# Theo

Theo ranks - with no doubt - in the top 3 in every aspect. He belongs to the Top 3 of everything. Of the smartest people I know as well as the best looking people. The Top 3 of the funniest people I know and he is definitely in the Top 3 of my favourite people ever. Everything I know, I learned from Theo. He has been a significant influence on my life, teaching me more than I can recount. And even though he didn´t teach me how to walk, he was there at every step. As my older brother he had no other choice than to be my hero, my idol. And for a very long time this wouldn´t change.

When I was a kid, he was the one who looked after me and showed me his world. He taught me how to ride a bike, to rollerblade and eat with chopsticks. As I became a Teenager this would get even more intense. Now he would teach me how to smuggle a whole bottle of wine into the club or how to steal glasses from the same club. He´d take me to parties where all of the older, cool kids were and he would still try to look after me. Of course Theos version of “looking after someone” involved about half an hour of walking around and telling everyone “This is my sister, so watch out.” Followed by hours where I couldn’t find him anymore.

When we moved to Vienna, we saw each other every week. He helped me with my University studies and I helped him become more sensitive to women. It seemed to work, as shortly after he became a father. From the very first second, I saw his baby, it was my favourite human being, creating a new Top 3. But Theo was and still is one of my heroes even when times came, where I saw the villain in him. When our father died, Theo took a drastic turn to be the worst version of him. I´ve known Theo for 25 years and I´ve witnessed how he reacts to different situations. He´s always been someone who wears his emotions on his sleeve, with no filter. So this was not new to me, but our whole lives nothing so brutal happened to us, as a parent dying. So, to be honest I was surprised at how mean Theo could be, even to me, the little sister he'd always looked out for. There wasn't a day when I could have a normal conversation with him. He'd call me and unleash his anger for things that weren't my fault. Theo had always been a screamer, a hot-head. It was nothing new for me to wait five Minutes until he calmed down and while he was mad, tell him that he was absolutely right. I can do this until a certain point, but that year, he called me almost weekly, making me cry with his unfair anger towards me and our older brother. One summer day I was just enyoing the time away from the troubles at home in Greece when he called me. He was so upset about a couch that we didn´t bring to the recycling station that he said, he didn’t want to spent Christmas or any other holiday with us anymore. Even though I knew it was just his first reaction and he loves me more than anyone else, it hurt. He may seem like a lunatic now, but considering this exceptional situation, we understood him a little bit. But it seemed like he didn’t understand us even a tiny bit.

Theo took all his anger and his grief and transform it into… more anger. Heis this kind of person who feels stronger when he is angry. He just couldn’t be honest to himself, that he is grieving about his father. But it wasn't me or my other brother who had caused this misery. As we were still waiting for the autopsy report, nobody knew who caused this. For almost a year I tried to avoid him and it felt as if I had not only lost a father but also another father-figure, my brother. I found myself shedding the same amount of tears for a brother that lost his mind as a father that I undoubtly lost. From one day to another my hero became the anti-hero. In times, when I needed him most.

After a year of being annoyed by each other, hate each other, but also love each other more than ever, things began to calm down. We never really talked about this year of and he never apologized but at least I learned a lot more about my brother. Like many children or younger siblings, I idolized him for years just to find out that - like everyone else - he has his own flaws. Very big and annoying flaws. I saw him struggle with his emotions and still trying to make the best of it. Classic Theo, he would scream and ten minutes later we would sit around reminiscing about the good old times. Shortly after the death of our father one thing changed about Theo for good: he knows. He knows he has anger issues. He knows that he is a hothead, who doesn’t think about what he is going to say. And he knows that he hurts people with it. He knows all that and he wants to change it. For his son and his little daughter, and I know, also for me.

One evening we were sitting in a finca in Spain waiting for our brother Jakob to arrive. After three beers and fifty cigarettes, he messaged us that his flight would be delayed by 3 hours, and we would have to pick him up at 2 a.m. Even though I thought I could still drive safely since I wasn't drunk, I didn't want to. Theo felt the same way “It´s our holiday too, he should take a taxi.” When I texted this to Jakob he was furious and tried to make us feel bad for it. A common strategy in my family. A strategy that seems to work as I tend to feel guilty about things I shouldn't. I got this from my mom, but let´s focus on Theo, who has absolutely nothing from my mom. We were sitting in the Spanish august heat, playing a typical Austrian card game, with me still feeling guilty about the pick-up situation, when Theo sensed, that I feel bad. (This was also new – he sensed something? Well done, Theo) I looked at him while taking another cigarette. Theo simply clicked his tongue as a “stop it” and replied “Look, its a one hour drive to the airport. It´s his problem. I won't make his problem mine unless we caused it. And we didn´t.” If only I had thought about that year when Theo was getting on my last nerves. I can only imagine how he would have reacted back then. He was clearly trying to protect himself but by protecting yourself, its often the others who suffer. Yet, rather the others suffer than me, right? This must also be what Theo thinks. But I can never know. All I know is that my brother struggles with his emotions, and that this is not my burden to bear. I won´t let the problems of a 33-year-old man become my own, unless I caused it. Even if he is in my Top 3.