In Which My Big Little Brother is Awesome

I got the message late at night, returning to the hotel room after a long day wandering Berlin with the rest of my group. It was a post on my Facebook timeline from my brother.

hey, somebody said you're in Luxembourg or some obscure place in Europe. can you get me a sweet keychain while you're out? the last one you got me is slightly broken. try not to make it beer themed

I spent five minutes laughing and then answered, Haha yeah, it's some weird little country like that idk. Request noted! I was just wondering what I should get you. Karl's always hard to buy stuff for because he either a) isn't sure what he wants or b) wants something ridiculously expensive like a two-ton amp or $300 ear buds from some shady guy on Ebay. So I was happy to have a clear-cut gift goal in mind.

Unfortunately, key chains are stupidly hard to find. I mean, they're everywhere - I poked my head into a dozen tourist shops and stalls throughout Berlin and Dresden - but they were all hokey little things (usually beer-themed), brightly colored, or super cheap and bound to break before you even get your keys on the ring. It was with some desperation that I set out to find the perfect key chain in the tiny Alpine town of Obammergau, on our way to check out the infamous Neuschwanstein Castle.

It was terrible. I'd see one and think oh, that might work, and then I'd spend the next five minutes panicking over whether Karl would like it or not. He probably would have liked it regardless - come on, it's just a dumb key chain - but I wanted to make it really good. It was the only thing he'd asked for, surely I could make a little effort.

At last, in the last shop we stopped in, I found one: a little plastic cube with the coat of arms of King Ludwig II of Bavaria on the inside. It was a cheap version of those cool glass things with the laser etching on the inside, but it was unique and interesting (and under 2 euro), and I was desperate. I bought it. The shopkeeper put it in a little white bag, and I stuffed it into my satchel - it was so small and light it fit easily in the front pocket along with the tons of ticket scraps and battered travel guides I'd stuck in there - before dashing out into the heavy drizzle for the tour bus.

Back in Rochester a week later, I cheerfully went to my yellow satchel to unearth the key chain. I hadn't unpacked yet, but I'd cleaned out all the junk from my bags before leaving Munich, and I was confident it would be easy to find.

I was on my third go-through of the yellow satchel when I realized what had happened. That stupid white gift bag, shoved in with the paper scraps and collected junk of traveling, had been so light and unremarkable that I'd chucked it out back in Munich, in the midst of my cleaning flurry the night before we flew out. And now I was in Rochester, six daylight hours away, empty-handed, with my brother hanging eagerly in the doorway of my bedroom. (Okay, I'd brought him chocolate, but still - he'd really wanted a key chain).

But all was not lost. My lovely friend Ally, who'd been on the trip as well, was going to be spending more time in Germany before coming back home. I messaged her frantically, and she delivered with great aplomb. I went to welcome her back home as a surprise with our other friend Mel, and after a round of happy hugs and story-telling and lunch, she got into her boxes and handed me the most brilliant key chain I'd ever seen in my life: black and silver, Deutschland and Germany engraved on it, with the German coat of arms (an eagle) in heavy metal in the center. I was saved.

I have no memory of the night my brother was born - or of any of the next year or so, really. But there is video evidence. The first time I held him, Dad had taken me to visit Mom in the hospital. In the video, I'm swaddled in visitor's scrubs, sitting on the bed beside my (very tired) mother. Dad had probably just arranged baby Karl safely in my lap and gone to switch on the camera, because he's not in the frame. I look at Karl, who at this point is still an indistinguishable potato-y lump wrapped in blankets, and ask, "Mine?"

In the video, Mom laughs (a bit sarcastically) and says, "Sure, you can have it," thinking I meant the not-so-comfortable hospital bed. But I know the truth. I was talking about that potato-y lump, who would come to be known by many names: Karl Mendel Daningburg, Karl-ba-darl, and Karl get your hands off those cookies right now. And today, he is very far from being indistinguishable.

In fact, he's rather hard to miss. Right about now, if you happen to be on campus along with the multitudes of Bible quizzers that have descended upon it, you would see him standing head and shoulders above the crowds (literally - he has about a foot on my measly 5'3" status), sporting a manly beard with a generous splash of gray (from the Eastern European genes), and probably studying the New Testament out of his mind. If that isn't the best introduction to a dude you ever read, I don't know what is.

He's also unlike me in every way possible. I'm artistic, he's science- and math-minded. I'm short, he's really freaking tall. I'm smart, he's borderline genius. I'm sometimes amusing, usually on accident; he's witty nearly all the time. I left public high school to homeschool myself because the environment stressed me out, he loved high school and graduated ninth in his class. I played flute for six years in school, he plays alto and baritone saxophone, bass guitar, electric guitar, and drums. Give him a few years and he'll be his own jazz quintet, if he's not too busy inventing reverse acid rain and a cure for cancer in his sophomore year at college.

Basically, he's cool. Which is something I'm really not. I also think he's more mature than I was at his age - he always has been, which made growing up with him pretty fun and free of argumentation (mostly) - because I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go at eighteen. I stuck close to home for college, not just because it was cheap and convenient, but because I was afraid. I'm an introvert through and through, and going to a totally new place to study something I had no idea about was terrifying. Karl's lucky enough to have the brain and the enthusiasm for something more concrete than just "being artsy," which was all I could claim at the cusp of my college career.

But honestly, I'm glad he's better than me at just about everything. I'm glad he's smarter, handsomer, funnier, and better at making friends - because it's a kick in the butt for me when I'm stuck in the slow lane.

Lately, all he's been doing is studying for Bible Quizzing nationals. I was home for four days over the long Fourth of July weekend, and I helped him go through questions and unique words. He's got 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Titus, Jude, 1 and 2 Timothy, and 1,2, and 3 John practically completely memorized. He's got a fantastic head for memorizing this stuff, and he's been doing it day after day for weeks. He's actually going a little bit crazy with it - the other day, he said he woke up reciting Scripture. I don't think I've ever been that dedicated to anything.

Helping him was also motivating to me, though. Over the past ten days I've written over twenty thousand words toward a completely new novel. His college search kicked my butt into researching grad schools. In some ways, we're in completely different stages of life - he'll be starting college just as I finish up - but we're still in sync with one another, and I hope somehow I've helped him along as much as he's helped me.

He's coming out of the stage where being around family is uncool - not that he ever was in that stage, but the older he gets the more our camaraderie grows. The other day I creeped on his quizzing team a bit to give him that stupid German key chain, and as soon as he caught sight of me he did that thing where he throws his arms and his eyebrows in the air like he's totally surprised and psyched to see me. In the middle of their team leader giving a pep talk, he did that little flaily flip-out, and I felt on top of the world. Because that big, smart, hulking, bearded dude is my little brother, and what makes him really special to me is that he's mine, even after all this time.

Here's to you, Karl. You're a real bro.