I Swear You Will Be Fine

I think it’s quite apparent that as a family, we’re very nerdy. We care about exams massively. Nightmares about papers are normal. I know that I take it to a different level – before Josh, I had easily cried more about exams than anything else in my life. Don’t worry, Josh has definitely taken the cake now.

We had a lot of rituals before exams. We had to wish each other all the best before every paper. Even if our grandparents had rung to wish us the night before, they would wake up at 6 something AM to wish us again. Mum would put the cross for each of us before we left the house. We say a small prayer before the paper, and as soon as it’s over, you call Mum and send a text to the family group chat. We’ve been doing this since PSLE days. It may sound extreme, but it’s how we operated. Josh and I were convinced that exams were the best way to prove our superiority (humility is not a family trait).

One of my favourite stories about Josh is when he got his PSLE results. I went with my parents and Josh to his primary school, and honestly, we were shitting ourselves. While I was nerdy enough to study diligently, Josh needed to be supervised. Of course, this was fair enough for a 12-year-old child, but this was also when the problems with my Dad had started. We knew it was taking a toll on Josh and were terrified what it would do to his secondary school options.

His primary school had cordoned off all the students to the front half of the hall, and family members watched nervously from the back. I still remember Josh collecting his results, and instead of running back towards us, clutching his head and pacing up and down. We were so worried. After about two minutes, he finally comes back and said something like ‘ACS, it is’. We were so, so proud. It had been such an awful, horrible two years and Josh was so young. Some part of us expected the exams to go badly. And yet, he managed to beat me.

A few days before he passed, Josh got his exam results from university. He got the results at night and had done ridiculously well. I had friends over for dinner, so I went to congratulate him the next morning. He didn’t look well, so I asked why he wasn’t happy? And he replied, ‘Who cares?’. I was so irritated at him. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just be happy and celebrate his results with us. I hate myself for it now. I don’t know why I didn’t register that this was a massively red flag. Instead, I got angry at him for something he couldn’t control.

I have my fifth year med school exams this week. Supposedly, they’re the hardest exams we’ll face in university. Josh wished me good luck for every exam I ever sat. Even when I moved, he would text me ‘GL’ (good luck). One of my last messages to him is wishing him good luck for his exams. I wish he could wish me good luck again. I don’t know how many exams I’ll have to do where he can’t. I can totally imagine Josh saying ‘So you want me around just for this?’

It feels so wrong, going into exams without having a phone call or message from Josh. But I also know, I’m lucky. Because I got 20 years worth of phone calls and text messages wishing me good luck from my brother.