Love and Resilience: Exploring 'Brother, Do You Love Me' by Reuben and Manni Coe
Favourite Quote:
Fear inhabits all of us at some point in our lives. It may be a temporary feeling that washes over us, but it can also enter the very fibre of your being. Nobody ever invites it, fear barges in. ….
Fear was part of Reuben. It had forced its way in and was burrowing inside, changing his embrace, making his eyes glaze over, altering his posture. In the same room, sat on his bed looking at the remnants of his life with us at The Corner, I didn’t know how to find my way back to him.
BOOK RATING:
5 out of 5
My Thoughts,
Brother Do You Love Me is a book on brotherly love in the face of disability and independent living, and it pushes you to understand the UK care system (written from the UK perspective). However, the struggles found in the UK can be found elsewhere in the world. It is not a disability book that laments the lack of protection for disability rights; it is a story that shows how a person with Down syndrome still has hopes, dreams, and desires and a family that wants the best for their brother/son. The book details the right to independent living, but it's more about how you achieve that for the system and the families who need support and care. For those who are not aware, independent living is "a movement to enable persons with disabilities to have a choice over where, how and with whom they live, just like anybody else, and not to be separated from their community." https://www.edf-feph.org/independent-living-and-de-institutionalisation-policy/
The story follows two brothers. One brother, Reuben, who was living in a home for adults with learning disabilities, sent a heartbreaking message that pushed his brother Manni not only to rescue him but also to help his brother Reuben thrive and live for himself. The reader goes along in the journey of how these two brothers are bonded in more than blood and love; they are bonded in a friendship that cannot be replicated but only becomes more profound as the years go by. We follow Manni trying to find a place in the world for both of them to exist in a way that is entirely healthy and long-term, that they are brothers, not as a respective carer and a person with a disability. It is a book of strength, resilience and change. Watching the two brothers go through their journeys while exploring the new chapters of their shared journey was quite emotional. Reuben explains his side of the story through his drawings incorporated into the book - showing his thoughts and feelings (like his love for Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or the Lion King) and his way of communicating with the outside world.
As a person who has a disability, it is pretty interesting to see the perspective of wanting the best interest in the eyes of the carer and what emotions they go through from enjoying the best but also feeling tired of the constant around-the-clock care without any time for themselves and guilt that they think for just having that desire to want their own lives. It shows that the care system of independent living needs only to ensure that those with disabilities can live their own lives with dignity. Still, it also helps alleviate concerns and worries without giving the families any further guilt.
The whole point of independent living is that level that allows you to be independent and do the things that should go to work, go to school, go to university, and get married. Independent living isn't something that is just for disabilities; it should be universal because you can get a disability when you are young and also when you are old. Doesn't everyone have a right to live the life they want without fear or judgment from others?
