Dayton

            Dayton Bo Stevenson was a born October 14^th, 1975, and was the youngest of 6 children. I, being his oldest sibling, remember everything about him from the time he was born, until where he is now. This story really starts though when Dayton was five. As a child Dayton was one of the cutest kids you had ever seen. He had blonde hair, with a bowl haircut, a scrawny little body that made him look like he never ate, and a smile that could melt any human being on the planet. Everybody loved Dayton. Dayton was one of those kids that never cried, hardly ever needed to be disciplined, and just loved to make people smile.  He also loved to ask a TON of questions, like most normal five year olds do, and try to be included in things that were above his level.

            Now, we were all home schooled by my Mom, so we were around each other 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Looking back now I see how lucky we were, but at the time it was very easy to get tired of each other. So, while we would be doing school, Dayton would usually have to entertain himself, watch movies, play legos, etc. He was fine with that for the most part, but there would be times when he would get bored. When that would happen he would often come to one of his siblings, including me, and try to get us to do something with him. Once and a while, if I wasn’t very busy, I would very unenthusiastically doing something with him for two minutes, almost as if I were trying to reach a quota. Now, when Dayton was only three or four, that wasn’t a problem, but as he got older, he also got smarter and more sensitive. He began to be able to realize when we were blocking him out, or weren’t really interested when playing games with him, or started ignoring his silly questions. After all, we had more important stuff to do then spend time with our little brother.

            As the months flew by Dayton began to interact less and less with his older siblings, which mainly included my two brothers and I. Mostly because our two sisters were much more giving of their time towards him, must have something to do with their motherly instinct. I was too young and naïve to notice at the time, but Dayton pretty much stopped caring if we gave him any attention at all. He would be polite towards us, but as he got older he began drifting away from us. I just figured it was him maturing and that we would still be best buds once he grew up and became more fun to hangout with and talk to.

            So, off to college I went, and both of my brothers followed, while Dayton stayed behind and made his way through high school. As he made friends he began to care less and less about talking to our parents or myself. He would be cordial towards me, but he began to feel less and less like my brother. My parents began to express concerns about his friends, some of the places he was going, and things he was doing. My parents would try to talk to him about it or ask him questions but he would always just avoid their questions. Knowing that what he was doing upsetting my parents, I decided to try and be the noble older brother and talk some sense into him. What I found out though was that Dayton had no respect for me, he didn’t see me as someone he looked up to, I no longer held any significance in his life.

            One would think that finding something like this out would be very hard for me to handle emotionally. Although instead of realizing my mistakes, I let my pride get in the way. I convinced myself that if that’s the way he looked at it then that’s the way he was going to get it, I hadn’t done anything wrong, he was just being dramatic. This is what I told myself, so I kept living my life, while Dayton kept messing up his.

            Time continued to pass and Dayton married and divorced, married and divorced, etc. His first wife gained full custody of the kids and Dayton turned to alcohol to deal with his grief. Dayton was now completely void of the little five-year old blonde boy that was naïve, always happy, and close with his family. He talked only to our sister and that was usually to ask for money or help, he was always angry and depressed, bottom line was, he had lost his will to live.

            On December 8^th 2008, at the age of 33, Dayton took his own life. He didn’t even bother to leave a note, because there was no one here on this earth that he cared about. As I stood there at his burial it began to hit me. All those times as a teenager when I was too busy, the times when I let my pride get in the way of realizing I was wrong, the times when I decided what I wanted to do was more important than my little brother. My eyes filled with tears of regret. It was too late and there was nothing I could do now. What had started out as a few selfish acts had become a lifestyle and in a round about way, helped ruined a young man’s life. Then, while I was standing there mourning and wishing I could do everything over again, I started to hear a faint ringing, so I turned to see if my wife had noticed it, she didn’t seem to hear it. It started to grow louder and louder but only I seemed to hear it.             The next thing I know, I open my eyes to my alarm clock ringing. As my eyes begin to adjust I realize I’m back in the house I grew up in as a teenager. I slowly stumble out of bed, thinking only about finding my siblings. As I get to the doorway of Dayton’s old room, I see a little blonde boy, sound asleep in his bed. Once again tears fill my eyes, this time though out of joy, because I realize that it had all been a dream. There, in the bed in front of me was once again the little naïve boy that I knew and loved so much. Suddenly I didn’t remember anything I had planned on doing that day, all I could think about was spending time with my siblings and showing them how much they mean to me. As Dayton began to wake he looked at me and gave me his adorable little smile as asked if it was time to wake up. I couldn’t even respond, so I just went over, pulled out his favorite game, and started to set it up. His face lit up as he jumped out of bed and raced over to set up his pieces, and I just sat there, thanking the Lord for reminding me of where my priorities should be.