I should preface this column by saying this was the first time I'd ever written about something personal for a public audience. It was strange and emotional and I nearly chickened out. In the end, when I received so many messages/emails/calls/notes from people who identified with my story, I couldn't imagine a better reward. Special thanks to my brother for helping me get over myself and just write.

Never coming home again?

By: Mandi Woodruff for The Red & Black

Posted: 11/24/08

My big brother Matt always left the toilet seat up. The disgusting plastic bottles he used to spit tobacco were all over the house.

We ran to our mother with our arguments - both adults yet still pushing and shoving like toddlers. Matt brought out the fire and claws in me - all good big brothers do, I suppose.

As we grew up, he would torment me until I ran from the room crying. I would flaunt my straight A's as he hunched over his homework, crippled by the ADD that's plagued him since infancy.

When Matt enlisted in the Army five years ago, my family was relieved to see him do something productive with his life other than wear a dent in our living room sofa and drink all the milk.

Our grandfather, a World War II veteran, shook Matt's hand proudly before he boarded a plane to Baghdad. Our mother cried. Our grandmother clutched her like a life raft, her eyes wet and bloodshot. A camera flashed.

I stood to the side. A lifetime of sibling rivalry had forged a rift between Matt and me that I wasn't quite sure how to cross. But the clock was winding down, he was leaving soon, and with a burst of rare emotion, I wrapped my arms around him.

"Bye, little sis'," he said, towering over me in his uniform and boots. "Stay away from boys."

He was gone for a year, when he came home on leave. I was taking a summer course. One day, a classmate, whose boyfriend was fighting overseas, did not show up. The young man whom she spent most classes gushing over would not be coming home, our professor told us.

I stumbled from class, my tears falling to the pavement like silent bombs. I ended up somewhere on North Campus before I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Matt's number.

"I just want to say … " I was sure I would hyperventilate before I got the words out. On the other line, Matt waited impatiently. "I just want to say that I love you."

It took one girl's loss to make me realize how much I had to lose if Matt found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stupid sibling rivalry or not, I knew it would destroy my family if he was not a part of it.

These days, even from thousands of miles away, Matt still manages to annoy the hell out of me - only now it's via webcam, which unfortunately denies me the satisfaction of punching him when he steps out of line.

As I sat at my cubicle at The Red & Black recently, reading the Associated Press, I came across a headline and froze. "Bomber strikes U.S. convoy in Afghanistan … death toll: 9."

I read such stories every day - 30 civilians killed by a suicide bomber at a market in Baghdad. Dozens injured in a raid in Kabul. Gunfire. Massacre. Explosion. Attack. Murder. Killed. Killed. Killed. Never coming home again.

Others can turn the other cheek, head over to Perez Hilton for a few laughs and a break from reality.

But I quickly signed into Yahoo! Messenger, the only way to get in touch with Matt these days. Nine dead. My mind raced. What if it's my brother this time? What if it's our family, our grief, our lives shattered?

"shut up i'm trying to get ready ofr work," Matt wrote in his usual sloppy, disjointed type.

I breathed again. It was 3 a.m. on his side of the world, and I was the obnoxious little sister distracting him from his work.

Never again will I take this role for granted.

- Mandi Woodruff is the associate news editor of The Red & Black.

Life (off the record)

Monday, December 8, 2008