A week ago, at the age of 15, my brother Diego was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and put on medication. And now the mysterious, intractable problems of his childhood are gone. The detentions, demerits, failing grades, and fits of frustration are gone. Have vanished. At least according to my mother, who called me to recount everything in breathless tones. When she described his improved work ethic and new sense of intellectual confidence, I cried. My brother is, for the lack of a better cliché, my favorite person in the world. He is a sweet, brilliant, fragile, brooding kid with an always sharp, sometimes absurd sense of humor. When our uncle’s dog was dying Diego stayed up all night with him, holding him and singing him hushed lullabies until the dog faded away in his arms. His encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and inherent understanding of its comedic elements have made him more popular than I could ever dream of being. And he is always in trouble. With my mother, with his frustrated teachers, with his tired coaches. For the last ten years not a week has gone by without my mother receiving a detention notice, an email from a concerned teacher, a complaint from his councilor, or a report card studded with Ds and Fs. And this had become the very center of his identity. Maureen Doyle has two kids: the one who got into Yale and the one who doesn’t do anything right. When I heard that his academic problems had evaporated I cried because now, finally, Maureen Doyle can have two kids: the one who got into Yale and the one with the penetrating humor and Mother-Teresa-sized heart, the one who writes cutting short stories and plays a mean game of ping pong, the one who for fifteen years was the most underrated human being I knew.
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