I’m often asked if I have siblings. I say yes, followed by, “but I was raised as an only child.”
I’ve really had the best of both worlds. I am my mother’s only child, but I have a brother 12 years my senior. I didn’t meet him until I was 14.
I have a younger sister, too, and it’s her story that I’d like to share with you. Her blazing appearance into our family allowed me the experience of a younger sibling, complete with all the family drama I missed out on with my brother.
My sister and I would fight. We’d stay up late and talk about boys and our favorite bands. We’d wrestle in the living room and we’d then make up by attacking a carton of ice cream together.
She’s two years younger than I am.
My grandfather and Megan’s were best friends in their prime. My mother was friends with Megan’s grandmother, who was my babysitter before she passed away from cancer.
Our families had long been friends, and from that friendship, two teenage girls became sisters. It’s a beautiful story that started out traumatically beginning with Megan’s grandmother’s death.
Mrs. Shirley had custody of Megan and her older brother primarily because their mother had issues with substance abuse. When Megan’s grandmother died, her older brother went to stay with his father, and Megan’s had long disappeared from the picture, leaving nowhere for her to go except into her mother’s care.
My mom worked nights as a nurse at the local hospital, and one night Megan called me frantic.
“Lauren, come get me. There was a man in my bed. I don’t know who he was,” she said.
I was 15, and though I had a driver’s permit, my mother had taken the car to work. Mom took off from the job, and minutes later, dropped Megan at the house with me. I was 15, Megan was 13. She slept in the bed with me that night.
With further investigation, it was discovered that her mother had brought a man home from the bar on her nightly binge. She had passed out in her room and the man had chosen to investigate the room down the hall, where he found my sister.
He left when she began to scream.
That began a hectic series of court proceedings surrounding a teenager who was no longer allowed to live in her home.
She moved in with her aunt and uncle, and six months later, frustrated with a teenager, they cut off her hair in anger with a pair of kitchen scissors and told her they didn’t want her anymore. Again, she had nowhere to go.
My mother swooped in. She opened our home, and was denied custody of Megan because 1.) She worked nights and was a single parent, and 2.) we weren’t Megan’s biological family.
My mom fought like a bulldog to save Megan from foster care, arguing that those homes wouldn’t be family either, and at least Megan would be familiar with our home. Our schedule changed. Nightly, Megan and I stayed with a family friend on mattresses on the floor in the back room so we could get up and have a ride to school each day.
Finally, my mother got legal guardianship. Her tigress nature paid off, despite legal fees and the shift in our family unit.
The day Megan moved in we repainted my old bedroom to accomodate her tastes, and she became a part of our home.
This past month Megan graduated law school and plans to practice as an attorney ad litem, the court’s voice for children in legal cases.
This past month I applied to begin the process to become a foster parent.
Our little family is proof that not all families look like the nuclear unit we recognize them to be. We are proof that broken homes produce successful adults. We are proof that sometimes, the cycle can be broken, no matter how horrendously it began.
I’m looking forward to the futures Megan and I have in front of us. I can’t wait to see the lives we touch in our various journeys, all connected back to the same broken, but wonderful home — painful, but beautiful story.
My mother fought for Megan and won. We’ve taken the torch and are on our way to fighting for those who need it most, just like she did.
If that’s not the definition of family, I don’t know what is.
I was raised an only child, but I have a brother — and I have a sister.
Lauren Martin is weekend editor at the News-Times. Email her at [email protected].