I've been thinking about karma a lot lately. Maybe my brother's cancer is some form of karmic retribution. I know a lot of people who would say that he's a great guy, but I beg to differ. I grew up with the guy. I have narrowed down why karma would be getting back at him to three reasons.
1. He used to tell me that I was adopted and that I had no brain.
I know that this is not a new thing for older siblings to do, but I really believed him when he told me I was adopted. I don't really look like the rest of my family, and I was born in Japan, so it was really believable. There was a moment when I was absolutely sure that I was not part of the family. It left me suspicious of my parents to this day.
Once I accepted that my parents had been lying to me my whole life, and that being adopted was no big deal. He would tell me that I had no brain relentlessly. It would drive me insane. I would say something, and he would say "Shut-up, you don't have a brain." I would respond with, "If I didn't have a brain, I couldn't be talking right now." He'd follow up with, "If you didn't have a brain, you wouldn't know it." Repeat this about 40 times a day, and I would start believing him. Maybe I am adopted, maybe I don't have a brain. I still don't know.
2. He used to hit me when I beat him at video games.
We didn't have much money growing up, but somehow our parents managed to get us the latest video game system. I don't know how they managed to do it, but we got a Super Nintendo when it came out. We also got this little indie game called Street Fighter 2. We'd spend unhealthy amounts of time playing the game. My brother was a master of button mashing. I took my time and learned the special moves and secrets. I became better at the game, beating my brother nine times out of ten without trying that hard. Once that happened, his technique changed. I'd beat him, and then he would hit me over the head with the controller. I got good at dodging, but he would nail me in the head most of the time. This extended to any other game we would play. He was methodical about it though. Some times he wouldn't hit me, just to see me flinch. After I flinched, he would hit me. It made for very tense video games. Fast forward to 2013, I still play video games, and I still flinch when I win. I flinch when I am playing by myself. I don't like people sitting near me when I play games. I have PTSD from playing with my brother.
3. My brother would shoot me with a blow gun.
That's not a typo. My parents got my brother a real blow gun. He couldn't have been much older than eleven when my brother got this dangerous weapon. It fires darts that look like this:
Let me make another thing clear: we did not grow up in the country where shooting stuff is normal. We didn't have a bunch of land where shooting one of these would be sensible. We also were not south american tribesmen forced to fashion a weapon that could shoot tree dwelling animals for our survival. We were a family in a one story house in a crappy neighborhood.
My brother would shoot this thing in his room at the walls and whatnot. When he got tired of shooting stationary targets, I was in the cross hairs. I would walk to the kitchen, and get shot in the leg. It would hurt, and I would bleed a little. My brother would threaten me if I said that I was going to tell our parents. An abusive relationship was formed. A trip to the bathroom would require quick feet and a few ninja rolls. Unfortunately, for me, my brother is a great shot. It's odd that I was the one who joined the Army, when he was so good at shooting people.
Karma might have been paying attention to all of these things and punished him with cancer. Maybe that is what happened. If that is the case, most of us would have cancer.
In the years that followed, my brother became a responsible hard-working guy. All this craziness happened during adolescence, he has done a lot of growing up. I'd almost call him a decent person. I have known him my entire life and he has always been there for me when I was destroying my own karma. So I think that his karmic debt would have been paid by now.
If it is Karma; Karma can go fuck itself.
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