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It was just another day at our house’s yard for Ruby and I.
7-year-old Ruby protested, just as 3-year-old me wanted to clad myself with a blanket, “No, Max! I told you to use that blanket as a magic carpet!” She hastily took my makeshift cape off with one strong big-girl grab.
I blurted, probably in frustration, “Super Bunny!”
Ruby remained stubborn, “Ah ah! I said we were going to play Aladdin, so you gotta be Aladdin!”
All I could do was to pout, while mumbling, “Super Bunny…”
I was a younger brother. Of course I had to follow Ruby’s lead.
Too bad we can play neither Aladdin nor Super Bunny anymore.
It’s hard to believe that Ruby and I used to be inseparable, until now where we are separated - and the casket at this specific funeral for her is the concrete proof.
I’m 83. Ruby is forever 87.
—----------------------------------------------------------------
Ruby and I had always been… different.
First off, she was already around 4 when I was a newborn. Our status quo was established over a four year difference.
Next up, she was always chatty but listened to our mom and dad more, while I was quieter and preferred to play my own games.
And most importantly, I always blurted out whenever I felt like it, and often came up with unconventional ideas. Naturally Ruby disliked those ideas.
There was the instance of me coming up with the creation of a dirty mud cake decorated with worms and marshmallows just for our grandma. Grandma loved the cake. But Ruby didn’t. She thought it was weird and gross.
And as usual she said, “No! Max!”
Whenever I was doing something considered to be out of line, she would say that phrase again to keep me in a box…
Every. SINGLE. Time.
And the “No” never ceased, even after our younger siblings Grace and Oliver were born.
Little by little, I started to unconsciously get mad at her. Why did everything I had done was considered wrong by her, yet when I told her to stop, she thought I was being stupid?
Like, why did she cackle akin to one of those cartoon villains after she gave me a wind-up toy lobster at one of my birthdays, when I was shouting “NO!” over and over? Why was she not considered as wrong or out of line?
That toy lobster was creepy. It felt like it was going to punish me for being quiet and going at my own pace. With its sharp pinchers…
Grace is only older than Oliver by a few minutes. But she had never been so patronizing to Oliver. She has never bullied him at all, despite them occasionally disagreeing in things like sharing a cake. Whereas I had to bear the brunt of Ruby’s disdain on a daily basis.
I had to keep overhearing her loud tangents for her friends Martha, Valerie and Louise on “Max is being different again”, every time I got home from preschool. She couldn’t go on a day without focusing on how she had to keep me in check. For example, “Max took off his clothes yesterday and I had to make him wear them again” or “Max is gross, he really thought the crayon he was using was edible!”.
When I hadn’t understood why I was acting strangely. Not that Mom and Dad bothered explaining to me why Ruby had to look after me, apart from “she’s older”.
Obviously, Ruby’s questions about me being “naughty” also fell on our mom and dad’s deaf ears.
Lily, Morris and Winston had never questioned how I behaved. But Ruby just had to be the opposite to remind me of how “uncooperative” I had always been to her.
And then I snapped in 9th grade.
By then, Grace and Oliver had to constantly watch Ruby quarrel with me. I feel terrible that they often had to comfort me after I was pushed to the verge of tears post-argument.
Except in that specific case, it was even worse.
“Max, you’re not supposed to ignore me, when I’m ordering you to zip your goddamn knapsack or NOT forgetting your water bottle-” Ruby went on a typical tirade that morning, when I finally had enough.
“ RUBY, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! ” I broke my typical silence and yelled my damndest.
Ruby was as frozen as an ice sculpture. While Grace and Oliver were just standing there, too fazed to react appropriately.
Before Ruby could recover from shock to reprimand me for cursing her, I ran away.
I was sick of being different from her, different from society.
I already had enough reception to the mockery from my classmates and peers, who sneered at me for randomly blurting out an idea of ‘make a plane!’, or just being quiet when I should be speaking up about the answer to a basic equation.
I didn’t need to be spoon-fed by her insults about how I wasn’t doing what she wanted.
I skipped my high school class that day.
—----------------------------------------------------------------
Being someone born and living during the 40s to 50s had always been challenging.
You couldn’t be forgetful, you couldn’t stay quiet for too long, you had to be responsive, you had to automatically learn and read people’s facial expressions.
I couldn’t do any of these requirements.
All I had done was to conjure up mud spheres that I was persistent to make them perfectly round, dismantling remotes to play with the batteries within them, or just… scribbling meaningless gibberish onto the walls to draw. Even when I was told to quit doing those.
