad to photosynthesize, my accomplice in illuminating the inked words of Mrs. Dalloway, and my teacher in traversing the cosmos to strengthen my understanding of the earliest epochs of the universe. But most of all, my relationship with light is defined by Sweetie.
As usual, I arrived home from school at 4 o’clock. My active mind pondered over potential adventures to fill my afternoon — scavenging for dragonflies in the humid air, escaping into the world of Percy Jackson — but Sweetie’s place at the front of my thoughts was never in question. Like a typical eleven-year-old, I bounced to the living room with more energy than I could contain. Shaking his bells, Sweetie greeted me. I syringed his water and we played the shirt game, during which I throw a shirt over his head. My memory of what came next is dark and foggy, but what followed was crystal clear. I was usually so responsible, but my buoyancy caused me to slip. My back hit the light switch and the room went dark. For a moment, bubbles of color filled my vision as my eyes adjusted. I knew, even before the spots cleared, what was coming, and the quiet gurgle in the shadows was barely audible beneath my cry for help.
Most people would have turned on the light to see, but I didn’t need my eyes to be cognizant of what was transpiring. I left Sweetie in the dark and pursued the only path that would remedy my mistake: I groped around on the shelf that had his medicine, its position committed to memory, having resided there longer than my lifetime. My ears filled with the rhythmic, jarring thud of his limbs slamming into the floor. The isolation in the room was oppressive. My family is large and warm and loving. but at that moment, my home was a battlefield; I was the only soldier in play, and there were no generals in sight. Syringe in hand, I stumbled back to where Sweetie lay writhing in agony, rolled him onto his stomach, and injected the medicine. I held his hand as his shaking subsided, the slam of the door opening alerting me to my mom’s presence. Light flooded the room as her fingers found the switch.
Since he was six months old, Sweetie has suffered from epilepsy triggered by abrupt changes in light. Although he is three years older than me, his mental age remains the same as the day he first had a seizure. As a result, Sweetie requires constant care and attention. Despite his endless doctor appointments and surgeries, he personifies light; his laughter and the way he smiles when I come home define my everyday life. Since that day when I was eleven, I’ve been terribly conscious of light and my ability to wield it. Behind the shining moments of joy that characterize my life with my brother are black spots that sometimes threaten to swallow happiness whole.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that my relationship with Sweetie is unique to me — not just in the circumstances, but in my perspective. Others often react with pity when they hear about my family, something I’ve never experienced myself. While I will always long for Sweetie to be healthy, I would not change my relationship with him for anything. The brightest light can cast the deepest shadow, and our world needs both in order for existence to be perceived in various shades, just as society needs different kinds of people to shine. There is an incalculable value to joy, because without pain, one would be incapable of grasping how precious those glimmering moments truly are. Everyone has their own light and shadow, and when so many intersect, it can be hard to distinguish yours from the rest. My entire life, Sweetie was my light. I was too young that day to understand, but even though the room was plunged into darkness, and I could not see, there was still one other source of light — me.