Tumbling Into Foxholes

“I don’t care how poor a man is; if he has family, he’s rich.”—Colonel Potter

Hyrum requires a certain form of interaction.  At times, we are the best of friends, then, suddenly I feel as though the only way I can keep from hurting him is to run away, fast.  I often feel protective, barging into his conversations to ensure that he does or does not say certain things to certain people.  No one understands how to act around him.  My brother is autistic.

“A device has yet to be invented that will measure my indifference to this remark.”—Hawkeye 

“Hey Mom, how are you?”

“I’m doing alright.  Everyone misses you here.”

“Tell them that I miss them too.  How is everybody doing?”

“Liam’s still growing, and Grant and Holli are really enjoying school.  You won’t believe how well Hyrum is doing.”

Suddenly, my perfunctory weekly conversation with my mom had become interesting.  Hyrum was doing well.  What could that possibly mean?

“Your picture’s in my wallet and I’m sitting on it. And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”—

Frank Burns

“Pass the syrup please.”  Gratefully taking the bottle, I released a sticky brown stream across my crisp waffle and let it spill onto my plate.  As I prepared to dig in the phone rang, and Jamie’s mom rose from the table to answer it.

“Hello?  Oh, hello!  Oh, how wonderful.  Yes, she’s right here; just a minute.  Emily, it’s your mom.”  She handed me the phone and I pressed the receiver firmly against my ear, ensuring that I would miss nothing.  This was crucial.  I only stayed at Jamie’s house for very special occasions and my parents being at the hospital certainly qualified as a special occasion.

“Hi, honey.  You have a baby brother.”

Thinking back on what had been a pleasant memory of my baby brother being born as I sat wedged between two car seats, I couldn’t help but feel bitter.  Even though I am the oldest child I had to sit in between the twins in the car because Hyrum can’t handle their rowdy behavior.  What about all the times that he got on my nerves when he was little and I just had to deal with it?  What about all the times that he still got on my nerves?  I don’t care if he can’t handle the stress of sitting in between them.  That innocent little baby that I had been so excited for was now a growing teenage boy who could certainly deal with two seven-year-olds.   It was high time that he grew up.

“I haven’t volunteered since the day my draft board tied me up and sent me here.”—B. J. Hunnicutt

When I inquired after what she meant by Hyrum was doing well, Mom told me how that night Hyrum wasn’t at home because he was taking tickets at his high school football game.  My little fourteen-year-old brother was standing at the front of a football stadium and collecting tickets from his fellow classmates, with the shouts of an excited student body, the barely audible voice of the announcer, and the band blaring in the background. My shy, introverted brother was a full-fledged high school student.  My freshman year, I only went to football games because it was a requirement for drumline members.  I never dared volunteer to collect tickets from people I felt I barely knew.

“Get away from me before I get physically emotional.”—Radar O’Reilly

I was grinding my feet across the carpet, attempting to break through the floorboards and hopefully land on top of Hyrum; even my parents couldn’t stop the force of gravity.  They may have been able to prevent me from yelling in the living room, but they couldn’t change a scientific fact.  I began to really like gravity.  At this point I didn’t even remember what we had been arguing about.  I simply knew I was right, as usual.  I am four years older and therefore I always know better.

Why couldn’t my parents understand that we couldn’t let him continue in this incorrect line of thinking?  I should have been allowed to present my arguments; after all, they were excellent.  Even if screaming across the room wasn’t the most professional way to get a point across, it was effective.  Mom and Dad were always cutting him slack.

“He’s different from you, Emily.  I know that you know better.”  Thanks, Dad.  I feel much better now.  Yes, I did know how to act properly around Hyrum.  But sometimes the pressure to always say and do the right thing was too much and I would release all my feelings in a relentless tirade.  Through careful observation, I knew exactly how to push his buttons.

“Don’t play dumb with me; you’re not as good at it as I am.”—Colonel Flagg

As Mom and I continued talking, she shared her phone bill with me.  I was dumbstruck: she had gone almost one hundred texts over her limit!  Who was my mother texting?  Then the truth came out.  Hyrum had borrowed her phone a few times last month to text the youth of our ward.  How could Hyrum possibly have so much to say?

My brother was going against everything that I thought I knew about him.  It was almost as if he was doing it out of spite, to confuse me.

