James
Before we started our first week of classes at Radford, my parents made the trek to Lewisburg, West Virginia, to pick up my brother and lug him back home. There’s a pretty sizable age gap between my siblings and I, which meant James got to go through his obligatory teenage angst phase while putting up with a starry-eyed little brother. In fact, I made sure of it — I used to love going into his room. My brother would sit up high, perched in his recliner, while I would sit cross-legged on the floor, arms outstretched to feel the heat from the radiator lap at my hands. I spent hours there, politely watching James play video games. I didn’t want to miss his color commentary — he made me laugh. Whenever my Dad drove in from South Carolina, James and I would stick him in the recliner and enthusiastically make him play whatever new Mario had just come out. Dad would essentially just be waving the game controller around aimlessly — picture a drunk conductor leading an orchestra — but it didn’t matter, because James and I ate it up.
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James has changed a lot since then — now the teenage angst is just your average, everyday angst — but he’s stayed the same in a lot of ways, too. James has always been an artist — he was the kid who carefully colored in the lines, never once straying past them. Naturally, he inspired me to draw. James has always been a musician — he played trombone in band, and I inherited his when I eventually joined myself. Naturally, he inspired me to compose. By the time I had grown up from the little kid sitting cross-legged on his floor, James had already gone off to college, but he sparked those interests in me long before he left. As for James, he would grow into one of the greatest artists I have ever known, simply because he has never compromised on himself. His art screams James. I’m proud to call him my brother.
While James was in town for the weekend, we went with our parents to Beckley — the Las Vegas of West Virginia. That’s right — a night on the town! At Hobby Lobby. We hadn’t seen James since Christmas, so there was plenty of catching up to do and — as I’m sure you can relate — there’s never enough time to do it. As the weekend came to a close, we dropped James off at his house and I ventured out to start at Radford proper. After I had taught a college class for the first time that Wednesday, I giddily shot a text off to the family group chat. Instantly, it was flooded with congratulations. To say I felt loved would be selling the feeling short. But the text from James stood out — he told me he was proud of me. And that means a lot coming from one of your childhood heroes.
