Final Revision- Family Memoir

In my family I am more of the independent one, the competitive one, and probably considered the lazy one too. I can be a leader, the one my sisters look to when times are troubling, but most often that part goes to my oldest sister, Sammi. She is the first one her three younger siblings, Betsy, myself, and Hayley usually turn to. Betsy is a year older then me. She typically will look to Sammi for just about all her advice, although if she isn’t answering her cell phone, like most times, Betsy will call me to find out what to do. When I have a problem, I will turn to Sammi first too. Even before my dad. She always needed to step up and be older then she actually is, ever since she was in 5th or 6th grade. Around the time my mom started working.

For the longest time when I was growing up my mom was a babysitter, pretty much running a day care in my house. When she started working though, the burden of keeping everyone on track when my dad wasn’t home turned to Sammi. She would be the one who had to make sure everyone got their chores done, and then proceed to do her own, while trying to not allow fights to escalate. Most often though it would turn into me and her fighting, literally fist fights. One time it got so out of hand that we broke our address book. That was not a good day. Since Sammi was the one in charge, she was right. I was not. Even in the rare times I actually was right my other two sisters wouldn’t back me up. I never ended up winning those fights, because in the end I would be in trouble somehow. But even with all that going on, Sammi still would have to find time to make dinner, do the laundry, and do her homework. She was the perfect role model for me and my other two sisters because with all that going on, she only ever had 1 B on a report card, in 4th grade math, and strait As the rest of her career throughout high school.

All that did come with perks though. With 4 kids, our basement could be littered with toys at times. So on the occasional weekend when it was time to finally clean the basement, it meant put the toys back all in the right containers and in place. Sammi would always come up with the brilliant plan of dumping all the toys out, enough to cover the entire basement, and reorganize everything. That is all she had to do though. Within about 15 minutes of her getting the basement an even bigger mess she would be upstairs watching some old movie on TV with my parents. When I would try that I would be told to get downstairs and clean up the huge mess. It just wasn’t fair.

Sammi had to do this until she was a sophomore in high school. At that time I was in 8th grade. It was the time span between about Valentine’s Day until Easter. My sisters were all out of the house, I forget where, and my mom was gone also. It was when my dad broke the news to me. I always had a different kind of relationship with him then my sisters. When I was younger bed time was at 9. About an hour after bed time though, my dad would check to see if I was still awake, and if so, I was allowed to watch the rest of the Rangers game that was on. It was something I always tried to stay awake for, waiting for him to say I could come out from bed and watch the hockey game with him. He would sit right up by the television with a big Dallas Cowboys pillow on the floor leaning next to the couch. At that time I loved watching hockey, but even more so, when they fought. When a fight would break out of TV, I would look at my dad and say, “You know what they said to each other? We gotta fight.” That would be followed by me, at 5 years old, trying to beat up my dad. He would win without having to move.

When he broke the news that my mom wanted a divorce though, it was tough. I didn’t know how to handle this, and my dad was sitting in front of me crying. I had now idea how to react to what was happening. The concept of divorce was not something I ever thought I had to worry about. I always heard kids talk about it in school, but I never thought in a million years I would have to deal with it, but yet here it was, right in front of me, happening before I knew it could. I was sitting on the couch in my living room and I started petting my puppies, less then a year old at the time. They are 2 labs, brothers, one yellow, the other black. A dog fight probably was going on too, because that is one of their favorite past times. My dad turned the TV off before saying anything, so I knew it was a big deal. I guess he didn’t know how else, or who else to say it to. It was just me and him in our house, my house, and he had this huge rain cloud pushing down on him, fogging up the room. He was sitting in his old dark blue broken recliner. I was to his right, where our couch was pushed up against the wall. His face got red, but it wasn’t because he was angry. He started crying right in front of me. I think at that moment I started to share this leadership role with Sammi.

There were a few family discussions we had after everyone found out, and until we all moved our separate ways. I don’t remember if I was the one that told my sisters what was going to happen with my parents, or if I was told not to mention anything. My mom was angry though that I found out. If it were up to her, she would have waited until we were actually moving. She would ask me questions though before everyone else knew what was happening. Sammi had a hockey tournament, in Chicago or Detroit, but on the ride there she called me to talk. At that time my sisters didn’t know what was going on. They were in the car with her though, all of them sleeping. She was asking how my sisters should find out, when she should tell them, and others of that sort. She even asked me a few times if she should go through with it. Isn’t that ridiculous? Asking your son if you should divorce his dad?

I’m sure she thought that it was innocent, maybe just wanting a different biased opinion. I say that, because I am almost certain she had talked to her family about this, probably a few of her sisters, and definitely my grandpa and grandma. They would all hear it coming from her perspective though, so of course when describing something you will make it sound like you are the one who is right, therefore making their opinions biased. Mine on the other hand was biased on the sole point that I didn’t want my parents to get a divorce. It would mean having to move from my house, maybe not see one of my parents, or sisters, or even my dogs. It would separate everything that I know. I don’t know if she realized the amount of pressure I felt with that seemingly simple question. Even to this day I sit back and can only laugh at how obscure that question is to me.

