Heart Strings

I know there’s no such thing as a perfect family—mine sure as hell isn’t. I’m the middle child in a family of three. According to my mom, I used to be a wicked momma's girl and had to be with her all the time. I’m not sure when that changed and neither is she. My sister—who is three years older than I am—and I always had moments where we were best friends or worst enemies; no real in between. My brother—who is six years younger than I am—and I had a similar relationship, but more on the best friend side. After the birth of my second child, there started to be a huge drift in my family; more so, me from them. It got even bigger when I finally left her father and admitted that he was abusive, which cost me custody of my son to his father. My mom and sister blamed me for not telling anyone about the abusive relationship... for letting it get to the point of losing custody of my son.

We hobbled through our relationship and things seemed to get better when I went back to school after having my youngest and third child. Not perfect, but workable. There were some fights—like expected in a family—but nothing that couldn’t be patched. Then two years ago, I had to have my second-born committed to a psych ward because she was severely depressed and suicidal. I was feeling alone and felt like a failure. I reached out to my family for comfort and found very little. My brother was the only one that visited her. During a visit with my daughter about a month later, she told me that he said he was trying to win the lottery so he could take custody of my daughters from me. I was crushed! I know my life wasn’t how everyone else’s was, there was very little similarities between my life and my family’s. I never expected to hear that from him though. When I contacted him and my sister on this matter, they both were so filled with anger towards me and told me to lose their numbers and never contact them again. My daughter was released after a few months and we went about living life.

My only family contact was with my parents. I found out through a friend that my brother was expecting a second child. I barely got to know his first because he was a baby when everything went down. I extended many peace treaties—Easter gifts, birthday gifts—whatever I could to let my siblings know that I still wanted a relationship, at the very least with my niece and nephews. I’d let my kids go over to my sister's when we visited my parents (she lives right next door to them).

I was invited to Thanksgiving last year with my whole family. Then came the invite to Christmas at my sister's. Then my brother and I started talking more. But the thing that truly blew me away was Tuesday when I got the birthday text from my sister. I was at work and checked my phone on my way to the bathroom when I saw that. I almost cried. I know it wasn’t a huge “I love you,” but the fact that after everything and not talking to her for almost two years, she texted me. Sunday we are going over her house for Easter. I’m feeling more optimistic about things than I have in a while.