The Way My Brother Loves

After my brother broke up with his girlfriend for the last time, he got a dog.
Maya came from the shelter.
She’s two years old and has no visible scars so he didn’t ask where she came from.
He didn’t want to hear the possibility that she had been hurt. He just knew he had, and he wanted to save her.
He promised himself that when he met her, if she didn’t like him he wouldn’t take her home.
He said it needed to feel right for both of them.
I think he learned that from the last girlfriend.
You cannot love someone who doesn’t want it.
My brother got a speeding ticket on his way to meet Maya.
Call it bad timing or random chance, but I think it’s indicative of his habit of rushing into the next phase of his life too quickly.
He’s been that way for years, never able to sit still.
He says he thinks he has ADHD, mom says he just needs to slow down and think about things.
Rushing into things too quickly
Is the way my brother loves.
Like a Hallmark Christmas movie.
Everyone else can see how it’s going to play out long before he realizes anything is even wrong.
The way my brother loves is like the sea during a storm.
It is deafening and messy and complete,
But not everyone likes the water,
Not everyone enjoys dancing in a torrential downpour.
Two weeks into his time with Maya, my brother brought her home to meet the family.
Trust me, we’ve never liked the girls he’s brought home quite as much as we liked Maya.
By the time they left a week later, she had torn up every chew toy in the house and had tried, and failed, to eat the cat at least three times.
He left with a cut across the bridge of his nose because, as it turns out, dogs don’t really understand how hugs works.
Maybe that’s the way he loves too,
With a sort of gentle aggression that only makes sense if you understand that the way he hugs and the way he wrestles are pretty much synonymous.