Big Families

When I think of family, I think of a large group of people who are all connected by blood and marriage, and who are all close to each other, love, laugh and support each other. For me, I have loved having a large family. I have three siblings, who I am very close to. Thought two of my siblings are half, because my older sister and brother came from a different mother than my younger sister and I, I do not say that they are, because to me they aren’t only half there, or only half love me, they are my whole siblings.
I treat all my siblings the same and that is because my parents taught us too, they never treated us differently, we were all equal. I was as close to my older sister as any other younger sister to an older sister, if not closer. My older sister and brother came to our house every other weekend, due to custody. However, when my sister was there and I was just a baby, she was the one who would wake up in the middle of the night and carry me around when I cried. She was so excited when she learned that my mother was pregnant, and knew that she could not wait until she have a younger sister to take care of. The bond between my older sister, Candice, and I has always been crazy strong ever since.
When I was a young child I grew to become inseparable from Candice. She used to tell me how annoying it was sometimes when she had to sneak out of the house if she wanted to play with her friends, because if I saw her leaving I would want to go with her. It was also very hard for me to understand the concept when my sister and brother had to leave after only being there a few days, every other weekend. Again, my sister, brother and dad would all have to sneak out of the house to take them home. My mom told me a story of how one time when I was young, they had all snuck out of the house to take them back to their mom’s house, and when I realized that my sister wasn’t around I went and checked behind the couch for my older sister, which was the spot she had always hid in when we played hide-and-go-seek.
Eventually I learned to understand that this is how things were, and so I started going with my dad to drop off my older sister and brother. I had a ritual cry after we dropped them off and I would watch out the back window of our blue mini-van until I could no longer see their house. My dad would then stop by the local convenient store and he would let me get candy, however he made me promise not to tell my mom. My dad felt bad that I was so upset and so he would always let me get whatever candy I wanted and since my mom did not usually let me eat candy it was a very special treat that I always looked forward too.
These moments and long trips back from dropping off my older siblings were what started me and my father’s relationship. However me and my dad did not start to get to close until I my later years when I started to grow into my own person, which just so happened to be a female microcosm of my dad. We loved sports, and loved to be as crazy as possible. I also inherited my dad’s prankster reputation. Every Sunday and Monday nights it was us in front of the TV, watching football. My dad said there was no reason for him to yell at the TV anymore because I had taken that over. My dad was also my softball coach and together we won two championships and then afterwards we would go in our basement and rock out to “We Are the Champions” by Queen. I would share stories of the pranks I played on people at my school and he would share stories of the pranks he used to play in his younger years.
When I was three my younger sister, April, was born. The first time I saw her was when she was in the hospital my mom said that when my dad had brought me in I looked at my mom holding my baby sister and asked “Where is she?” my mom responded with “Right here.” Apparently I thought she was going to be a lot bigger. My grandmother described my relationship to my younger sister, at this age, as one to a pet. One time I called my grandmother up and asked her if she wanted to come pet the new baby. My relationship to my sister did not change much. We did not get along ever, I hated the fact that she stole away my attention, which made me constantly fight for the attention in the oddest ways. We fought like no other, and I loved that I could intimidate her, well that was until she grew to be taller than me.
Last year was the first year April and I grew to be close. I found her hanging out in my room a lot more and me not having the urge to kick her out. She was a freshmen in high school and I a senior. So she came to me for advice a lot, she had many of the same teachers I had once had, she thanked me later for the reputation I left her. I helped her with boys and friends, and so when it came time to drop me off at Virginia Tech I found her goodbye the hardest. I did not want to leave her. I realized then that I had never once really been without her, though we fought so much, she was always there if I ever wanted someone to talk to or play with.
There are many other special bonds I share with each member of my family, which is why I love having one. I always know that I have a lot of people at home who all know me well, care for me, and will do anything for me. I love knowing that, and so I plan on having myself a big family when I get older so that my kids get to experience this same feeling.