Unlike Ruby, who was always doing what she was told. Washing the dishes. Hanging the clothes. Picking Grace and Oliver up from their schools. The chores that our parents had always assigned her to do.
Even Morris was having better academic grades than me.
I yearned to be as useful as Ruby.
So when there was the conscription for the Vietnam War army, 18-year-old me became enthusiastic to enroll for the army. Because I thought I could help the country do a good cause.
Sadly, Ruby crushed my dream. “No, Max. You’re not gonna make it past the first round, when you’re always so unresponsive.”
I didn’t care, I tried anyway.
I didn’t qualify.
Because like her jaded perception, I was the odd one out.
She and I had another bloodcurdling, house-rattling argument again, after the disappointing result was given to me.
And our parents did nothing to stop us.
Rather, we had finally decided to stop talking with each other.
Shortly after, 22-year-old Ruby moved out.
And I had also decided to move on with my life…
Without her.
—----------------------------------------------------------------
I had experienced plenty after Ruby moved out.
I resolutely decided to move out of the house myself.
It was saddening to leave Grace and Oliver with a tearful goodbye, when I had to leave the childhood home we lived for so long. But I had to figure myself out.
I was still friends with Winston, while I also reached out to many people from the past.
One day when traveling around, I bumped into Lily again. It had been a long time since I last saw her after she moved away with her family. She asked how I was doing, and we ended up exchanging addresses.
I also heard from Morris that he got a decent paying job at some sort of company. We started hanging out again at the local tavern.
As for Ruby… I chose not to contact her.
The last time someone at the tavern mentioned her, they said she decided to hitch up with her crush Antonio. I was more about deepening my relationship with Lily, so I ignored my sister’s romantic life.
I got married to Lily. We soon had a son named Maxwell. I passed down my childhood blue overalls and striped shirt to Maxwell.
Lily respected my decision to not have another child, because of how strained my relationship with Ruby had become.
I became a toy designer. I finally got to put my creativity into good use. My son loved the way I made large-winged toy planes, same with the buyers.
My life was happy.
Until one day when Louise, through Morris, found me. She said Ruby needed me.
I scornfully inquired why. She then replied that Ruby had gotten a divorce with Antonio, and thus been struggling.
Accompanied by Lily, I reluctantly found Ruby through the address Louise provided. When Ruby opened the door, she was frazzled with her fur being all tousled and disoriented, despite her house being neatly organized with each furniture being varnished before our arrival.
Not that she was pleased when she saw me with Lily and Maxwell.
“Are you trying to pity me, you moderately successful toy designer?!” She chose to spite me, while angrily cradling her crying daughter, “You make parenthood and marriage look like a piece of cake, when my clothes are just moderately selling in the fashion industry, and Antonio got bored of me, and Rosalind won’t follow my instructions to be my mandatory model on testing out what I can do to complement a certain color palette!”
I immediately didn’t want anything to do with her.
“Give me your phone number, and I’ll just leave.”
She threw me a prepared slip of her phone number - she had never been NOT prepared in her entire life, even when distributing her phone number - and then slammed the door shut, while Rosalind was still crying hysterically.
“Will Rosalind - is that her name? - be okay?” Maxwell asked, still shivering at seeing Ruby being so mad. He had only seen her for the first time, and she had already given him a bad impression.
“Maybe.” That was all I could muster up for.
Poor Rosalind though.
—----------------------------------------------------------------
Everything changed when I finally learned the truth behind my childhood’s weird conditions.
It was when Grace and Oliver phoned me to deliver the bad news that Mom and Dad were slowly decaying away.
They said even with them having become doctors, there was no way they could cure our parents.
Then at the deathbeds, Dad revealed a bombshell. Actually, two bombshells.
Grace and Oliver, who now had their neuroscience degrees as well, helped Ruby with her diagnosis. But since Ruby didn’t handle the truth well, Dad said he hoped I wouldn't blame him or Mom for everything.
Turned out I had nonverbal autism. While Ruby had his genetic OCD.
Rather than furious, I was just numbed. Numbed to the fact that how this revelation had arrived too late, when my relationship with Ruby had completely been fucked up.
Then again, everything suddenly made sense with how I didn’t know how to read or listen to instructions. And how Ruby was always vexed with me not being normal like everyone else.
It didn’t drastically alter the fact that Mom and Dad died shortly after, and me and the twins had to hold them a funeral… that Ruby opted out from direct attendance just to ghost me. I heard that she didn’t arrive until Grace and Oliver told her that I had left the venue.
Fortunately, my family and friends had been understanding. They said they love me no matter what. The twins had also been taking me to therapy and cognitive training. So all’s well was well.
