31/01/2012

Pause For Thought

With Sarah Joseph, Editor of a Muslim lifestyle magazine.

It was my brother Anthony’s 50th birthday on Sunday. People kept asking him if he was alright with turning 50. His response was that it was better than the alternative of dying early.
I made him a stained glass panel, with a piece of glass for every year. As I cut and prepared the 50 pieces, I had plenty of time to reflect on our sibling relationship. I kept returning to an event when I was about eight and he was around 17.
Our mum had been rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack.
I was pretty terrified. I can also remember a distinct lack of adults around!
My brother took charge and looked after me.
In the morning he made me porridge. It has to have been just about the worst porridge ever. It was a lump and you could literally stand your spoon up in it! I ate it all, without a murmur of discontent, grateful that there was someone there to make my breakfast. He then took me to school, coming right into class to explain to my teacher what had happened. I can still remember feeling proud as he spoke to her.
Well over thirty years have passed since that day, but it has stayed with me all this time. He showed care and responsibility when it was needed most.
We tend to always think of our rights – indeed in many ways we live in a rights driven society. But rights have corresponding duties.
It is so easy to evade our responsibilities, to think someone else will, or even should, be the one to do the work that needs to be done.
Unless individuals develop a sense of responsibility; the family, indeed, our communities, cannot move forward. "I must do something" always solves more problems than "Something must be done."
Most of us can see what needs to be done, often though we just prefer to wait for someone else to do it. I’m grateful that my brother didn’t wait and took it upon himself to care for that rather scared little eight year old, when he could so easily have said, “I’m just a kid myself.”