When I was a kid, I prayed every day. Without question.
Everyone in my family that was taller than me always did whatever the Loud Guy in the Dress told them to do. Even my Dad. And my Dad NEVER did ANYTHING he didn't want to do.
When I was a kid, we went to the Big House with Fancy Windows on Church Day - Sundays.
Kicking, grunting, spitting, angry, throwing stuff, not speaking to anyone we knew when we got there, my Dad took us to see the Loud Guy with the Dress. Almost never was any innocent blood shed, but we always went to church every Sunday. Without question.
I got on bended knee when the Loud Guy in the Dress told me to kneel. I stood up when he told me to stand up, sang when he told me to sing. By the time I was ten Earth years old, I dressed, ate, sang, read, played, and even spoke when told to do so by parents, grand-parents and nuns, who all did so at the instruction and in the style dictated them by the Loud Guy in the Dress.
I even prayed like I was told to pray; without pause or fail.
Without question.
When I was a kid, I never asked God for anything. Never knew I could. Never had to.
But that changed, when Dave couldn't breathe.
When my younger brother Dave got a cold, he had problems breathing. I was told bronchitis was the reason Dave's cold turned into serious bouts of kid survival. Remedies would migrate from Vicks 44 - my first Real Love - to him seeing a medical doctor. There were times Dave couldn't get any air, despite strange, complex medicines. And prayer.
Dave suffered pretty bad, before he started going to school. Even though it had the ability to jeopardize my brother's ability to function, I accepted this bronchitis without asking any one what it was, what it did or why.
Once, when I was eight, Dave, who was six, had his worst bought of bronchitis. My Dad was compelled to force Dave's head under the hot water faucet; not to drown him, but to make Dave inhale steam. Dad did so against Dave's will.
I had to accept, or believe, that bending someone's little brother forward at the waist, lungs and stomach pressed against a porcelain sink, towel heavy from water saturation draped over head, neck and back, would help my Dad's efforts to keep Dave's head close to the steam and scalding water by pushing his head down.
I didn't see the logic or benefit of sticking every cavity in the body designed to let oxygen in to an enclosed space filled with no fresh air. When I am in a steam filled room, I often find the next room's oxygen to be particularly gratifying.
I felt sure I would be as confused as Dave is scared, at this moment in our lives.
I couldn't tell Dave to stop crying "no". But I couldn't make him breathe either.
I couldn't tell Dad to stop making Dave cry.
Dad did not look like he was enjoying himself. He had the look of someone who didn't want to push his son's head into the sink with a heavy towel draped over him. Dad looked like he was doing something he didn't want to do. Dad had a sorrowful, pained expression, as if he was punishing himself.
When I saw Dave pushing against Dad pushing Dave's head into the sink, I realized they were both being pushed beyond their own point of logic and reason.
One of them was scared. The other was afraid.
Except for my Grampa, the only two people to whom I turned for unspoken strength, for informal companionship, for human signal ground, were fighting each other; with all the physical and emotional strength they had left inside.
I was often told: the oldest is responsible for the safety of his younger siblings. But I always knew my sister Tita would always have the more emotionally and personally capable Pecia; one year my junior. When walking to school without guardian supervision, I felt responsible for all three but when it came to the playground or the park, I always believed Dave was my responsibility.
When Dave did something well, I felt indescribable pride and unbound joy.
At once, it occurred to me, as I saw Dave gasping for either air or freedom: If something really bad happened to Dave, the one person with whom I had shared every cinematic experience, each athletic event, every Christmas, every hot dog, every episode of Batman with Batgirl in it, would not be there for the next.
My shorter, younger brother had either the life nerve or soul muscle to ask every question I was too scared to ask. Everything I learned that wasn't pre-washed by school or bleached by the Church, I learned through Dave. What little life strength and male knowledge I possessed by third grade, I got through my younger brother.
Without question, I raised the clenched fists inside my head and, without a noise or word, screamed as loud as I could, for I meant it when I asked Her:
God, please, don't let Dave die.
I pray a lot. Still do.
And I even go to church.
Never on Sundays.
When I go to church, I go on a weekday. Just to go.
Because I can.
But I haven't asked God - or whatever She likes to be called these days - for anything in fifty years.
When I pray to her, I usually do so, to tell Her, thanks.
For life. And love.
But really, I just tell Her that I remember that one time, when Dave was sick, She said, 'Okay'.
Rick Cabello
Grampa, Virgo,
Roman Catholic
written 11/2012
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