Freddy Jr.- Carmen Curtis

I feel like the thing that I am holding on to is my brother. I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was a junior year in high school. My brother had died when I was five and ever since then I have been holding on to the few memories I have of him.

4 years’ old

I remember him always being really protective of me and my sister. There was this time that my mom brother and I had gone outside of Children’s Hospital because it had been a nice day. We were in this small part of the stone path that broke out into a circle that had a round short stone wall around it and a grassy area that centered around that that contained benches and a few trees. I was off playing on my own when some boy had come up to me and started to be mean. He ended up pushing me down. I cried because I had scrapped my knee. My brother had seen the entire incident and had come over to where I was on the ground to help me up. After my brother had helped me sit down on the stone wall he told me to stay where I was. At the time I had found it weird that he hadn’t stayed to sit with me. I watched him as he walked up to the boy that had pushed me and punched him. The boy went and cried to his mom about the fountain of blood pouring from his nostrils. My mom had stopped talking to my dad on the phone and realized that the boy’s mom was talking to my brother. I feel like the only reason that she hadn’t been yelling at him was because she realized he had no hair. She had been telling him very sternly that he couldn’t just walk up and punch people. When my mom came and asked what happened the lady told her that Freddy had punched her son in the face. My mom looked at him with a bewildered face and asked him why. I remember that after he had explained himself the other boy was getting yelled at and the boy having to apologize to me and the women telling my brother that she had been wrong and that he should always stand up for his little sister.

5 years’ old

I also remember the time I realized that I realized that my brother loved me a lot more than he could ever say. It was the fourth of July and Freddy was sitting in his hospital gown next to me. He was playing Donkey Kong on his play station while I was coloring in a coloring book. As I looked over and began to watch him play I thought about my new Barbie snowboarding game mom had just bought me and asked if I could use his play station. He said I could as long as he got to color me a picture. I agreed and let him have my coloring book then put in my new game. I was so excited I didn’t even stop to see what my brother was doing. I was too engrossed in the game on the screen to see that my brother had found a picture that he liked in my coloring book. My brother had always been the kindest person. He would always do anything to make my sister or me happy. When he gently pulled on the back of my power puff girls shirt with his fragile fingers I turned around only to see that he had closed the book and that he was done with his picture. Even at a young age my brother had been a gifted artist. I knew that the colored picture would be beautiful but before I could grab the book my brother started acting weird. He started shaking really bad and hyperventilating. His heart monitor started beeping fast. My mother shoved me off the bed and me and my sister were rushed from the room in a panic I began crying asking if he was okay but no one would answer me. My aunt who had visiting that day brought us over to our room at the Ronald McDonald house and calmed us down. My mom and dad never came back to our room that night to tuck us in but my aunt said, after a long talk on the phone later that night, that we would see them in the morning and that my brother was fine. I never got to see my brother the next day my mom said that he was in recovery. The next day when I seen my mom I ran up to her and she gave me my coloring book. I searched through it frantically trying to find the picture that my brother had drawn for me when I stopped on a colored picture of a rose that said “I love you.”

16 years’ old

I was rummaging through old boxes in the side attic of my house looking for glass jars that I could use for my biology project when I came across a box that I just had to open. The box itself wasn’t all that interesting but what intrigued me was that on the top in my mother’s handwriting was the name Freddy. My brother had died from cancer on July 31 when I was five from squamous cell carcinoma. When I opened the box that was basically falling apart on all sides as I went through the box I found a folded up piece of paper. When I opened I couldn’t contain my happiness. It was a small picture of a cartoon rose that said “I love you.” I began to cry with joy but also with sadness. It was a bittersweet moment looking at the colored in cartoon.