Families logo

My Not So "Perfect" Life

All About My Life Since the Day I Was Born

By Brooke DowneyPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
Like

Hello, my name is Downey. Brooke Downey. I am 17 years old, I live in Ontario, Canada in a Women's Shelter, and grew up in my area of Stayner for all of my life until just a little bit ago. I currently attend Jean Vanier for my last year, grade 12!! "I'm so close to being done," my mind screams every day in excitement. That was, well, until I got into a situation that made my life a little messy.

I am staying in the Women's Shelter now due to ongoing and length-full issues I have had in my home life with my mother, said boyfriend, and younger 6 year old brother. Let's go back to the day it all started. My birth if you will.

I was born on a cold and insanely snowy early October morning. October 2nd to be exact, when there was 6 feet of snow outside covering everything and it lasted only a few hours of not being buried in if you brushed off your car or shoveled, because 6 more feet just came piling right back in.

My mother was 24 years old, and gave herself the decision in her mind when finding out about her pregnancy whether to pay her car insurance or take the method to stop her pregnancy. She obviously chose the car insurance. But I can assure you, she was no where near prepared to be a parent. The day before my birth, my aunt Jaime drove my mother to the hospital due to my mom thinking that I was ready to be born. Might I add, twins was what she was having. So to be more accurate, that WE were ready to be born. One boy, one girl. Our due date was to be September 16th but we were late by 16 days.

My mother had given birth to us at 5:34 am and 5:49 am, I was born first. I weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces, was 21 inches long, and born with a full head of hair. My brother was born 7 pounds, 3.2 ounces, 19 inches long, and unfortunately not as much hair. My mother named me Brooke-Lynn Kathleen Kennedy Mary Downey-Morrison. I know, mouthful isn't it? She then named my brother Johnny Alexander Micheal Morrison.

But here's the disturbing and life crushing twist of what our mother did to my brother and I. Shortly after she gave birth to Johnny and I, she spoke to the nurses and told them that she wanted Johnny to be taken into the baby room and taken care of in there and I would be brought back to her after everything was good. There's one reason for why she requested that, and I learned it unfortunately a whole 12 years later, when I met Johnny for the first time.

She wanted Johnny in the other room because she didn't even want to hold her son, see her son, nothing, because our biological father and our mother had arranged for them to each keep one of us and to not speak of the other one to the sibling. So as if neither of us existed to the other, all because my mother and father wanted to separate their lives. They separated my twin brother from me, whom I hadn't the chance to meet until our 12th birthday when my mother and I had gone to a race track nearby home to watch the series. As we were walking I had luckily, if fate had fallen right into my lap, wasn't paying attention and I walked straight into Johnny.

He stopped and we both apologized, and I saw as I turned to my mom, a look on her face I had only seen once before. It was her look of "oh god what just happened, I'm in trouble" because she knew that that boy I just bumped into was my twin brother. I turned back to him and asked him his name, he replied "Johnny, yours?" and I responded with "Brooke" and he said "wait a minute, Brooke... my dad said something about a Brooke once, but when I asked he wouldn't tell me what he was talking about." I had a confused look grow on my face as I pondered what he could be thinking about this subject. He yelled "DAD" to a man nearby as we were standing there.

The man walked over and said "Yeah, what's up son?"

Johnny looked at his dad and said, "Dad, can you please tell me what you were saying that one day when you said the name Brooke?"

Our dad said "Look son, you know I've told you. I can't speak about it," as he was nervously glancing at our mother pleading for help.

In which Johnny and I had caught their glances and asked, "Why are you looking at each other like that? What's going on? How do you know each other?!" all those sorts of questions. So our mother and father took us to sit down and they both sat there and explained the whole story.

Once they were finished, Johnny and I both got very upset and started asking questions like "Why did you hide it from us? Why didn't you ever tell me I had a twin sister/brother? Why did you do this? Why couldn't we have all stayed together?"

Our mom and dad responded with two excuses that went like this, first our mother: "I wasn't ready to be a parent to one, so how I could possibly be one to two of them? I'm sorry guys."

Next, our father: "Your mother told me we were having twins and I couldn't handle both either, so her and I made a deal to take one and get the hell out of each other's lives for good, but that clearly didn't work, and definitely won't work now. We're stuck with you both and that you know."

Then our mother and father turned to each other, right in front of us, without a care at all that we were sitting right there, asked each other, "What the hell do we do now?"....

To be continued...

A/N: This is all true, if anyone's wondering. Also, if you'd like me to write more, or if anyone cares at all, please let me know. I have plenty more to share. Thank you to anyone who has enjoyed reading this and I hope you enjoy some more of this, if I do post more.

siblings
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.