3
0
I had a great childhood. Even though it was great, it wasn’t perfect. As you grow up you deal with things in life, some good and some bad. Walking down memory lane, I can recall some really good times and some that weren’t so good. I remember growing up and discovering when girls mattered for the first time, what it was like to get into a fistfight, what it was like to get my first job, what it was like to be able to drive, going out on dates as a teenager, and the intimidation of graduating high school with the feeling like now is the time to face the real world only to face college and a big college campus. Could I measure up? All in all, there was always something to learn in the highs and the lows.
Bullying is something that I know our society deals with. The sad truth is, that bullying is nothing new. It has always been there and unfortunately will always be there. There will always be someone who wants to try and find someone else they feel is an easy target so that they can pick on them. Some human beings, even at an early age, crave power and control, and mistakenly think bullying is the way to obtain it. When it came to bullying, my life was not free from it. I had a few instances where it reared its ugly head. But for me, I had an equalizer…a trump card…an answer. I had…MY big brother!
Today, I am going to tell you about him. There are a few reasons for telling you about my brother. For me, the biggest one is to honor him with this tribute. But on top of that, I hope that somehow, in some way, if you are a big brother out there, I hope this encourages you to understand just how important you are to your little brother or little sister. When it comes to my brother, he took on this heavy responsibility and owned it. He could write a book on what being a great big brother is all about. His story in my life is more than worth telling. I want his example to be known. I want the world to know about MY brother!
Growing up our parents raised us to be close as far back as I can remember. With my brother being older than me, it was placed on him by our Father (and backed up by Mom) to look out for me. You would think this would be a pain for my brother, and maybe it was, but he never showed it. My brother took pride in being his little brother’s keeper. This was an assignment my brother was not going to fail at. Looking back, I just think my brother looked at me as the one he was going to pour his heart and soul into, the one he would protect. I was with my brother all the time.
When I started Kindergarten, our school was about 8 blocks away from our house and all the kids in the neighborhood walked there. Not only was my brother older than me but he has always been quite a bit taller. So, when we walked to school, I had to jog next to him as he walked just to keep up with him. Sometimes I think he had to stop and wait for me just so I didn’t fall behind.
There was a lot about my brother that I admired. We were raised in a home that led us to be Christians, true believers who put our faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, although we weren’t the most religious household. When we went to bed at night, we always reminded each other to not forget to pray and when I had Bible questions, I would always go ask him. I am not sure how smart it was to leave it in the hands of my brother to answer my questions about our God. After all, he was just under 4 years older than me so a 6-year-old relying on a 10-year-old for his spiritual guidance probably had its comedic interactions. But here I am, a Christ follower in middle age, so my brother must have helped in some way to keep me on this path! That, I am sure of.
We grew up on the outskirts of Detroit. My brother was highly respected on our block. He was the fastest kid, the most athletic, and tough as nails. Thankfully, my brother kept me out of trouble, but sadly, sometimes I brought trouble to him. So, when bullying came knocking on my doorstep, they regretted it. The bully got bullied because they had to deal with…HIM!
Now please understand something about my brother. He never started any trouble. We had a father who taught us never to start a fight. We were taught to walk away if we could and be a bigger person if we could. However, we were also taught to stand our ground, stand up for ourselves, and defend ourselves if called upon to do so. So, my brother never fought my fights for me. If they were my fights to handle, in other words, if I got myself into something with someone my age, well I needed to deal with that on my own. My brother had no interest in bullying anyone for no reason or beating up on someone younger than him. So, as I would describe it…if I was fighting in my “own weight class”…well that was on me. But make no mistake, if trouble decided they wanted a piece of my brother, well good luck with that. And if someone older than me decided I was an easy target to be bullied, that quickly changed the moment they found themselves in front of him.
My brother had such a reputation in our school that I rarely got messed with because most knew who I was because they knew who he was. I had a kid in high school who was 2 years older than me who was on my basketball team and he bullied other kids. Instead of trying to bully me, he befriended me. I am convinced he did this because he knew who my brother was.
