“Mom!” I screamed down the stairs. “David pulled the tail off my toy horse!” Fighting used to be a common occurrence when my brother and I were younger. A squabble would somehow arise--most likely over something as nondescript as who got to play with the Mark Martin hotwheels car--and it would end up with my mom having to break up two clawing toddlers. “Why can’t you just get along?” she would demand in a tired voice, reaching for the time-out chairs. “Because I hate him!” I would shriek with all the wrath of an angry three-year-old. This would make her respond with, “You’ll realize how much your brother means to you when you’re older.” Unfortunately, it took a family crisis for me to con to this realization.

I came home from school one day when I was ten to an empty house. “Took David to the doctor,” a note in my mother’s handwriting stuck to the fridge told me. “Should be back in an hour.” Nothing was wrong with him as far as I knew--just a little knee pain--so I just went about my business, never giving it a second thought. I watched a movie and didn’t really notice the absence of people. Several hours passed. Unconcerned, I watched another movie. Finally, around dinner time, I got a call from my mom. She and David were at the hospital. They discovered at the doctor’s office that his knee pain was actually MRSA, a highly contagious infection that is immune to most antibiotics. He had to be kept in isolation in the hospital until they were sure the infection was gone.

My mom spent the night with my brother, so I had to stay with my uncle. I was really excited to spend the night away from my own house. I’d get to watch what I wanted on tv, and eat what I wanted for dinner.

I spent the night at my uncle’s house for the next few nights too. My mom and dad switched off staying with my brother, going to work, and visiting me. Frequently when they’d come to see me, they’d just stare at the ground, their minds off in other places. I caught whispers exchanged between them and my uncle. “Not sure if he will ever get better,” and “Might have to amputate his leg to stop the infection from spreading.” Soon I got tired of being away from home. My uncle knew how to make only one non-canned-food dish: liver and onions, which I will forever have nightmares of. He didn’t have cable, and there was never anything good on the local channels. But most of all, I was lonely. I missed having that one kid in my life who helped get rid of the seriousness of the grown-up world. Who could make me smile and break out into a fit of giggles. Who would always have my back, for the rest of my life. I missed my brother.

I finally asked my mom if I could go see him the next time she visited me--about a week after he was checked into the hospital. Upon arrival, I was told that I couldn’t go in his room and talk to him since I was a kid and at a higher risk for infection. So I stared at him through the spotless glass window outside his room. He didn’t look like my brother anymore. A pale, skinny figure was in his place. I looked up at my mom, horrified. “Is he going to be okay?” She glanced down and forced out, “Of course he is. The doctors are taking care of him.” But I could see the strain in her face that said she was lying. “I don’t want him to die,” I muttered in a small voice. He might be the most annoying, irritating person, but he’s my older brother. The only sibling I will ever have. Right then, I started praying, sending positive thoughts to the universe, desperate for anything that would keep my brother with me.

My frantic pleas for help must have worked, because he slowly started to improve. He progressed to solid food, sitting up, and eventually walking on crutches. I called him every day as he got stronger, and though we didn’t have long, deep conversations, they still meant the world to me.

He’s away at college now, and I still text him every day. We still have our fights, but we are also always there for each other. The time he spent in the hospital changed us both. He and I will have a bond that lasts our entire life, because that’s what family is for. It might have taken a severe illness to realize it, but now I know family always comes first.