I just watched a movie that both is a wonderful depiction of how we as humans stumble through our own lives, often knocking things over and making messes, and also does not even come close to showing what the relationships and experiences of people mean. The movie is about a woman, grown, seemingly with her life figured out, an adoptee. She has a brother who was not adopted. This is not the relationship that gets the most voice but it may be the most important one. He is Her brother. April (the woman of the movie) goes through a marriage, a divorce, the death of her mother (the one who has raised her), the start of a new relationship that is more simple and complicated than one can imagine, the desire to naturally bare a child, and meets her birth mother. Throughout all of it her brother is there anchoring her to who she is always to him. He is the one who allows her to navigate the unknown space between the life and the person she thought she was and the life she is moving into and the person in that life.
There is a moment when he asks April a question that took me by surprise. He says to April that she should adopt a child. April says that he doesn't know what it is like. I thought the moment would then pass but instead the brother asks if she had ever thought about what it was like to not be adopted. I have never thought about this question from this side before. What that must have been like for him? What that was like to have her brother not be adopted? What it means for the way they both understand life?
There are many relationships that I will think about in this movie for a long time but I am so grateful for the presence of the brother because just like April's brother, my own brother grounds me, lifts me, and reminds me of who I am no matter the version of the person I am living at the moment.
He is my brother, and I am grateful.