The situation of me avoiding Ruby hadn't changed. But my perception about her was… shifted once I realized why she didn’t want me to be different.
Perhaps she had been afraid to feel different than the masses… about herself.
—----------------------------------------------------------------
When Rosalind mumbled on the path leading me to Ruby’s ward, saying wistfully, “One thing I always remember is never getting to see my cousin, Maxwell, a lot…” I felt incredibly bad.
It was already difficult for me and Maxwell when Lily had passed away at 81, leaving me and my son to keep going.
Sure, Maxwell has a wife and some kids now. I still hang out with Morris and Winston sometimes. But there’s always a void when a loved one has passed on.
And I never expected myself to finally convince myself to see Ruby one last time, when Rosalind informed me that Ruby had been gravely sick and wouldn't be able to make it past the end of this month.
Rosalind admitted truthfully that she and Ruby had minimal connections nowadays, and how she could comprehend why her father had left Ruby. Apparently, Ruby’s methodological approach in life, ranging from arranging furniture to sharing a bathroom, was too demanding for Antonio. Same applied to Rosalind.
But I wish I hadn’t stripped Rosalind and Maxwell any opportunities outside of family reunions to hang out with each other arbitrarily. They have a good relationship, but Maxwell said he wished I had let him phone or invite Rosalind more often.
It was just that… It had always been arduous for Ruby and I to tolerate family reunions. The bare minimum for the two of us to NOT have a fight for the sake of both kids. Except, we had still dragged our two different kids into our same pit.
A cycle of isolation. It’s a miracle that Rosalind is still on good terms with Maxwell, and they’re both hanging out on their own terms more often as adults.
“Mother's been uncooperative with treatment. She won’t ingest any of her prescription, unless it’s the correct amount she wants…” Rosalind sighed, while unlocking the entrance of Ruby’s ward. “I’ve visited her earlier. She repeatedly insisted she wants to see you. Might as well have you fulfill her wish, Uncle Max.”
And I entered, as much as how the weight was heavy in my heart.
Why did she eventually want to see me again?
—----------------------------------------------------------------
Lobsters are born with pinchers to protect themselves, right?
Both Ruby and I had been guarding ourselves from each other, that we ironically hurt ourselves and everyone around us.
Rosalind, Maxwell, Grace and Oliver… none of them deserved to be dragged into our overstayed feud from our youth.
Why had Ruby and I impulsively chosen the path of almost no return, quarreling and refusing to compromise for our own differences?
Was it because Dad, being one of those WWII dads, selected the option to bury his head in the sand, so Ruby could be his perfect oldest daughter, who eventually learned to follow what the adults requested from her ever so unfairly?
Was it because neither Ruby nor I was courageous enough to accept we had both been flawed individuals that had always been different from neurotypical people even in the 40s to 50s?
Frankly, I didn’t need to question her about anything. For we had come to a silent understanding, when I sat onto the chair next to her bed.
After some tense staring at each other, Ruby - who was disheveled and fatigued from her chronic illness - finally spoke what she had always desired to tell me.
“Max… I’m so sorry that I have been so harsh on you.”
“It’s okay. Neither of us knew better. Now our mistakes are in the past.”
“If only I had realized earlier, Rosalind wouldn’t be hating on me, Antonio wouldn’t have left me, and you… you wouldn’t have been justifiably mad at me for so long…”
“Sister. I shouldn’t be blocking you out when you need me. I should’ve just come back. Now, I won’t leave you anymore.”
“Yeah. I mean every word this time.”
“Really…?”
“I love you.” That was the last sentence I said to her.
And for once, she no longer said no.
“Yes, Max.”
—----------------------------------------------------------------
Wow, I really am the most emotional during this funeral?
My eyes feel sore. I must’ve been bawling the entire duration when Ruby’s casket was being lifted and laid to rest…
“Yeah Dad, everyone thought you had already, you know…” Maxwell pensively says to me.
I know that everyone really once believed I had denounced Ruby. But luckily, my tears have proven them wrong, and they sound glad to know that.
“It’s normal for others to think that way.” I reply melancholically to my son. “But in actuality, I’ve already shedded a massive dumbbell off my shoulder. Same with Ruby. She finally got the chance to say yes.”
Maxwell smiles. And I smile in return.
“You want to go on a fishing trip with Rosalind, my wife and kids, and the rest of our family?”
This time, I don’t want to have any more regrets like I had with Ruby. It’s time to cherish the remaining time I have with my family, no matter what differences we already have.
For we’re always a family.
“Yes, Maxwell.”
That’s all I need to make Maxwell satisfied.