Robert

Robert 

Robert has always been larger than life in my mind. I can still see him, towering in my memory—cool, kind, heroic. He was everything I wasn't. I was awkward, unsure of myself, but Robert... he moved through the world with such ease. At least, that's how I remember it. The truth is, I was only fourteen when he died, and so much of what I hold onto about him is wrapped in stories I've told myself, and the way others spoke of him after he was gone.

For so long, I placed him on a pedestal, imagining that if I could just be like Robert, if I could embody his strength, his charm, his fearlessness, maybe I could navigate life with the same grace he seemed to have. I think that’s what made losing him so unbearable. It wasn’t just that I lost a brother—I lost the person who, in my mind, held the answers, who could make sense of the world when I couldn’t.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve had to confront something difficult: I didn’t know him as well as I thought. The stories I’ve clung to are just that—stories. Fragments of moments, filled in with my own need to make sense of him, to keep him alive in some way. I’ve idealized him, created this larger-than-life version of Robert because, as a child, that was the only way I knew how to cope. He became a symbol, a kind of myth, and in some ways, that made it easier to live without him. But it also left me with this weight, this sense that I would never measure up to the version of him I’d constructed in my head.

What’s been hardest to accept is that there are things about him I will never know. There are questions about his life—and his death—that I will never have answers to. Those unhealed questions have lingered in the back of my mind for fifty years, shaping the way I remember him. I’ve had to come to terms with that uncertainty, to learn to live with it, even though it’s been like carrying a shadow around with me.

In my memory, Robert was a sense of security, the one who knew how to handle life’s turbulence. In contrast, I always felt like I was scrambling to keep up. He represented a kind of stability, a confidence I envied, and perhaps that’s why I idolized him so much. He was everything I thought I wasn’t, and I admired him not just for who he was to me, but for who he was to everyone around him. People adored him, were drawn to him, and I think, in my mind, that made him even more godlike.

But over time, I’ve realized that Robert’s legacy isn’t just about the heroic image I’ve held onto. Whether or not all of those details are fully true doesn't really matter anymore. What I’ve come to understand is that his real legacy lies in how he made people feel. He brought warmth, happiness, and confidence to the people around him, and that, more than anything, is what I carry with me now. It’s not the myth of Robert that matters, but the way he touched people’s lives. That’s the most real, the most human part of his memory.

And that realization has shaped how I live today. I used to think that living a good life was about being like Robert—strong, confident, heroic. But now I think it’s simpler than that. It’s about the small moments, the warmth you bring to others, the happiness you spread. If I can do that, if I can make people feel even a fraction of the way Robert made people feel, then I think I’m living a good life. That’s the part of him I hold onto, the part that keeps him alive in me.