I Like Mike

Editor's Note: My brother's birthday was this week. I decided to write about my siblings on their birthdays this year, but photos turned out to be harder to find that I anticipated. Let's all just pretend this was posted four days ago. 

Mike and me, circa 2004. We both look a little older now.

I don't remember it, but I've heard the story enough times that I can recount the details: I was two years old, and my family was driving to the airport to pick up my brother Mike from his two-year mission for our church. If you do the math, you will realize that I had absolutely no idea that this "Mike" was an actual person and not just a picture on the wall.

But when we got there, we saw him—a living, breathing version of the boy I'd seen in pictures all my life. The longer he hung around, the more insecure I became and the tighter I squeezed my arms around my dad's neck. On the way to the car, I noticed he wasn't leaving. Nervously, I whispered in my dad's ear, "Daddy, is he coming to our house?"

Eventually, I warmed up to him. He was married a couple years later, and he and his wife lived at my parents' house for a few years while I was in elementary school. Mike became a teacher at a high school in Idaho Falls and, just as I was entering high school, took a teaching and coaching job at Madison High School—my school.

I'm nine years younger than my youngest sibling, so I essentially grew up an only child. Having a sibling at my high school was a welcome change. At first, it was strange that Mike knew anything about my school and my friends. But after a few weeks, I came to appreciate Mike's familiarity with my high school world and even came to value his opinion on my friends, my teachers and the boys my age. He might have influenced who I asked to girls' choice dances. Maybe. Just a little.

I spent many lunches in his biology classroom (and not because I didn't have any friends, either). I was his TA my junior year, and in addition to the normal paper grading and tutoring, I was his designated Wendy's runner. Mike used the two of us in his lessons on genetics. I loved his class.

People ask me sometimes what it was like to have my brother for a teacher. I usually gave some vague, cliche answer about it being strange sometimes but fun most of the time. Honestly, I think it would have been more awkward for both of us if I'd struggled in his class. But I enjoyed biology, and he made it fun. To this day, I use the Greek and Latin word roots I learned in his class to decipher new words.

But Mike was my teacher long before he came to Madison High School. He taught me to read when I was four. He took me birdwatching when I was a little older. And he taught me everything I needed to know about football.

You see, Mike was also the offensive coordinator of my high school's football team, and he didn't want me embarrassing him. It's thanks to him that I can explain not just first and second-downs, but also the difference between a tackle and a guard, a quarterback and a cornerback. Today he is still working for Madison School District, now as Director of Special Services after being a teacher, coach and principal. He works hard. He is kind. I talk to employees of his all the time who adore him, and I'm so proud to call him my brother.

On top of everything else, he celebrated his birthday this week. After all he's taught me and how close we've become over the years, I can confidently say this now: I'm so, so glad he came to our house.