I never thought that family was of any importance. To me, and to many others, quality time spent with family could have been time spent talking with friends or watching a movie. Yet there are certain moments when spending time with your family is actually important. Most teenagers usually do not get to witness such a moment. I was lucky.

My brother was there at 3:15 p.m. Sunday when I stepped through the threshold. It wasn’t so much what I had done to get there—it was what happened in that moment.

We weren’t friends—in fact, we were as far apart as two people living together could be. Even when we had the same classes, we barely acknowledged each other. The only thing he cared about was academics. He knew every biology term, from biochemistry to genetics.

Not surprisingly, my brother wants to get into a good college—he prefers an Ivy League school, but he said that Stanford would do. He and 40,000 other students.

He had to work, study and plan. He had to hustle and be happy doing it. In his case, he had to love academics and school more than anything else. Oh, and he had to give up playing any games. He even stopped talking to me on a regular basis.

For him, all his hard work came down to one thing—the Science Olympiad. He spent the three weeks before the competition studying, absorbing and memorizing what I thought was useless information. The contest started on a Saturday morning. I stayed at home, writing an article for the paper—after all, it didn’t matter to me if he won or lost. I was in the middle of my work when my dad came back from the competition.

“Are you done writing?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.“

“Even if you aren’t done, you’re coming along.”

And so my dad dragged me there to watch the end of the competition. I stuck with it—I didn’t have much choice. But now I’m glad I did.

I arrived at the beginning of the awards ceremony, when the guy at the podium was still talking. I listened with little or no enthusiasm, searching the small crowd. After a while, I spotted him. Every time the speaker announced a winner, my brother seemed to fidget more and more. I listened to event after event, student after student. My brother soon seemed to give up in despair. I continued to watch—his composure continued to break down, and he seemed to be saying, “I’m not going to win anything.”

Then I did something I have never done, and never thought I would do, in front of him. I prayed openly, asking that his hard work pay off. He continued to watch the podium.

The announcer said that they would be moving on to the Fermi Questions competition. I knew that was the last one my brother had participated in.

“Here we go,” I thought to myself.

He still didn’t believe.

Then a voice from the podium in the front of the room said the words that we will never forget: “First place goes to Arthur Lee and Thomas Bao, from Gunn High School.”

What happened next was the greatest feeling of pure joy I have ever known—partly because I wasn’t sure it would happen. But also because, for the first time, I was proud that he was indeed my brother.