But there were a few times when a bully had to find out the hard way who my brother was. It’s these stories that contributed to my brother’s reputation and why bullying for me only happened a few times until he took care of them. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
At our childhood home growing up, our next-door neighbor’s family had two brothers who became friends of ours. The older brother of the two was quite a bit taller than my brother, although they were the same age. The other brother was closer to my age. At this time, we were somewhere in early grade school. I know this because of how childish this was. I was out playing with the two brothers and my brother was in the house at the time. I am not sure what started it, but the older brother and I got into it a bit. Him being older, I was at a disadvantage. Being so young, I did what many children do at that age…I kicked the kid out of my yard which made him go home, as in, right next door. So, the kid decides he’s going to continuously tap his foot on my property and mock me while he’s doing it. This only made me more and more angry. I go into our house upset looking for my brother. I find him sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. (Yes, I am laughing as I recall this story!) I tell him what is happening outside. My brother, no questions asked, immediately starts finishing up his business telling me, “You go tell him I am on my way, I will be outside in a minute!” When I went outside and told him my brother was coming, the kid ran into his house and would not come out. For good reason, he feared my brother.
One time there was a kid who didn’t know who I was. I was pretty young probably in the middle of grade school. This kid decided he would throw crab apples at me when school got let out for the day as we were waiting to be picked up. I would get out a little earlier than my brother, so many times I was in the courtyard a few minutes before he got there. This kid was a few years older than me and about a year younger than my brother. So, as this kid was throwing apples at me, he was also mocking me. I knew I needed to get away from this kid as fast as I could and just go find my brother. When I found him, he knew right away something was wrong with me and asked me what was up (he had a knack for knowing when I needed him too!). When I told him what happened, there was no hesitation. My brother told me, “Let’s go, I want you to pick this kid out for me.” Now my brother didn’t ask me who the kid was, whether he was older than him, bigger than him, or anything. None of that mattered to my brother! So, we started walking around the courtyard to find him as the courtyard was pretty full of kids. The kid wasn’t in the courtyard so we went back into the halls of the school only to find the bully walking the hallway. I pointed him out and the kid saw me and heard me. As my brother approached him, this kid immediately started pleading, “I didn’t know he was your brother! I didn’t know he was your brother!” That was all well and good, but that wasn’t going to save him at this point. He had already bullied me and now the consequences were on their way. My brother grabbed him, picked him up by his neck, and slammed him against the wall. The kid pleaded for mercy. My brother let him know in very certain terms that if he did anything to me again, he would take this further and send him home with injuries. The kid would not stop apologizing to me while my brother had a hold of him. When my brother let him go and did give him a little mercy it was over. I never had a problem with this kid again. Instead, he went out of his way to be nice to me from then on.
While in school, after one of our high school basketball games, there was some time for playing around on the court after the last game ended while the stands emptied, the parents chit-chatted, and the teams were in the locker rooms in their after-game meetings. I was in 8th grade and my brother was a Senior. A game called 21 broke out with some of the kids. Since I always played sports against my brother and kids his age, I was a pretty good athlete and basketball player in the 8th grade. I could hang with kids older than me. Both my brother and me were playing and among the other kids playing were a few kids in college. In the game of 21, you get a rebound and it’s you trying to score while everyone else defends and rebounds. Typically, 1 or 2 defenders take on the person with the ball while all others wait for a rebound to get their shot at scoring. If you scored, you went to the free-throw line to shoot foul shots. The first one to 21 wins the game. So, I got a rebound and took the ball out to just outside the 3-point line at the top of the key directly facing the basketball net. One of the college kids who stood probably about 6’2″ or 6’3″ came out to guard me thinking I was just a young kid so it would be easy for him. However, probably because he underestimated me, I drove to the basket and scored on him. Everyone playing with us let this college kid know that he just got “schooled” by a junior high kid. When I went to the free throw line to line up for my foul shots, the kid grabbed the basketball that had just gone through the hoop. I was expecting him just to toss me the ball, but instead, he whipped it at me hitting me right in the head. As I mentioned earlier, my brother was playing in this game! My brother stands about 5’11” and he walks up to the kid and squares up to him. The kid, pretty cocky, says to him, “You must be his brother.” To which my brother tells him