My brother, my superhero: What a real man looks like

"Being a mother is not easy. If it were easy, fathers would do it." Such a great line from "The Golden Girls," that classic sitcom I love. Everyone gets what the character Dorothy Zbornak, played by Bea Arthur, was saying, so we all laugh. As a society, mothers are typically given the greater accolades for all they do. We love our dads, but it's just not the same. As Father's Day approaches, however, I am compelled to speak out about one of my brothers, who is a fairly new father, a good one at that, and an even better man. I've never been much into superheroes, but Alex is mine.

Although this isn't technically a tribute to my dad, in a way it is. I believe my father, John Ross Jr., would approve. I believe that in honoring my brother, I also honor my father, who is no longer with us. Alex might more accurately be called my step-brother or some might say half-brother or some other expression. Whatever. For most of my life, he's simply been my brother. My father loved his mother and loved him also. So I cut through all the terminology parsing and refer to him as he is: my brother.

I applaud him today because through him, during the past many, many months, I have seen up close that he's not that 13-year-old and I that all-knowing 23-year old adult. Getting to know someone as an adult is worlds apart from knowing him as the child he once was. In fact, it's on a whole 'nother planet. Alex is a grown man doing grown man things.

He'll be the first to acknowledge that he's made mistakes. There were too many years when he wasn't there, wasn't around. Too many times he didn't make the best decisions. Who has? But there are times when people who are "there" aren't really "there," either, so as Jesus would say, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Not one of us qualifies.

Alex is a single father raising a 4-year-old alone -- a spirited 4-year-old at that. I've seen him with his son. I've heard him speak of his love for his son. I've felt the commitment he has to him. I know it's not easy, but easy has nothing to do with anything. Everything worthwhile has some measure of hard. Easy is not an option.

In some very difficult, long months, Alex has done what real men do. I've seen him step up in ways most couldn't, and even more wouldn't, as he has been a caregiver in my family in a situation that has been almost unfathomable. I've watched him, exhausted, with hardly any sleep, love and provide: from cooking to purchasing food to shopping to doctors' appointments to comforting to rescuing. I've seen him hold an elderly woman who woke out of sleep crying and trembling, heard him say, "Just hold me if you have to. It's okay. I'm here." I've been on video chats in the middle of the night during moments when he was able to let his own tears fall as we encouraged one another. And as he's taken care of her, I've witnessed many times when she relaxed and took comfort. I've observed her light up when his son came into the room and heard her cry when he had a stomachache and was screaming in pain; she remembered the pain she'd been through with her own stomach issues and surgeries.

I honor my brother as a man and as a father. While his son, Little Alex, had to sacrifice because Daddy's attention could not focus totally on him, as he witnessed things even many adults could not handle as Alex cared for someone else, the comfort I had was knowing that Alex was modeling empathy and compassion, and, more than the other mental pictures, I trust that is what he will remember -- a father who didn't have to do what he's been doing, didn't have to be there as he was, didn't have to risk both their lives going back and forth in New York City's coronavirus hotspot -- but he did. Here's a grown man who was finally in the stage of his life where there was a great turnaround, and he has the means to take care of himself and his son, do his own thing, has his own resources -- and willingly used those resources for another, even as I begged him not to deplete them.

In the earlier years of my brother's life, through poor decisions that threatened to turn him into someone he really was not, he always had a good heart, and life has a way of sharpening the real you if you let it. Not everyone lets it. Unfortunately, not everyone will be so forgiving. In fact, the opposite is often the case. But when the heart is right, real men push forward anyway because when you know your purpose, you rail against being sidetracked. You hurt, but you persevere. And one would be hard-pressed to hear Alex speak bad of someone, even when he has a reason to.

With all he has done, he doesn't look for credit for anything -- doesn't want it, fights back against it. And what I've described barely scratches the surface. You'd be blown away if I started listing things that would be difficult even for women, perhaps much to the surprise of Dorothy Zbornak.

I've always loved my brother; we've had a bond since we were much younger. But it's one thing to love a person and another thing altogether to respect him. I respect him as a person; as a brother; yes, as a father -- but even more as a man. I couldn't let this Father's Day go by without paying tribute to a dad who truly deserves it. I pray his son always knows how blessed he is to have the father he has. Superman who? My superhero is my brother. Thank you, Alex, for everything.

Adrienne Ross is owner of Adrienne Ross Communications and a former Southeast Missourian editorial board member.