My youngest sibling turned 19 on Saturday. It feels strange for me to say that they are 19. My baby sibling is 19.
They’ve grown up and become my friend for it. I remember when that shift started — when they switched from being the sibling with whom I had a somewhat contentious relationship to being my best friend in the whole world. I’m grateful for that, but somehow I still have this bizarre sense of cognitive dissonance at the idea that they could be 19.
Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that small self. On their birthday I asked my parents what stories first came to mind at the memory of tiny Phoenix.
My dad recalled kindergarten!Phoenix, who got hurt playing on the playground. (The child was a broken bone magnet, climbing everything and utterly convinced of their own limitlessness.) They put their little hand over their little chest and found that they couldn’t feel a heartbeat where they were told there should be one. With great concern they asked to go see the nurse.
“Why? Are you all right?” the teacher asked.
“I think my heart stopped,” Phoenix responded, with a childhood r-dropping speech impediment.
***
My mom stole my answer. When she thought of baby-toddler-kid Phoenix, she thought of the turkey leg. It was Phoenix’s first Thanksgiving — ten months old — and they were decked out in one of the frilly dresses my mother so loved. Phoenix sat on the table, one of the perks of being a baby. They grabbed hold of a giant turkey drumstick and got more of it on that little face than in their mouth. It was a picture perfect moment that is not only my portrait of baby Phoenix but also of Thanksgiving.
You know, Thanksgivings before deaths, international arrests, and hospitalizations. Thanksgiving as I try to remember it.
***
Baby Phoenix was notorious for smothering food all over that little baby face. We have many pictures documenting this legacy. There’s this photo of Phoenix in a highchair, attempting to eat spaghetti, but mostly making a mess. It seems highly improbable that any spaghetti was actually consumed. In the picture Derrik (fellow tiny adorable one) stands behind, popping out to smile and say hello.
Babies use their senses to discover the world, but I have a feeling that every baby has a tendency to privilege one sense in particular. Baby Phoenix ate everything, as if that was the only way to identify the objects around them. Dirt, rocks, snails. If it was little enough to hold in those tiny fists, it would probably get eaten. This made for a baby that required rather constant attention. Maybe it was all a clever ruse and that fact was why they did it. So many older siblings and adults to win the hearts of, and here was this trick that kept all eyes on them.
***
That’s mostly how I remember childhood Phoenix. Not as the little baby stuffing their face, because I was also young enough then that those memories are sort of fleeting. Mostly, I remember the little performer. They always had a way of wooing a crowd. Phoenix was open-hearted and trusting. Being the baby of a large, tight-knit family meant that they were always around people and even when we weren’t at our best, we also always loved Phoenix. They had near constant exposure to unconditional love and people who had their back.
I was jealous of this quality growing up. Phoenix was fearless. Phoenix never worried who would laugh or how people would react. If getting up on stage seemed like fun, then up they’d go. If they enjoyed being up there, then it was a success. Watching Phoenix, even without my obvious familial bias, you couldn’t help but agree that anyone having that much fun was, indeed, doing quite well.
***
I think growing up was hard for Phoenix because of the abrupt rule change. They were effortlessly charming. That Phoenix was adorable was a fact that earned them a great deal of love and praise, but which never required much thought. It turned on Phoenix as they got older. Suddenly boys assumed things. Girls got jealous and mean. Rather abruptly, Phoenix was hated for the very things that had once earned the love and adoration of strangers, and Phoenix was too trusting to understand why.
***
I remember the baby I shared a room with. I remember that Phoenix was mostly a pleasant roommate when it was just us. They had lots of stuffed animals and were too little to have any real preference about the way space was apportioned. They always seemed happy to be around me.
I didn’t feel that sense of being ignored that is so commonly associated with middle children, but I certainly felt profoundly misunderstood for most of my life. The fact that Phoenix loved as unconditionally as they felt loved, the fact that they seemed to adore me as I was, because Phoenix was a baby who knew no differently — these things endeared this baby to me. I loved Phoenix absolutely and without reservation when it was just us.
Unfortunately, others had a way of making a less pleasant roommate out of Phoenix. Before they could speak, my older brother would terrorize my room on the regular, insisting that it was Phoenix’s room too, and that he had Phoenix’s infant permission to be there. He would antagonize me until I whined enough for it to be boring and he would leave.
Worst of all were my friends. That was the great betrayal. My friends who would rather play with the baby. And the loving, trusting, little toddler who seemed to regard them equally as me, was just as content with their attention — seemed to want it more, in fact, because it was new. On those days I did not appreciate my little roommate.
I was still too young to understand what an emotional poison jealousy could be.
***
My memories of one-on-one time in California are limited because Phoenix very quickly became part of a friend package. This did not actually inspire any of that jealousy, because it meant that they had their own friends and I was still the big sister. It was the early stages of setting our sibling relationship right. My little brother befriended a boy who had two younger siblings, one a year younger and another Phoenix’s age. The five of them were inseparable. Sometimes Derrik and Phoenix went to their house, but mostly they came to ours. They raided the pantry and spent hours on the trampoline.
During the days when I was homeschooled, I took a lot of lessons in the typical “after school” hours, but when I was home and they were home, I’d join the unending parade of childhood. Sometimes I’d teach them games I had learned at slumber parties, relishing that authority, but mostly glad to be a little kid. It was a welcome break from the great emotional torment of being 13.
Our house was always loud and messy and alive. Neighborhood kids came into our backyard and used our trampoline when we weren’t home.
When we moved, the absence of this energy was perhaps the greatest roadblock to accepting this new house as home.
It was too quiet. No kids played there. Nobody seemed to be measuring their lives by marks on the closet door or how many steps they could jump at once. There was no spiral staircase for us to hang from like monkeys.
***
Phoenix made friends in our new home the quickest. They were still small enough that they won hearts easily. They tried to fill the house up with slumber parties and noise, but it was never really the same. These children weren’t family in the way that people whose presence predates memories are.
I sometimes wonder if that haunted Phoenix. Worse, I wonder if my own melancholy shadow made it harder for them to flourish. I think of all the things I did right — I was a good student who didn’t get into any trouble — but wonder if my example of isolation wasn’t the most dangerous model I could have given.
***
Even as I watch Phoenix hurt, I see the ways that they haven’t changed. I see that they are still so brave. Phoenix now has it in their head that they shut people out, but only because their standard for openness is so much higher than others. Or maybe mine is just that much lower. I’m not sure, really. I do know that I still admire how freely Phoenix exposes their heart to others.
It was the thing that I noticed most while watching episodes of that YouTube modeling show. Phoenix spoke so freely and openly and I can’t imagine doing that. I can’t imagine speaking to a camera like that and not obsessing over the details of what I’ve said and whether anyone else will understand it, or get what I meant.
Phoenix has the fiercest spirit. Fierce enough to triumph even in their least secure hours. It’s a special gift to have been so deeply wounded and wronged and still find a way to forge ahead, singing and dancing because it makes you happy.
I hope they knows, deep in that heart of hearts, how limitless they still are. I hope they don’t stop singing, and dancing, and saying, “Fuck it,” to all the rest.