Anthony's Bithday

I am not overly sentimental about my brother, but on days like today how could I forget him. Anthony was born December 18, 1976 (exactly 19 months before me). He died August 30, 1996 (about a week into my senior year). There is more to him than that though. I have some great memories of him.

Christmas time was always interesting with my brother. Most people put up their Christmas tree a little after Thanksgiving. My brother insisted that the tree was not put up until after his birthday because he hated being reminded that his birthday was so close to Christmas and wanted to make sure that they were completely separate. He would get mad if his presents were wrapped in Christmas paper. That meant that my parents would have to buy birthday paper just for him (even my presents were wrapped in Christmas paper most of the time, and I have a July birthday). After his birthday, he was very into Christmas. He prided himself in the fact that he would buy us presents that were not on our lists. Sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes not so good.

Anthony and I were close. For quite a while we share at least some friends. (He had a huge crush on my best friend when I was 14 or 15.) That means that we hung out together sometimes. We had some sort of party when I was in 8th grade (probably a Christmas party). I seem to remember that basically it was my friends and boyfriend that was there. We played truth or dare. Anthony dare my boyfriend to kiss me. That was my first kiss. Latter that night, we went for a drive. Some how we ended up driving around a cull-d-sac with everyone in the car yelling with the doors of the car open for some girl that my brother wanted to see.

I remember Anthony telling me that if anyone wanted to fight me he would take care of them. At the end of 8th grade that time came for me. A girl that I hardly knew was talking about beating me up because I was friends with someone she didn't like. When I got home from school, I told my brother (him being my protector and all). He told me that since it was a girl he couldn't do anything about it and to have Marleah (our younger sister) help me.

I got my first job thanks to my brother at Kenny Rogers Roasters. My fist day I worked in the dish pit (yuck!). The first thing that he did was take me to the back and introduce me to the person that we would be working with (Anthony was training me) that night. It went something like this..."Jesse, this is Rosa. Rosa, this is Jesse. He really likes you." Jesse and I both blushed, but that started an interesting friendship. Anthony ended up walking out on that job twice.

My last memory of him was a day at my mom's house. We were both stopping by there before going to the drive-in that was close. His girlfriend was driving her car. My boyfriend was driving his car. (I don't remember why we were at my mom's, but that is not important to this story.) He said to me, "Hay, Rosa, my girlfriend's car is better than your boyfriend's car." I responded, "Hay, Anthony, my boyfriend's car is better than your boyfriend's." To that he responded in his fake gay way of talking some how. We both had a laugh and went on our way.

I think all in all Anthony and I had a typical bother-sister relationship. He was my protector from the evil boys in the world, and I was the one that hid him from Mom and (mostly) Dad when he would come home drunk and stoned. We both would have fun torturing our sister (she still won't let me forget about some of that stuff). We would hang out when we felt like it. We would fight when we disagreed.