The love of a brother is not the kind of love you see in movies. It isn’t polished, it isn’t neat. It doesn’t arrive wrapped in perfect words or grand gestures. Most of the time, it’s silent — a look, a presence, a weight beside you when you’re too tired to stand. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t ask for credit and doesn’t always get noticed until everything else falls apart.
Growing up, I was my brother’s shadow. He was my first friend, my first rival, my first protector. We learned how to survive our childhood together — how to dodge the storms, how to laugh at the chaos, how to find scraps of joy where none should exist. There were days we fought like enemies, but there was an unspoken truth beneath every punch, every insult: no matter how bad it got, we were still on the same side.
That’s what makes the love of a brother different. It isn’t built on words; it’s built on shared scars. He knew my secrets before I even had the language to tell them. He saw the parts of me no one else did — the soft parts, the angry parts, the broken parts. And he never turned away.
As we got older, life pulled us in different directions. Distance grew, mistakes piled up, and the versions of ourselves we became didn’t always fit back into the memories we had. But even then, he didn’t let go. He’s been there through my darkest hours — not with speeches or solutions, but with a kind of silent, steady loyalty that makes me ache.
There were times when I wanted to disappear completely, when I felt like everything I touched was ruined. But my brother’s love didn’t vanish. It waited. It endured the silence. It endured my anger. It endured the nights I didn’t answer his calls. And when I finally looked up, he was still there.
The love of a brother isn’t perfect. It can be clumsy. It can be rough. It can even be painful at times — because he remembers who I used to be, and sometimes I can’t stand the reflection of that in his eyes. But it’s also the most honest love I’ve known. It survives absence. It survives mistakes. It survives the version of me that even I don’t want to keep.
And in a life where so much has slipped through my hands, that love is proof that not everything has to be lost. That even in the fog, even in the wreckage, there are bonds strong enough to hold me together when I can’t hold myself.
Through the Fog 