Family

Dear friends,

My family has never really been a traditional one. Sometimes that bothers me, sometimes I absolutely couldn't care less.

As many of you know, I do not really have a relationship with my father. We broke it. My parents may have separated when I was three, but he has always had some kind of presence in my life until this year.

I have two older brothers (12 and 14 years older, to be precise) who had a different father to me, and so are technically my half-brothers. Although I've known of and been able to use this term since childhood I have never used it unless explaining that my brothers and I do not have the same father. To me they have always been my brothers, no matter what technicalities tell me, and to them I have never been anything less than their little sister. My brothers are the greatest men in my life. They helped mum transform what could have been a shitty, confusing childhood into an absolutely wonderful one, and I will be eternally grateful for that.

I do have a younger half-sister, my dad's other daughter, and though I do love her there is a distance between us that has never existed between my brothers and I.

There are words to express what my mother means to me. All I can say is that she is the person that I admire and adore most in this world. My brothers and I would do anything for her, and I desperately hope that I will grow up to be like her.

As such, when I talk about my family I am referring to my wonderful mum and lovely older brothers. Not exactly traditional but I wouldn't want it any other way. I used to dream of having a 'normal family'. I thought that was the answer to everything. I was so, so wrong. Traditional does not necessarily mean perfect, or happy, as I thought it did. Nor does unusual mean unhappy. For me, in fact, it is incredible. I may not have a biologically related father to teach me to ride a bike, protect me from scary people and scary things, and fulfil all of the other traditional father roles, but I don't think I need one. I am lucky to have had three incredibly strong and incredibly kind people raise me. My mother has always been everything I needed her to be and more, taking on both parental roles as well as the role of a friend. As mum never remarried, the only real male role models in my life were my brothers, and they were damn good ones. Even though both of my brothers now live and work abroad they still manage to support me and help me through the shittier days, and I try to do the same for them. I don't need my dad to be my 'protector', because my mum is perfectly capable of doing that, as my brothers are despite the distance between us. Besides that, they've all taught me how to protect myself. I've never needed an official dad, because I have them. Nothing is missing from my life.

On a side note: one thing I absolutely despise is the general assumption that single mothers raise bad kids. Screw that. Throughout my academic career my school grades have never dropped below a B, nor did I ever get into fights or any real trouble at school. I got two A*s at A Level without becoming a total hermit so don't even try to tell me that single mothers can't raise intelligent, kind and well-rounded children. If I'd let my dad's attitude towards my achievements influence the amount of effort I put into my education I would never have worked as hard as I did or achieved such good grades to prove it. My brothers have excelled in their careers, and the eldest is actually the Executive Pastry Chef at Le Bernardin, one of the top restaurants in New York and actually in the world. Not only did she raise us single-handedly since my birth, but mum did that while studying for a University degree and working a job. She is incredible. Of course it is much harder to make a lot of money when you are a single mother raising three children, but money never really mattered to us. So it doesn't matter where you come from, or what anybody else thinks you can achieve because of that, you can achieve your dreams.

What hits me most about my family is how much we care about one another, how lucky I am to have them care so much about me. Despite what my father put them all through they have never let me feel different or unwanted, and they have always protected me from him. They encouraged me to have a relationship with him because they thought it was important. They never once said a bad thing about my father until I did, and even then I know they held back. I find it incredible that they were all able to put aside their own suffering for my sake when in reality they didn't have to. I know that if given the chance, I would now strive to do the same for them. In a way I do, because this time I am protecting them from my dad. We all stand up for one another and support each other through whatever comes our way, as family (biological or not) should. Of course we argue like every other family, but it never lasts long. We are still very close and aren't particularly good at being apart (seriously, we miss each other so much that it is physically painful at times), which I think is a testament to the love shown to and shared with one another from day one. I am thankful every day that I am part of this family, even if I arrived a decade or so late. I would do anything for my family, I have seen already that they will do anything for me.


Mum recently told me about something that Laurie, the eldest, had said to his girlfriend when mum had cancer almost 11 years ago. He said: "If anything happens to my mum Jennifer is coming with me, and if that isn't okay with you then we have no business being together." Thinking about that still brings me to tears.
  
I know that if the sky falls down on me, there's nothing in this world they wouldn't do. If it ever falls down on them, there's nothing in this world I wouldn't do.