There was a time after everyone knew when an argument broke out between my parents. My dad had been sleeping in my room for a couple nights, maybe a week before this argument. To clear things up, my dad never wanted a divorce, not during it at least. But this argument was well after my sisters were in bed. I should have been, but instead I was lying on the living room floor pretending to be asleep. My mom asked my dad, “What high school boy wants to be living in the same room as his father?” I didn’t move to that, but I was thinking it doesn’t really matter to me. I did not really agree with her at all throughout it though, because she kept claiming the divorce was “for the kids,” and well simply I never thought that to be the case. Sammi and I would vent to each other at how stupid of a thing that was to say, then list all the reasons why it was for her. After the argument was over, my mom went into the kitchen and slumped into a corner. My dad ‘woke me up’ and told me to go help her out. I didn’t tell him that I would rather not, but I knew I had to no matter what.

My parents decided to let each one of the kids, Sammi, Betsy, myself, and Hayley, to decide where they wanted to live. Once when I was talking with my mom I remember her saying that she wanted to fight that. She said that she wanted us all to live with her. I don’t remember how exactly I responded to that, but I know it wasn’t favorably towards what she had said. I thought that myself, and my sisters had a right to decide who we wanted to live with, since I would be in high school shortly, and Betsy and Sammi were already in high school.

We were all in the living room, my mom on her end by the lamp and computer. The couch we had was really old and a light brown color. The cushioning where she sat for the past 10 years was wearing out, and there was a divot in it so that you could feel the wood under your butt. My dad was sitting in his chair, which is across the narrow room. I feel as if I am floating above this frozen scene as I describe it. I am facing the television as this discussion is going on, and my sisters are all on the other side of the room. Everyone seems just stuck in that point. This is essentially the last memory that I have of living in my house that I grew up in. Slowly the emotion can sink into the room. It seems obvious to say that there is an overwhelming sadness hanging over everyone. I am almost anxious as it comes time for me to say I wanted to go live with my dad. So did Sammi. Betsy went with my mom, and I feel like Hayley just went there to try to even it, if not to make my mom feel better. She does that a lot, goes out of her way to help others in our family.

After that it seems like an auction was going off. My dad had a list of appliances, and different furniture and things of that sort. He would call something off and someone would claim it for there house, trying to make it all even. He asked Sammi if she wanted the washer or dryer, because our dryer was a piece, so obviously we got out the better of that. My mom got the dryer by default, then claimed the kitchen table, the couch, ‘her chair’ (that she never actually sat in), and numerous other things. I don’t think my dad really cared about that kind of stuff. The less there was to move is what he thought probably.

The Friday after Easter we moved out. Sammi, my dad and I went to one house, and Betsy and Hayley went with my mom. Throughout the whole process though, I really relied on Sammi, and I would like to think that she felt the same way about me. There were many times throughout this divorce where Sammi and I would find someplace to talk and just discuss whatever was important for hours. Sometimes these important things were just distractions, such as hockey, or some TV show. But other times they were about the divorce, my mom, Betsy, and Hayley. They are still our sisters, but those two just carried on the same mentality they had before the divorce. Sammi and I on the other hand, had growing experiences I feel. We became more independent and in charge of our lives. We were able to understand the importance of having one another to turn to when situations became difficult for us. Betsy and Hayley though still were ‘out for themselves’ to say, not worrying about one another. If I hadn’t had Sammi to turn to though, and if she wasn’t able to be as strong as she was during this, then I would have turned out drastically different. Conley argues that the way children turn out in divorce is dependent on the time in their life when this event happened (95). I would tend to disagree with that, because if the siblings are close and can form relationships like I have with Sammi, then they should be able to get through the toughest of times with one another.

The day she left for college is another time I won’t forget soon. Her freshmen year in college was spent at a school in Maine. The name of the school is Bowdoin, a small division 3 school that is 12 hours from where we lived. Over the previous 2 years of living together we gained a closer relationship then I had with Betsy and Hayley. We would be able to share problems with each other, talk to each other when angry or upset with something, or even just to hang out. I realized that my relationship with Sammi was a lot better then my friends had with their siblings. They always seemed to be at odds with each other, fighting constantly, but we didn’t. I didn’t fight that much with any of my sisters actually. The divorce brought my sisters and I together like nothing else could. I know for a fact that my relationships with Sammi, Betsy and Hayley would all be extremely different if we still lived in the same house, our house that we grew up in. But the day Sammi moved out, which seemed like for good, I was losing my security blanket, the person who I could always go to when I needed something, anything really. It was hard watching her pull out of my driveway with my dad driving and grandma next to him. Sammi was in the back, next to a pile of her belongings, and the last thing I saw as they pulled away were tears strolling down her cheeks.


Conley, Dalton. The Pecking Order. New York, New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.