To Infinity and Beyond!
By: Steven Andrew Schultz
Ever since I could remember, I have always wanted to fly. Not airplane flying but stretch out your arm and just take off type of flying. It was 1995/1996 and the first Toy Story movie has been released by Pixar. Woody was my little brother’s favorite, he even dressed up as Woody for Halloween, but Buzz was my guy. I wanted to reach infinity and beyond, too. Before any toys of the movie hit toy store shelves, they arrived in kids meals at Burger King and so I had to go to get Buzz. His wings popped out just like the movie.
My dad took my brother Stuart and I to dinner so I could try to get my Buzz Lightyear action figure with real pop out wings action. My brother was hoping to get Woody. Well, as fate would have it, my kids’ meal came with the freaking slinky dog toy and my brother did not get Woody either. My brother got Buzz! I thought he would give him to me because he knew I wanted Buzz the most, but he refused. I offered to give him my fries in exchange and he turned it down. I upped the ante and offered him my milkshake as well, but he still denied me. Now Stuart was a savvy businessman since our first deal we ever made and brothers make a lot of deals. He was such a business shark that we would literally create written contracts so he could not renegotiate deals anymore. I knew I would have to make an offer he couldn’t refuse. I went big and offered him my whole life savings of $5, which was more than that whole kids meal cost. I thought for sure Buzz would be mine. But this guy didn’t budge and I was not happy.
Now little brothers can be annoying, but later that night, my little brother would test my patience. We shared bunk beds. Stuart occupied the top and I had the bottom bunk. Right before we turned off the lights to go to bed, he put his little arm down the top bunk and taunted the Buzz Lightyear toy by waving it in my face and then pressed the button and popped open the wings and before I could grab it, he pulled Buzz back up. I couldn’t believe he was actually sleeping with the thing. This taunting continued for the next couple nights where Stuart would wave Buzz in my face from the top bunk and pop his wings open and then pull him back up until a few nights later when that bird I told you about earlier decided to hatch inside my stomach.
I woke up in agony and I must have looked in such dire straits because my dad took me to the emergency room. I could barely stand. What made matters worse is that my mom was out of town in Colorado taking care of her sister who was literally on her deathbed after many years being ravaged by a disease called Lupus. My last memory before surgery was right before they wheeled me into the operating room they handed me the phone and it was my mom and she was crying. I don’t remember much of what she said except for something about don’t die and I didn’t even know I could die from surgery so I was freaked, but my first memory after waking up from surgery was now being in a hospital room and there were two chairs in the corner of the room next to the door. Sitting in one chair was my little brother Stuart, and to my dismay, sitting in the other chair was my mother. I guess she got on a flight that morning and flew from Colorado back to California and I would find out later, that midflight her baby sister, who I knew as Aunt Audrey, had died. It made me wonder when I heard my mom’s voice over the phone say don’t die that maybe she was really talking to her baby sister and not me.
I was still pretty drowsy from the medicine that knocks you out for surgery and soon noticed every movement hurt. Unlike the less invasive method used today to remove your appendix, back then they cut open your stomach, so recovery was longer and pain more severe. I would spend the next few days in the hospital measuring success based on how far down the hallways I could walk with my walker attached to the IV. But none of that would really bother me because of what my brother did for me.
While my first memory after waking up from surgery was the sight of my brother and mother, it was my second memory that has literally and figuratively stayed with me ever since. After they realized I was awake, my brother got out of his chair, walked over to my hospital bed, and without saying a word, opened up my clenched hand, reached into his pocket, pulled out Buzz Lightyear and put Buzz in my palm and with his little six-year-old hand, closed my ten-year-old hand around Buzz. Doing so accidently pressed Buzz’s wing button and the wings popped open inside our joined hands. That sound of Buzz’s wings popping open was once the noise of brotherly annoyance but was now the sound of the bonds of brotherhood.
My brother was too little to have the words to speak what he was feeling, but he knew his big brother was in trouble and hurting. Little brothers look up while big brothers lead up. But on that day, my little brother gave me my wings and showed me how to lead up. Through his actions he let me know what all great leaders express to their people: you’re not alone, you’re going to be okay, you matter to me, I see you, I value you, I got you, and most of all, I love you.
Over a quarter century later and that Buzz Lightyear toy from the Burger King kids meal still sits on my desk and the wings still pop open and make that beautiful sound. Every day I look at it and think of when one of the first major painful emergencies of my life knocked me down, the love of my little brother led me up by giving me my wings and I ask myself every day: who can I give wings to today?
