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I remember the time, many years ago, when I realized my brother was a guardian angel in disguise; when my admiration for him fully took into affect.

We were at our babysitter's house one day before school, when I was in second grade, all of us kids were getting ready to make the three block trek to school, when a stray dog sauntered up the driveway and approached us, sniffing at us and licking our hands like normal dogs did. I remember seeing it start to chew on someone's bag, and when the owner, some boy I didn't know very well, ripped it out of the dog's mouth, it barked in disappointment, causing all of us to scatter within seconds.

For some reason, which I guess I will never know, the dog chose to chase me. Only seconds after we had all sprinted away, it had me pinned on the ground behind a parked car, wrestling me ino the dirt and mud. I was screaming, for obvious reasons, while the dog ripped at my clothing and dug its claws into my small body. In my short seven years, that was the scariest moment of my life. As a young child I didn't know any better, so I thought I was going to die; that this dog was going to tear me to shreds and I wasn't ever going to see my family or friends again.

But that's when Clay saved me. I'll remember it clearly as long as I live. There I was, lying on my back in the dirt and pine needles, the black lab towering over me as it attacked me, and I suddenly saw a head of light brown hair over the dog's head. Before I knew it, the animal had stepped off me, and I heard Clay's warning.

"Run!" he called to me. "Run!"

That was all I needed. I jumped off the ground, running towards the house as fast as my feet would carry me. Our babysitter's husband pulled me behind him, protectively hiding me. I didn't know what was happening at that point, where Clay was or where the dog had gone, but before I knew it, the animal was right in front of us, baring its teeth. After a few hits on the head with a large stick, our babysitter's husband had the dog subdued, and Clay appeared next to me, breathing hard with a triumphant smile on his face.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Until then, I hadn't taken the time to even think about myself, but when I looked down at my shirt, torn into shards, and the huge claw marks on my arms and stomach, tears welled up in my eyes. Before I even had time to react, our babysitter's husband led us into the house and sat us down at the kitchen table. He called the Animal Control Center while our babysitter started to clean my cuts, comforting me as well as she could.

Clay sat by me the whole time, trying to keep my mind off of how much I was hurting while our babysitter tried to bandage Clay's hand. He'd cut it up pretty bad while he wrestled the dog away from me, but I didn't see any of it. I didn't find out until a few days later, but apparently Clay had physically pulled the dog off of me, then taunted and teased it until he had a chance to escape himself. As small as that sounds, this was a ten-year-old boy who pulled this off, and that black lab was twice his size, if not more.

That day, after we had both been to the doctor for our injuries, we were finally brought back together. I had received an insane amount of shots for rabies and a painful tetanus, while Clay received thirteen stitches to repair the damage the dog had done to his hand.

I remember when I first saw him, sitting next to my mom, when I walked into the waiting room with the doctor, and I realized the reason my brother's hand was wrapped in bandages and arm was in a sling was because he had protected me. He had come to my rescue without even a thought towards his own personal safety. The situation could have easily turned against him worse than it had, but he knew that I was in trouble, and he did the only thing he could think of. He saved me.

And from that day on, I knew that my older brother would always be by my side whenever I needed him, just like he was that day so long ago. He would always be looking out for me; whether I could see him or not, I knew he'd always be there.