Being the oldest of four children is quite a responsibility and when the youngest has special needs, it creates a dynamic that is as complicated and spectacular as the light reflections from a prism. He loves all his sibling so fiercely, defends them valiantly as a matter of ownership in one moment, and then berates them the next. Not Amos though. His love for three year old Amos defies the imagination and is the closest I have seen to unconditional love.

Consider his words, "I will be able to help with Amos. Maybe he can share a really big house with me and my wife and something amazing will happen with Russell, like he will be a billionaire probably and can pay for everything. That is the best case scenario."

A fifth grader considering his role of caretaker to his youngest brother would have defied my imagination just a few years ago and to say it is a happy thought, would be a lie. What if he is the one that has to care for Amos? Maybe he will and maybe he won't. That far down the road is a distance that I can not yet see. I can acknowledge the what if of life though and the boy who knows what it is to love in such a way that it never feels like a sacrifice. The oldest brother loving the youngest brother, who has never once even said a rendition of his name. A smile can inflict the love that moves mountains as I have seen it myself.