Family

Family means different things to different people. For some it's only biological relations, others it's the friends you meet along the way that become your family.  And sometimes, it starts out as biological relations, disintegrates, and you find them again along the way. 

At the age of nine, my parents split up. My mom took us five kids with her to a tiny one bedroom apartment.  My dad went to my grandma's. 

Two months before the split.

I'm a daddy's girl and after a few months, I went with him. He got full custody of me; my mom got my four younger siblings.  It was not until two years later that I learned that she had the same arrangement for me as my dad for them - every other weekend and every other holiday.  I didn't know, because she never exercised that right.  However, as I grew up she would complain and harass my dad every time he was late picking them up.  A few times I moved in with her and spent a few months with my siblings.  I didn't grow up with them.  In the next few years dad fathered two more boys, marrying one of the mothers, who brought a young daughter into our mix.  I am the oldest of eight in total.

Everybody but me and Everett.

Being 10 years older than my youngest sister and 15 years older than my youngest brother (the only two who lived with me) assured that I would feel almost like an only child.  Over the years, I'd see my siblings, having moved back and forth between parents, but I don't feel like we ever bonded like some siblings do.  Once I was an adult and they started getting older there was a lot of contention between some of us.  To this day we don't talk much.  Usually I see any of them when it's holiday time and mostly because of my 17 nieces and nephews.

I moved to KC again in 2011.  I believe my brother, Josiah, moved here around that time or even before then.  Prior to last year, we hung out maybe once.  He's five years younger than me and a foot taller.  Totally full of Leffler swagger and father to only one of my many nieces. He helped me move a year and a half ago, and I've watched Maddie a couple of times when he was in a pinch.

A few months ago, I was down further than I ever thought I could possibly be.  The only person I really had to talk to was my dad and he was an hour away.  I decided to call my brother and he came right over.  I believe he saved my life that day.  It was that bad.  And since then we hang out, go grab food, watch movies, and just share life.  

Sometimes family doesn't share holidays, they don't call each other on a regular basis or see each other for years.  And sometimes, when you really need them, they are there.  They don't judge you, they let you cry and make your same mistakes because they understand you have to or you won't move on.  Finding my family in my brother has been one of the best things to happen in a long time.