my brother and I

I am three in this picture; the human being next to me is my brother, Sergey.We were born three years and 24 hours apart; first him, then me. Serezha we called him, and this name was the best sound for my ears. How much I loved him! I wanted to be a boy, like him. Boys were better than girls, because Serezha was a boy. Marriage was a mystery, but if I could have married my brother it would had made more sense to me, except it was unnecessary because we were always together. What a happy girl I was to wake up every morning to his companionship and to fall asleep every night in the same room with him! My happiness lasted for twelve years. After that is was harder and harder to keep up with him, to the point that I lost him entirely. By my thirty we had nothing left to talk about. I certainly made mistakes too, but I never regretted, just went on living, so that by the time he had actually died of aneurism at the age of 59, I hardly felt any difference. I kissed his cold forehead and felt sad, but wanted to feel sadder for the loss of my brother, for the loss of my childhood, for the loss of the clarity and the pure joy of a childhood play! How easy I let go of my brother! I still cannot understand what happens to children when they grow up. Life is a mystery, don't you agree?