Because I am the Eldest

"The good thing about you is that you’re the first of five kids, so if we mess up something with you, we can just do it differently with your siblings." This is what my mother said to me once, when I was a little girl crying because I wanted to sleep with her. Crying because I was scared of what the night would bring. And she responded with a cold hand across my face a shout at me to stay quiet. I am the eldest, the first, the one who knows how to sew a button and soothe a crying baby before I ever learn how to ride a bike. My mother says, help your sisters, play with your brothers, and I do. I tie their shoes, braid their hair, break my food in half when they say they’re still hungry. I cook for them when I should be studying and help them study even if it means scoring low on my own test. I know not to complain, because somebody has it worse than me in another world. I learn early how to hold my tongue, how to swallow what I want because someone else needs it more.  

         This is love, she says, to be needed. To care for others before you have time to think of yourself. To bleed because you know the blood is needed by a dying child. But you did not want to give the blood, they tied you down and split you open, letting it pour onto the floor and mopping it up. My blood was not treated with grace and appreciation. I am reminded; this is love. 

         At night, I listen to the house breathe, the weight of my family's love pressing down on my chest like a quilt too thick for summer. We hear our thoughts in the echo of the big house. Sometimes, I dream of doors I can walk through alone, of streets that don’t know my name, of hands that only hold my own, of a person who would love only me. "I am doing this on purpose," my person would say, "I am taking care of you on purpose because I love you." This is love. But morning comes, and the world is the same. My mother calls, my siblings scream, and I answer. Because I am the eldest, and that is what we do.