Tuesday was a very special day. It was my brother’s birthday. It was July 8, 1988 at around 12:08 a.m. that at Kaiser Permanente on Cadillac Avenue my first baby brother would come to this world. He was a full-faced baby with cheeks for days who just 24 hours after being born, managed to unwrap himself from his blanket and turn on his stomach…so says his Godmother. For seven-year-old me, the world would forever change. All of a sudden I had a baby brother. I had one of those “things” that my cousins and friends had but that I never experienced.
It’s been 26 years since Jorge Elias Vasquez was born. From bottle-feeding him, to burping him and changing his diapers, to drinking some beers with him after his heart was first broken, to our first trip to Las Vegas when he turned 21, every step of the way has been amazing. People always say they admire and look up to their older brother, but the truth is that I look up to my first baby brother. “El Remus,” as I dubbed him for some reason, is a tender soul with a rough exterior. His long hair, untrimmed beard, tattoos and serious demeanor will never tell you that he enjoyed watching “The Notebook.” Nor would you ever guess that he cried in 2004 when his favorite soccer team, Pumas, won the Mexican Soccer League championship (for the record, they beat Chivas: my favorite team). The grease stains on his pants are battle scars that he’s earned with the many cars that he’s fixed as he probably recaps whatever happened in NASCAR that week.
The day I met my first baby brother I discovered unconditional love. The concept of self-sacrifice for someone elses well-being made sense without having it explained. That feeling would only grow years later when the third part of our dysfunctional trio was born (Benjamin).
Jorge’s love for “Walking Dead” and “Sons of Anarchy” goes hand-in-hand with his love for the music of Johnny Cash, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Ozzy Osbourne and El Tri. Jorge is the certified mechanic and the second child in the family; he is Jessica Flores’ boyfriend and my mom’s bebote (big baby), but to me he will always be my first baby brother. He might have come to this world for one million reasons but I love him for a million reasons, and one: he is my first baby brother. I am eager for the day the he gets married and has short, brown and round little kids that love American muscle cars, the Indiana Jones franchise, rock n’ roll and America as much as he does.
It’s been an amazing 26 years Jorge and I look forward to many more beers under the moon and shouting matches over breakfast. Thank you Remus for teaching me what it is to love someone unconditionally. I love you, punk.
