Not a sibling but my nephew. He's 21 years old, yet mentally equivalent to a baby. He can't walk, can't talk, can't live without 24x7 care.

His food must be pureed into a consistency of baby food.

He wears diapers. Always has, he has no bowel or bladder control.

He's vocal in the form of grunts, groans and crying. He also has favorite TV shows. Any NASCAR race, for whatever reason, sends him into fits of laughter. He often calms down when The Weather Channel is on. Nobody knows why, these are just the things that affect him and the ways he is affected.

My sister has a nurse every day, for four hours a day, to help with his personal care. He has grown to be about the size of your average 13 year old boy. She can no longer transfer him from bath to bed, etc. so the nurse helps with those activities.

He recently had a serious accident at his day program in which a CNA was negligent in locking his wheel chair. She turned away for a moment and he rolled down a curb, falling face first into the concrete sidewalk. The wheelchair landing on top of him. 911 was called, he ended up in the hospital for a week over Christmas, having to have I don't even know how many stitches put in. He broke several bones in his face so different screws were placed. The interesting thing about this was when I went to visit him I felt so bad for him. But he was just happy to hear my voice.

I don't know how a handicapped person experiences pain but I like to think that he didn't experience the pain from literally breaking his face the same as I would. I hope so.

What have I learned from having him in my life? This sounds so cheesy but I wish I could find ultimate happiness in the smallest things like he does. When I'm sad, turning on the weather channel would make me smile and laugh, ya know?

Worst thing? The toll his care taking has had on my sister. I hate the sacrifices she has had to make in order to take care of him. But she has never entertained the idea of putting him in a 24 hour care facility. Not even once.