I was born into this world as a playmate for my brother, Jesse. We did everything together from the moment I was born. Where he went, I would go. Where I went, he would go.

We spent hours upon hours together outside, making forts in the pine trees just past the corral where Dad trained horses. Trying to dodge every leaf waiting to be crunched, we slowly walked with BB guns. We were afraid that any noise would scare a squirrel or rabbit.

Jesse and I had water gun fights in our front yard and ended up soaking wet every time. We walked into the house only to be given towels and told to go drip-dry outside. Almost every night, we would curl up in a blanket together and watch “America’s Funniest Home Videos” on the living room floor. It always ended with both of us falling asleep and being carried upstairs to bed by our dad.

Jesse and I loved to go camping. We would spend all day in the river making sand castles and mud pies. Sometimes there would be tears when one of us decided to start a mud fight. I was almost always the one who shed the tears.

Together, Jesse and I have ventured a lot farther since those family camp­outs. A few summers ago we went on a week-long 50-mile hike to the top of Mount Fremont. We were constantly pushing each other to keep going on the dirt trails, ending each day in our tent complaining of bug bites and sore feet. When we reached the top, we sat thousands of feet above where we began, taking everything in – the miles and miles of land that stretched farther than the eye could see, the curve of the Earth along the horizon, and the clouds that seemed just inches away.

I remember playing football with Jesse his senior year. I was only a freshman, and therefore basically a practice dummy for the varsity team. Sometimes Jesse would have to block me, and I would go flying. He never went easy on me. When I hit the ground hard, my helmet cracking against the cold earth, he was always there to help me up. He raised me to my feet effortlessly, shot me a quick smile, and jogged back to do it again.

In Memorial Stadium that year at the state championship, he played his heart out. He gave all he had, but the game didn’t turn out in our favor. At the end, he came off the field dripping with sweat and tears. He hugged me, crying, knowing that he would never play football again. All I could do was suffer with him.

After Jesse’s senior year, it was time for college. He spent the summer working and hanging out with me at night. Then the long-awaited day came, and I sat at the dining room table watching him carry load after load to his pickup. My family followed him to his truck, where we each gave him a hug and said good-bye. Jesse had Mom take a picture of the two of us to put on Facebook and say what a great brother I am. He gave me one last hug, got in his truck, and drove away.

My family stood in the driveway, waving, until he turned the corner. When I got back into the house, I looked around. There was the living room, where Jesse and I had wrestled countless times and played Monopoly when we were lucky enough to have a snow day. I saw the piano that I used to play while Jesse strummed his guitar. Sometimes we would sit there for hours, trying to perfect a song for Dad’s birthday.

I saw the table where my family ate together almost every night. After football practice, Jesse and I would eat and then do homework side by side. Afterwards, we’d go downstairs to play Xbox together. My eyes drifted to the window, and I saw the trampoline in the back yard. I remembered how often Jesse and I had jumped and wrestled on it. Sometimes, in winter, we had so many layers on that it didn’t hurt when we landed on each other. In summer, we put a sprinkler under the trampoline to spray us as we bounced. I remembered how often we would lie there at night, looking at the stars and talking about girls.

I took a few steps into the dining room and stood there, not knowing what to do. For my whole life I had had one person who was always ready to do something, anything, with me. Now he was speeding away to a new world, a new stage in life, without me. It was then that I realized my playmate was gone.