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For
me, as I’ve said before, there wasn’t a moment of my life when Lalo wasn’t
around. He was always there. He was an eternally present existence, either near
or far, but always there. When we were children, he altered between savior,
hero, teacher, defender and torturer. I was one of his favorite playthings and
he loved to tease me. He also told me stories that I can still remember parts
of, even though I must have been around three or four when he told them to me. I
also remember he was one of my biggest fans when we were really small kids. One
time, when I was around four years old, he and my mother and I were all looking
through a coloring book. There was a bird on one of the pages and I remember saying,
“Bluebird!” Apparently, the caption
under the drawing was, in fact, Bluebird,
so Lalo immediately said, “Look!!! She can read!!!” He also saved one of my
eyes once. He kept telling my mother and father that he could see there was
something in my eye. Every time they’d look, there wasn’t anything there. He
kept insisting and insisting and was finally able to explain that they had to
look against the light; he was seeing the wing of an insect stuck to the eye.
The only way it could be seen was at an angle.
He
taught me how to curse (when I was about 5), how to tie my shoelaces (when I
was about seven), how to smoke (around 10), how to follow a football game
(around 15) and how to whistle by blowing out
instead of in (unbelievably, at around 20).
His
presence faded and strengthened alternatively as the six-year difference
between us acquired and lost importance throughout our lives. During my first
years, he was omnipresent. Apparently, he even became my interpreter when I
first began to babble because he seemed to be able understand my baby-talk. He
was definitely the leader in all things concerning what we were to play or
watch on TV and, years later, when my parents went out at night and he babysat,
he used to send me to the kitchen for different things by saying, “Slave! Get
me a glass of milk!” If I got angry and protested, he would threaten me by
saying he’d switch channels on whatever TV show we were watching. More or less
during that same time period he was taking judo lessons and explained carefully
that it was vitally important to learn how to fall correctly so you didn’t hurt
yourself. He kept “teaching” me how to fall by throwing me around the house as
much as he could. He played his records for me and introduced me to the music
of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jethro Tull and
Frank Zappa; later on he would also help make me an avid listener of Sting and Diana
Krall. He was also curiously generous at times when having a little sister must
have been a total drag; he took me to see Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy when
I was about 11 or 12. 
Different
people have told me how wonderful it is that I’ve written all I have about him;
that I’m a good sister for doing this, for talking about him the way I do. It
is no merit of mine; if he hadn’t been who he was, I wouldn’t have said the
things I have. He was more generous than anyone I’ve ever met, really and
truly. The world is a much sadder place without him and all the people who
never got to meet him lost out on something wonderful. He was kind and loving
and incredibly funny. I know his absence is something that I will always carry
with me, just like his presence was something constant and immovable in my life.
He
made me promise to write his book for him; I’ve done my best. I leave it now
hoping it is at least a tiny bit of what he would have wanted. In reality, I
have no way of expressing what I feel; how I long for him. But this is my
tribute; this is my love song to my brother, whom I shall forever miss.
Susana Olivares Bari