First, there was just me.
Dedicated to my siblings
I was an only child for six years, which was not the experience I came here for. The first few years were the most crucial. It took me 3 1/2 years to understand the importance of family. Family, to me, is not something we must be born into. However, as an only child, I started conjuring the need for my tribe right from the beginning. I asked for my sister every day for years.
Looking back, I’m not sure if I had a past life where something happened to my family, but the idea that I was alone with my mom and dad terrified me. I believed that they would die and leave me all alone. I begged for my sister to come so that I wouldn’t suffer the fate my tiny brain imagined. At 5 years old, my mom gave me the news, so I broke the news to my dad.
My sister was born 6 years and 10 days after me. I thought it was god’s way of giving me a birthday gift of a lifetime, little did I know winter was just a cold one that year. My sister’s birth was traumatic for my mom and my sister. I didn’t realize how uncommon and serious it all was till I was older. The umbilical cord split from within, meaning my mom was internally hemorrhaging and my sister was drowning in blood. My mom was lifeless for months after my sister’s birth and she was severely affected. My sister cried so much for the first 6 months. No one but I could console her. I now look back and wonder if she had to come in with such a traumatic experience to heal something between my mom and her. My mom underwent a near-death experience and was forever changed by the birth of my sister. I found out days later, after my mom was about to be released from the hospital, and I sobbed. I hadn’t felt how scary it would be to be alone, and up until then, my biggest fear was that my parents would both die. Now I had a sister to add to this. My desire to have my sister in my life was the grandest most wonderful feeling. I felt like finally, I was here for something important. Then we all got surprised…
My mom gave birth to my brother 19 months later. I remember when she was somewhere in her second trimester. She had gallstones in her body and the pain was unbearable. The entire experience of pregnancy was difficult for her with my brother. Her motherhood challenges were supercharged with every child. Every day she had to bring herself not to allow the physical pain she felt to become transferred to her baby inside. She often tells me that I was the easiest baby and that if all the pregnancies and births were like mine, she would have had 6 children. Life has a natural way of slowing us down. My brother was born with so much peace. Thankfully her strong will to not let him absorb any of her pain or discomfort worked and we called him the baby Buddha.
As babies, they instantly bonded, eventually saying they were twins and everyone believed them. They shared the bed with my parents and I excused myself and gloated at the fact that I had a big girls bedroom. That was one of the only benefits of being the oldest, I had a sprinkle of freedom but had to babysit. My siblings learned to crawl and walk together so I was a little mama chasing them up and down the carpet in the hall. I’d dash from the hall entrance to its ending in front of the guest bathroom, pick up and flip my crawling siblings, and jet back down to the entrance. I imagined being a big sister but this mini parenting was next level. I felt like they were also my children. I suppose my siblings got to feel like real siblings whereas I felt like a sibling parent as I was 6 and 8 years older. At the time of their toddler years, our parents began to separate, leading to divorce. This shift made them depend so much more on me because I was determined to keep them out of the lover’s quarrel my parents continued. I felt like if I could protect them, maybe they would never feel lack in the same way I did.
About 3 years later, our mom reencountered her high school sweetheart. I have never met a man more in love with my mother than he was. He loved her with great profoundness, and also, he loved his daughter more than life itself. He had a 10-year-old daughter when we all merged as a family. She grew from being an only child to now being a sibling of 3. She was raised with us and could only see us on the weekends, but we made an effort as siblings to continue to hang out and spend our summers together.
We spent our pre-teen and completed our full teen years together. We did things that sisters would kill to do together. Each year I’d see her get a little more confident and cool. She always had an incredible hand at art and drew the most epic illustrations. We went to bonfires, concerts, mall runs, and flea markets, and ate lots of breakfast burritos together. Admittedly, I was a brat and didn’t relish in the newness of having another sister to add to my trio in the beginning. Our parents had formed a beautiful relationship and we learned to enjoy the whole dynamic as a family.
Her father passed away when I turned 19. She was just a teenager when he left. We were all devastated. I moved away and went to university that same year, and it took some time to reconnect like we had in the past. As we grew older, we reconnected and shared an apartment. It was as if something brought us together to make the long-lost siblings reconnect. We were a perfect match as roommates and soaked in all the time we lost in our 20s.
My siblings remind me to enjoy the small things in life. They each came into my life in unique and profound ways. Now that I am a mother, I see that they were put into my life to teach me how to feel the fullness of life and to love unconditionally. As a parent, you choose to be those things for your children. We continue to be close and value one another.
I feel blessed to have a good family that genuinely enjoys one another. The notion of family has always been important, but as I grow my own family, I feel relieved knowing there will always be someone there for me. A lifelong connection that soothes me when I feel alone.
I’m so thankful for them all, with love to you, my beautiful siblings, Anni, Arman, and Cat.
If you are new to my publication, Welcome! I’m intrigued to meet you.
My name is Misha, and I’m here on a need-to-write basis and post my writings twice weekly, once for free subscribers and once for paid.
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If you’d like to peek around- try reading some of my favorites:
THE MAN OF MY DREAMS- (creative memoir)
THE PERFECT LOVE- (poetry)
THE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER, AND ACTOR- (essay)
P.s. Outside of writing, I like to help people heal and find a way back to themselves. Check out my small business www.ritualcomun.com to learn more.
This was beautiful❤️