When I think back to my childhood, I can say that he was always there for me. My older brother Artur, is twelve years older than me, but this doesn’t matter. He is like my best friend. A role model in everything he does. His courage, honesty and success, makes me respect him. I don’t remember one day in my entire life, when I said something bad about him. When I need him, I know that I just need to call him, no matter what time it is and he will help me. I know that, because he is my brother and I would always do the same thing for him. That’s what family stands for.

I remember the day, when he went to the German military for the first time. He was 19 years old at the time. It was about 3:30 on a Thursday morning, way too early to wake up, I was laying in my bed and was sleeping. He came into my room, half asleep I noticed the light while he opened the door slowly. My brother carried me from my bed to his old room, with the blue cozy bed and four blue pillows, which he was going to leave in the next ten minutes. Half asleep on his arms was me, the 7 years old me. I woke up while he carried me to his cozy bed, his small TV was on too. A show was on, the only thing I noticed were the weird sounds from it. Finally waking up, I noticed what was going on.

He wanted to say goodbye, I didn’t want to say goodbye. Not now. Not yet. I wasn’t ready. I hugged him and smelled his light odor. I closed my eyes and tried to be strong, just for a second, but that was already too much for me. I didn’t want him to leave me alone here, I would be so lost without my soulmate. Without my brother and best friend. A tear was rolling down my right cheek and another one on the other side.

When I think back to the time when I was 7 years old, I remember that I connected the military straightaway with war, death and loosing people. Now I can say that it was probably too early in the morning and I was too young to understand that his intention wasn’t to leave us for a war, not yet. It was just for the military camp, where guys like my older brother practice everything for an actual war and live for weeks in the woods just to imitate a war, to be prepared.

He hugged me and I hugged him, like I was never going to see him again. He left me in his room, he probably thought I would just stay there and fall asleep again and he sneaked to the kitchen. I started crying into my pillow, tried to stay calm at the same time, but I couldn’t. I was so tired and sad at the same time. The only thing that rushed through my mind, was thinking of was my brother. It was my biggest and scariest nightmare, that something bad would happen to him. I heard him and my mother talking, her soft voice made it easy for me to listen to the words she said. I cared less about how tired I was, the time didn’t matter in that moment. The black and white clock in his room pointed at the numbers 3:34am. I heard no voices for a longer time period. Was he gone? That wasn’t possible, I didn’t even said goodbye! I jumped out of my bed to check what happened in the kitchen.

My mother was standing there in her blue pajama, with a large cup of coffee in her hands, while I was standing behind the edge of the shelf in the hall. Pressing myself against the raspy wallpaper. It was like I was hiding. I used to do that all the time, to scare my brother or my sister with a loud scream and a jump out of the edge, while I felt like a spy. This time this was definitely not my intention. I knew that they weren’t able to see me from their point of the room. Silence, that was all. My dad was there too, but nobody was speaking. Artur, my brother, stood next to the coffee machine. The machine broke the silence with its noisy, squeaky sound. My breaths got shorter and shorter, faster and faster. My skin under my green pajama turned to goose bumps, it wasn’t cold, but the dried tears all over my face gave me a weird feeling. Finally, I stepped out of my hiding place, all the eyes were focused on me. I remember that I was about to say something in this moment, but I didn’t.

I just stared at my older brother, in his military uniform, with his huge tan back over his shoulder and a backpack on his back. I just stared, nothing else.

“Are you really going to leave us now?” I asked. My eyes were filled with tears, “please promise, you will come back soon, please...”, I cried and hugged him, my tears made his green uniform shirt wet, but he didn’t care. He petted my long hair and stayed calm. Like always, he was the calm that solved a problem. “I promise, I’ll always be there for you.” He gave me a last hug and grabbed his black coffee cup, with milk and not too sweet coffee in it.

A green car full of guys, about my brothers age, was in front of our house. “I gotta’ go. Bye mom, bye dad, take care Wauwi’.” That was the weird nickname he called me all the time, but I was fine with it. He ran down the steps and greeted the waiting guys.

I saw him from the kitchen window and waved at him one last time. This was too much for my sleepy, 7 years old mind. What just happened? Was this his “goodbye” to our mother and our dad? I thought he would leave us for a really long time and who knows when or if somebody is coming back from a war? Nobody knows it. In my mind I sniffed a goodbye to him. The young me was confused and worried, my mom finally explained me what the situation really was like, so I was able to reassure and fall asleep again.

Three weeks later my brother came back, I was more than happy to have him back and that he didn’t leave us for a war.