I was four years old when I first saw the aftermath of a leprechaun. We had awakened from nap time when our teacher started panicking. Tiny footprints lined Saint Paul’s floors on Saint Patrick’s Day, supposedly from a mischievous leprechaun who had left us ecstatic preschoolers with golden coins and green milk. As the rest of the kids ran off to frolic outside for recess, I stayed inside, sitting still on my foldable yoga mat.
Who knew what the leprechaun would do next? I wondered. Destroy our school? Steal my money? Move in with me and become my brother until he eventually moves away for college?
Well, maybe I didn’t think the last one — because, as I was one week old when I first saw the ginger that would spend the next 17 years living with me, that Saint Patrick’s Day prank had already begun.
For me, Saint Patrick’s Day and my relationship with my brother have always been intertwined. For example, Saint Patrick’s Day celebrates Irish heritage, and I get my Irish blood from my dad’s side — but it seems like my brother Billy got all of his genes. It’s hard to believe we come from the same parents, with people thinking I’m Mexican or Filipino while deciding my brother must be, well, adopted.
Being ten shades paler than your younger brother, with hair that only matches your grandmother’s, can’t be easy. He has, however, never made it out to be that serious.
“My friends have joked that I’m adopted. My mom has joked that I’m adopted. It doesn’t really matter to me. I like having a unique part of me, I like being a redhead,” Billy said.
Mischievous, tiny and wealthy creatures from Irish folklore, leprechauns have become an important part of Saint Patrick’s Day as a symbol of luck — and my brother has been our family’s personal leprechaun. Amassing his great wealth from a part-time dairy lead job at Mariano’s and stealing money from me (yes, I will be acting like I never stole back from him), Billy has left his mark on my idea of Saint Patrick’s Day for the rest of my life.
Another crucial element to Saint Patrick’s Day is traditions. Like any holiday, there’s plenty of traditions for people like my brother and me to ruin, because who doesn’t love pinching people and drinking to your heart’s content? While I can gladly say we have never drank during the holiday, I think we both took the pinching custom as an excuse to pummel each other.
But even when it wasn’t Saint Patrick’s Day, nothing was too dangerous; our house felt like a war zone for most of our childhood. Chipping teeth and causing permanent hearing loss would lead us to be too exhausted to fight anymore, leaving times of peace before the inevitable next brawl. We would kick one another over who got the heater in the back seat of my parents’ car, only stopping once we were able to drive on our own. We’ve gotten in a few crashes — luckily, none on Saint Patrick’s Day, because with the increase of drinking during the holiday, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a collision in my $500 2006 Ford Focus wagon.
Unlike the previous traditions that make me frown on Saint Patrick’s Day, there is one Saint Patrick’s Day tradition I can get behind: green drinks. Stick with me here, but there hasn’t been a starting lineup quite like the Shamrock Shake, Green River and green milk since the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls. Mint just pairs so well with dairy, and Green River tastes exactly like Lime Jell-O. I could type on and on for hours about how good those drinks are, no matter how green my liver gets. It looks like people will find any reason to pour food dye into anything they can think of, including the Chicago River.
Originally done to clean up Chicago’s waterfronts, the city has been dying its river green for Saint Patrick’s Day ever since 1962. Billy used to go up to the city during the holiday weekend to see the river, and now he’s able to see it every year.
Billy is in college at Northeastern Illinois University and went to Prospect with me during my freshman year. He never drove me to school and we never acknowledged each other in the halls, though, so it’s not like it ever made a difference in our relationship.
Things changed once he moved out of the house. With Billy now living in an apartment in the city, I moved into his room and out of the once-office that I slept in, doubling my living space. I found the walls barren of the Cubs and Bears memorabilia he had put up, leaving dents and paint chips behind in what was once his room. It’s weird to think I’ll never again recognize him coming upstairs in the middle of the night by sound alone due to his excessive stomping.
You need to understand that we weren’t constantly enemies. Yes, we found moments of refuge in annoying our parents with recorders, even though we fought each other with those hunks of plastic right after; we had fun playing catch in the pool, even though it would be just for one of us to start drowning the other. And maybe, just maybe, we weren’t the nicest to one another growing up.
But that’s what brotherhood is all about, right?
It’s not the arguing or who ends up paying for shamrock shakes, nor his pot of gold full of my own money that defines our brotherhood. It’s how we grow, adapt and change together — that’s what makes the real difference. It’s because of that bond that I’ll be able to look back on the days where we lived together and know it made our house my home.
Maybe I’ve been too harsh on the holiday … and too harsh on my brother.
Billy has always been mischievous and loud, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. The leprechaun I met when I was four was frightening, but the one I lived with, not so much.
I think I can finally admit my brother isn’t the leprechaun I thought he was.
“There’s more of a mutual respect, the older we got,” Billy said. “We’re both more mature, and you don’t beat me with recorders anymore.”
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