immediately, “You’re damn right I am!” This kid with no hesitation, as fast as he could, and with everything he had punched my brother right in the face. From there my brother grabbed him and they were fighting. My brother ended up on top of him in the center of the basketball court before parents, coaches, and other kids in the building even knew what was going on. My brother pummeled this college kid banging his head on the court a few times before parents and coaches got them separated. When it was over my brother was not done. Between him and this kid was an array of parents and coaches separating them as they were jawing at each other. In our gym, there was typically one way that everyone filtered out to leave the building. There were other emergency doors to get out, but no one used those. The parents and coaches had pushed my brother almost to the door trying to get him to leave. Of course, I was close by in tow. The other kid was still mouthing off and decided he was going to threaten my brother with the idea of shooting him, implying he had a gun in his car and making a shooting motion at him. My brother went ballistic once again. With parents and coaches trying to control him, my brother was yelling, “No, this kid thinks he’s going to shoot me?” He then started yelling to the kid, “You have to get out this door first before you can get to your gun! Let’s go! Come see if you can get out this door! You’re not making it to your car!” My brother showed no concerns about whether the kid had a gun or not because he was not going to let this kid get to his car. It was bedlam trying to calm my brother down. To get my brother to leave, the adults had to get this other kid out of his sight. So, they took the kid into one of the locker rooms and shut all the lights off in the gym to talk my brother into grabbing me and getting us to leave. Keep in mind, that my parents were not at this game. My brother was a Senior in High School and he drove us to the game that night. I was not all that hurt. I had just been embarrassed when the kid hit me in the head with the ball, but all that went away when my brother cleaned the gym with him. As we got in the car and drove away, I looked back at the gym and some parents and coaches were escorting the kid out into the parking lot after they knew my brother had left.
My brother also looked out for others. He didn’t let his friends get bullied, and he would even look out for someone he thought might be in over their heads. When I was in 9th grade I had a basketball game. My brother was now 1 year out of High School. I was on the Junior Varsity team my first year in High School. I had been involved in a chippy game with a few kids on the other team and my game was always before the Varsity game. During the Varsity game, one of our students who was a couple of years older than me had been mouthing off to some other older kids that were there to support the opposing team. The kid from our school tells these kids to step outside to which these kids obliged. As they headed toward the exit, my brother recognized our kid was way outmanned and probably in way over his head. I heard my brother tell a friend of ours who was with us, “This isn’t going to end well for him, I better go out there to keep this kid from getting killed.” So, my brother, me, and our friend go out to the parking lot. Of course, a crowd goes out there as well including kids I had just been in a chippy game with during our JV game that had just ended not more than 15 minutes before. As we are outside in the parking lot, tempers are heated. Just when things started to settle down outside between the kids that had gone out there to possibly fight, the one kid I had the most problems with during my game, decided to mouth off to me. I lost it and went after him. We were fighting. Now please understand, that I am not proud of this, we were teenagers. The truth is the truth and, unfortunately, I did have a little bit of a temper back then that could boil over if things got out of hand. I guess in this instance it was one of those times. By all accounts, I handled my business, but where things got crazy was when the parents, who found out what was going on, went outside to separate us. One of the dads had me over to the far side of a car a little bit out of the way of the crowd. In the fray, my brother and I got separated, as a brawl did break out. My brother was screaming to our friend, “Where is my brother?! Where is my brother?!” He was starting to go crazy looking for me. The dad, who had a hold of me, made the mistake of saying to my brother, thinking he was going to calm him down, “I have your brother and if you don’t stop and calm down, he could get hurt.” Now, I am going to tell you this is the last thing he should have said to him. My brother fixed his eyes on me and the dad. He started pushing through the crowd throwing anyone and everyone out of his way to get to me. He did not realize the dad had actually got me out of harm’s way and was trying to get things stopped. Other dads tried to grab my brother to calm him down and that was a mistake. I think I saw my brother handle at least a couple of the dads pretty easily, one being one of my buddy’s father who was 6’4″. Finally, between me and the dad holding me, we were able to convince my brother that I was not in danger and immediately he settled down. You see, again, my brother was not a kid who wanted trouble or started trouble, but I was someone who was not to be messed with. He was willing to protect me at all costs. He was MY big brother and my protector.
