My Big Brother, Johnny

For the first three years of his life, my big brother Johnny enjoyed all the advantages of being an only child. He had my parents’ undivided attention and devotion, his own room, new toys that he didn’t have to share with anyone, and, naturally, as the first-born son, was hugely celebrated by friends and family.

It’s no wonder, then, that when he learnt there was to be a newcomer to the family, he did not take kindly to the information. His toddler brain had already figured out that things were going to change with a new baby in the house and not to his advantage. In an effort to manage the situation, Johnny threatened to leave if the baby was not a boy.

Sadly for Johnny, I was born. 

Fortunately, Johnny did not make good on his threat and, as all children do, he adapted to this annoying little creature. In fact, he developed into the best big brother a girl could ever have.

Even as a child Johnny’s gentle and patient nature was already evident. He took to his role as protector of his baby sister quite well, even facing up to my bully in primary school one time. I don’t imagine he was very threatening, but I guess when you’re a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old tells you to stop messing with his sister, you listen.

As with most siblings, my big brother has had a huge influence on my life, from my taste in music to my choice of university degree. He’s had an even bigger influence on my younger brother who is almost five years his junior. 

In one way or another, both my younger brother and I have idolised Johnny. As the eldest, he set the example to emulate; he brokered rules with my parents so that by the time we wanted to do anything, the barriers were already down; and, when he went against parental expectation by moving out of home (a very un-WOG thing to do) and changing his career path, he consolidated his position as the Master.

Things got even more impressive when Johnny decided he wanted to be a rock star. Growing dreadlocks, writing punk rock lyrics, learning to play the guitar, and singing (nay, screaming) on a stage, my gentle older brother unleashed his alter ego and embraced it. My Italian immigrant parents struggled with this strange new son but he was always so … Johnny … when he came home to visit, that they learned to live with it.

When I decided to move to Italy straight out of university, it was Johnny who spoke to my parents and convinced them to let me go even though they were against it. Johnny, not my parents, was proud of me for deciding to take such a huge leap into the unknown and eager for me to experience life uninhibited. One of my most precious photos is a picture of Johnny and me sitting at the airport together on the day of my departure. I was then and am still now eternally grateful for his support and belief in me.

It wasn’t easy going for me the first few months away - it was the first time I had ever been far from home alone. I got terribly homesick and convinced I’d made an awful mistake. In my lowest moments it was Johnny I would call - on reverse-charge - to get my confidence back. And when, months later, I lost my virginity to some gorgeous Italian boy, it was Johnny I told first – I still recall his cheering and laughing on the other end of the phone line telling me “well done!”

Johnny gave us all comfort, support and confidence through his ability to listen to and empathise with all kinds of people, no matter how unlike or similar to him they were. 

Five weeks shy of my twenty-fifth birthday I took a call on the home phone one night. My younger brother and I were still living with our parents at the time, but Johnny had been living away for about four years. The phone call was to inform us that Johnny had died earlier that evening. 

In our household, when the phone rang after 8pm it could only be bad news. By the time I had hung up, my parents were sitting next to each other on the sofa in the lounge room – they never sat together – and my younger brother was standing in the doorway; they could never have imagined bad news this devastating.

It was I who had to break the news to my family that Johnny was gone from our lives forever. I who had to deliver the most heart-wrenching, life-changing blow to the people I loved most. 

Johnny wanted to live like a rock star, but he died like one instead. Not in a blaze of glory, but alone in his room, lost in a darkness he was unable to find his way out of.

Though it has been twenty-three years since Johnny’s passing, there are almost daily moments when I mourn his absence. In times of high stress, confusion, soul-searching, depression, desperation, hurt and anger, but also in moments of joy and accomplishment, it is Johnny who I wish I could turn to more than anyone else; there have been so many life events that I would have loved to share, or that would have been easier to manage, if only Johnny were still here. 

In the last years of my father’s life, when the dementia had taken his personality, dignity and vigour away, when it was painful to watch the shell he had become, I often wished that Johnny was around to share and lighten our burden. But on some level, I was grateful that Johnny was on the other side waiting for Dad - I would sit with my father, who was all but catatonic, and say to him, “Go to Johnny, he is waiting for you.”

Perhaps it’s somewhat infantile to feel this way but I was thankful Johnny would no longer be alone, and pleased that my father would be reunited with his beloved son.

The pain you feel when you lose someone you loved so much will never go away but neither does the love you felt. I love Johnny as much now as when he was alive; he is still, and always will be, my big brother. 

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