“You’ll have to excuse these two, they are themselves today.”—Colonel Potter

I ached on the inside.  I rolled across the floor, unable to contain my enjoyment.  Hyrum sat on the couch, alternately barking out laughter and gasping for air.  The antics of the fabricated characters on the screen sent us into another bout of raucous laughter.  M*A*S*H is twice as funny when I watch with my brother.  Fortunately, no one else was home, and expanses of grass separated our farmhouse from those around us.  Hyrum scrunched up his eyes, and his mouth gaped open to release his delight as Frank Burns tumbled into a fox hole full of water.

Finally, we collected ourselves and I crawled back onto the couch.  I crunched on a handful of popcorn, drowning out the dialogue and thinking about how much I would miss him.  For fourteen years I had bounced ideas off him and we had discussed practically everything.  Now I was going off to college and it would be months before I would see him again.

Not only would I miss the opportunity of having someone to talk to who understands me so well, I also feared for him.  He is so good and wholesome that the real world would tear him apart.  As he begins his freshman year at a high school where he is the only Mormon, how will he fend for himself?  How will he know when to stop talking and move away from awkward subject matter?  I can’t always be there to help him, and that terrifies me.

“Anyone who needs psychiatry is sick in the head.”—Frank Burns

“He’s settled into a rhythm at school.” My mom continues, “He absolutely loves drama class.”  Yes, Hyrum had always been dramatic.  “People seem to really like him and he’s made lots of friends.”  Well, he had done it.  Without my help, Hyrum had assimilated himself into the big bad world of high school.

I had no idea how to react to the good news.  He was supposed to struggle without me but improve enough by the time I came home for Christmas that I wouldn’t feel guilty for leaving him.  Then, I would use his inspiring story in a Sunday School lesson.  I had it all planned out, and he was ruining it all.

“Never let it be said I didn’t do the least I could do.”—Hawkeye Pierce

I could not simply grin and bear it.  Why had he just made that joke?  I shifted my weight to the other foot.  While this relieved the ache in my leg, I could not shift my embarrassment away.  Everyone was still laughing: Hyrum, all the other youth, even the leaders.  Perhaps it was because the fireside had been so funny; Hyrum’s joke seemed to be a continuation of the fun.  Still, I could not help but feel that some part of them was not laughing with him, but at him.

It was time for elder sister hero mode.  When we lived in Utah, our ward was made up of boys and girls who lived in the same ward, some even in the same houses, their whole lives.  Therefore, when a couple of new pre-teens waltzed in, they weren’t exactly thrilled to see us.  They were simply not used to having new people in their midst.  Hyrum’s quirkiness seemed an oddity, and they regarded him from afar with extreme caution.  I acted as a go-between, attempting to connect him to them.

Now, in Ohio with our new ward, I believed that similar defensive tactics would be needed.  These good young brothers and sisters, however, completely embraced Hyrum for who he is.  And he was blooming.  I had never seen him so open or social.  He went to mutual willingly for the first time in his life.  He attended scout camp.  He made friends with the young men and the young women alike.  He was even friendly towards the youth from the other ward that shared our building.

These people, our new friends, were not laughing at him.  They were genuinely laughing with him, buying whole heartedly into his unique brand of humor.  He was accepted.  He belonged.  It was time for me to find a new role.  Thank goodness I would be busy at college in the fall.

“For your condition, you’re in great condition.”—Hawkeye Pierce

“Hello?”

“Hey buddy, how are you?”

“I’m good.  I’m watching an episode of M*A*S*H.  Don’t you think it’s funny that I can watch them whenever I want and you can’t because you didn’t take any of the DVDs with you?”

“No, actually, I don’t.  How has school been and everything?”

“Everything is fine.  We went ice blocking for mutual on Tuesday.  It was the best.”

“Yeah, Mom sent me the pictures.”

To the untrained ear this may not have seemed to be the most important thing to discuss with someone on the opposite side of the continental divide.  But, in that supposedly trivial discussion, we were bonding in a way that only we know how.  The lack of communication that often exists when I talk to Hyrum on the phone has seemed to melt away in recent talks.  He tells me things that have been happening in his life, and is even invested in the conversation enough to tease me.  The words flow between us so easily, and as we discuss the events of recent days, I see how much his skills of conversation have improved.  I’m sure his exchanges with people at school are just as relaxed and effortless.

But, at the same time, I can still hear the pauses and hesitations in his speech as he attempts to organize his thoughts.  At times what he says is so obscure that I have to take a minute to sort through all the phrases that have just passed through the phone.  Even as Hyrum gets better at fitting into the real world, there will still always be a part of him that is my geeky, awkward younger brother.  After a while I may be the only one who notices his bizarre statements and actions, but at least they are there.  I take comfort in the idea that he has not changed too much, that he is still learning.

“I love you, Hyrum.”

“I love you too.”