I could go on and on with all the things my brother did for me that I will never forget, but then I would be writing a book and not a long-winded blog. It started with our dad who made sure we grew up close. Now understand, we were brothers. We got into our own fights, which were never much of a fight (shocker, I never won). To understand the dad we grew up with, one time we got into a fight with each other and Dad could not make heads or tails on who started it. If he had been able to determine who was at fault, that is who would have paid the price. My dad believed that you be held accountable for your actions. But when he couldn’t…well…we both got the butt whooping! You might think that wasn’t fair to one of us, but let me tell you what that did. When we were sent to our room after both getting our punishment here is what I remember to this day. While both of us were crying because of what dad just dished out on us, we were apologizing to each other through our tears. It taught us that we were in this life together! I don’t remember the fight and I surely don’t remember who started it (probably a good bet it was me), but what has stuck with me through the years in remembering this story is how much it solidified us as brothers, even at such a young age.
I didn’t have a curfew growing up because I was with my brother and my parents knew I was in good hands. I went on dates with him, hung out with him and his friends, he got me my first job, and when he got to drive for the first time by himself when he turned 16, who was with him? Me! And here is what happened. The very first time my brother drove we were meeting one of his friends to go to the movies. My brother had never been to his buddy’s house so we were looking for the home while my brother was driving. We were kind of lost trying to find the home…well, ok, we were lost! In our distraction looking for the home, my brother took his eyes off the road and rear-ended the woman in front of him. The very first time my brother got to drive on his own! My head hit the dashboard, but I didn’t have a significant injury. My brother the whole time was worried about me. He knew I hit the dashboard. Throughout the ordeal, he asked me over and over again if I was ok. As a 16-year-old kid, getting in an accident the first time out driving would be pretty traumatic. But my brother, he cared about 1 thing and that was to make sure I was ok!
When we got in fights with one another, my brother never punched me first. I was a little hot-headed kid, so I would test him from time to time. My temper would get the best of me, I would lose it, and I’d start swinging at him. When he had enough, he hit me once…fight over! I never wanted it to go further than that. To his credit, he never wanted it to go further either. Our fights lasted about 30 seconds…me swinging on him for the first 28 and him ending it in the last 2. He was my big brother, and even in these moments looking back, he looked out for me. I was never a match for him and he knew it. (Sometimes I wonder if he ever chuckled inside at the thought of me even giving it a shot, or was he just astonished at my moxie in trying).
I’m sure my brother wasn’t invincible, but he took care of any problem I ever had. I am convinced he would have given up his life if it meant saving mine. And sadly, I might have put him in a situation or two where he was left to save both of us! My brother’s toughness is legendary. His loyalty is legendary. I can never repay him for what he did for me and what he is to me today. I write this to tell the world because I am a little brother who never forgets! And when I enter the gates of Heaven when my life is over…right behind praising, worshipping, and thanking my Savior, Jesus Christ, for saving me…will be me thanking Him for the brother he gave me!
Today, I am 50 years old and my brother is about to be 54 in a month or so. We talk regularly and we live about a mile and a half apart. The other day, I was texting him Instagram posts of some famous brothers who have a strong reputation for being very close. I sent him about 4 or 5 posts straight for him to view…I will let you in on his exact response to me and let you in on our short conversation. After I had sent the last one of the string of posts here is what he said to me with a few short, yet strong words:
“Still not as good as us”
“True that!” I responded.
His response was, “I’d put our brotherhood up against anyone!”
I responded with, “The legacy of our father and the backbone of our mom behind it all”
To which he ended with, “You know it!”
I will wrap up this blog with this message as this is really what I want to get across to anyone reading. I hope somehow this can get into the hands of young kids out there who have younger siblings. If you’re a big brother out there, look at the impact you can have on your younger brother or sister. And here is the real message here: When you stick up for your brother or sister, whether you win or lose the actual fight, when protecting them, is not what matters. Instead, it’s that you stood up for them. That is what they will remember and that is how you will become legendary in their life. And if you do it right, they too, will never forget! I just happened to have a brother who never lost, but I think even he would say that winning or losing is not what mattered to him. It was that I knew, he always had my back.
To MY brother, let me just say this. I’ve never forgotten all that you’ve done for me. I remember even the little things. The little things when they happened might not have been all that important then, but for me they were huge! And when they added up with all the big things you did, it became quite clear to me just how much God blessed me, not just with a big brother, but with YOU as my big brother!
You are right big brother. I would put our brotherhood up against anyone! And why that is…IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!
I love you with everything I have. And as a brother who never forgets, I will always have your back too!
Love,
Your little brother!
Have Character!
J. Noah Russell
