No one taught us how to be a family.
Sometimes I marvel at how little I recall from the early years; other times the memories overflow. We grew up in Tucson, Arizona. At that time, it was still a small town, and we grew up in a small house, on a small street—more like an alley than an actual street. When I drive past today, I wonder how, for a time, we all managed to exist there. So much life in such a cramped space: our universe woven into brick and wood, gravel and chain-link. I can’t be certain when the current owners took down the basketball hoop that was bolted to the roof, but I remember the sadness that settled in when I first noticed. It’s as if the house itself calls to me now, remembering the life we shared—the eight of us colliding together.
The house, decrepit and decaying, seems even smaller than it did back then, and the memories it holds call out with less force—as though shrinking in proportion to our widening adult lives. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Some memories are best forgotten, forever buried and undisturbed. I won’t disturb them. There is a reverence in speaking of such things—hallowed ground where those secrets will stay for someone else to unearth.
Growing up amid such humble beginnings never occurred to us (and, to be sure, we had it better than many). We were full of life and, in many ways, the typical family. Most of my memories are of the five of us kids; my youngest sister didn’t arrive until I was sixteen. I was the oldest, although I’ve heard my closest sister, Sarah—only one year behind me—attest that she was also the oldest, the oldest female sibling—and I can’t disagree. Besides, what did birth order matter when our parents’ missteps reminded us we were equals, if only for a time?
My mother likes to tell the story of how, when Sarah and I were very little, I would answer for her whenever someone asked her a question. At her house, hidden somewhere amidst the trove of family pictures in all shapes and sizes and different frames, is a picture of Sarah and me from those early years. Dressed in our outfits—proper for a real portrait—we sat next to each other, my arm placed protectively around her, our faces round, our eyes wide, our expressions somber. It’s this picture I see in my mind when I imagine speaking on her behalf. I like to imagine I was protective of her, even at that age.
When I was maybe four or five—before we moved into the house on Camden—I played a prank on my sister. Somehow, I had managed to hoist a cardboard box up into a tree… along with a rock. The plan, as I recall, was to coax my sister under the tree, at which point I would drop the rock onto the box and then the box (not the rock) would land on my sister. I know. What could possibly go wrong? I was a sturdy kid, and apparently already athletic to have accomplished the prerequisite steps for my plan single-handedly. And there I sat, high up in that tree, and waited. Of course, Sarah was onto me from the start: “You’re going to drop something on me.” “No, really, I’m not, Sarah,” which was followed by “Yesssssss, you’re going to drop something on me.” Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to win her over, but eventually she stepped under the tree and the trap was sprung. Only instead of the box landing on my sister, the rock went straight through the box and hit her square on the forehead. It was the sight of blood that told me things had taken a bad turn. Panic seized my heart, and I leapt from that tree like a five-year-old Olympic pole vaulter and sprinted to the house to enlist the help of our mother, my little legs carrying me like a small cheetah—and then, of course, I hid behind the bed, deathly afraid mostly for what was going to happen to me when this was over, but also for my sister whom I dearly loved. We laugh about it now, though the faint scar on her forehead is still there, a constant reminder of unintended consequences.
A few years back, my mom and I were talking and the story resurfaced. To my surprise, she had something new to add that I hadn’t previously heard. “Yes, I wish I hadn’t done to you what I did. You didn’t deserve that.” Surprise flashed across my face as I asked, “What did you do?” It was at this moment that she seemed to remember herself and came back to her senses. She shrugged. “Oh, you know—discipline and stuff.” I did not know, but I chose not to press. Parents make mistakes; I’ve made plenty. Whatever happened, she was trying her best, and that’s good enough for me. In her hesitation I saw, for a heartbeat, the child she once was—uncertain, improvising.
Still, it makes me think about how small moments can have such a big impact. Consider two travelers walking together toward the same destination. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the course for the second traveler is altered by just one degree. A single degree. Such a small thing. And yet, as they continue to walk, their paths diverge, and the second traveler will never reach the same destination. And what determines who stays on what path? Sometimes I think it’s just blind luck. One person abused, another neglected, another protected, another something else—it can be anything and everything. There is no judgment in this acknowledgment. It’s not that someone deserves this and others deserve that. Or poor them, or look at how bad that person is. This is life. It just is. Those moments don’t define me, yet when I was young—still unaware—they felt inescapable. Like most people, I couldn’t tell where I ended and what had happened began - and the story of my life became very important – along with changing it.
If you were lucky enough to grow up with two parents who were happily married, loving, kind, and, importantly, self-aware and balanced, count yourself fortunate. There might even be a reasonable chance you managed to avoid some of the dangers that wander certain roads. But for me, and certainly many others, such an ideal is fiction. Looking back now, of course life drifted off course. How could it not? How could any of us be expected to arrive fully prepared when the guides we relied on were still finding their own way—or worse, stumbling through their own darkness, dragging their pain behind them, leaving the rest of us to carry it?