When you have children so many of your thoughts become clear, defined and sometimes frightening. You want the absolute best for them. You want to protect them from the world. You want to make sure that they know that they are loved, cared for and protected; even if you’re not around. I’d like to think that my children knew, beyond any shadows of doubt, how much I loved them, how hard I’d work to make things happen for them and how far I’d go for them. I would kill a brick and drown a drop of water for them.
While raising them I used to really think about what would happen to them if something were to happen to their dad and me. So, I guided them to look out for each other and to take care of one another. My thoughts on that were that I never wanted them separated. I figured that if people saw that they could look out for each other, then they would more likely be kept together. I also wanted them to have a close connection and to remember that when the world goes crazy, as it sometimes does, they'd have each other. My ranking in my own sibling line was near the bottom so my siblings weren’t really my friends. I often envied people who had close sibling relationships and because of the way our line was set up, there was a different kind of sibling closeness for me. I knew, that in nurturing a type of closeness among my children, they would always have a friend.
They did have good relationships most of the time, both with me and with each other. Did they often make me believe that they didn’t like one another? Yup. Was I most certain that one of them would eventually make one or more of the others disappear? Yup. I’m very pleased to say that all four are still around and they love each other dearly, even when they don’t particularly like each other. They shared a lot of information with me – sometimes TMI; and each other. They monitored one another and protected each other, so I guess it would go to reason that they could torture one another. They were the best of friends while vying for the title of who could be the deadliest nemesis.
A couple of examples of their protective levels would be stories from the boys. It seemed that every time we moved to a new place, my son who we’ll call Marcus, always caused somebody’s mother to knock on my door, introduce themselves, tell me where they lived and proceed to tell me how my son beat up their kid. Nine times out of ten it was because their kid hit his sister or the one time one tried to make her eat grass. There was going to be no reasoning or discipline, logical or strict enough, to curb that, so I stopped trying. Other kids apparently got the hint because those were no longer issues after a while. The other son who we will call Jay, was they type to stay home “sick” from school because some boy did, or said, or looked at his sister wrong and he needed to make himself visible; he was also the one that organized a search and recover party, from California to Michigan, about some bikes stolen from his sisters, and scared the children so badly that they not only brought the bikes back and apologized profusely – but sold out their friends on stuff that had nothing to do with the bikes.
Being a mother who was open with them, I was privy to a lot of their secrets, so I thought. As they got older and I started hearing the real, behind the scenes stories – about them and from them, I realized that they kept so many secrets amongst themselves. I was devastated. I couldn’t believe that they would leave me out of their loop. All that talk about mom being my best friend was a farce! Oh my, the secrets that came to light; I am certain that they dim in comparison to the ones they still hold on to. They even have a secret “sibling group” that I am not a part of. Seriously, I got really butt-hurt!
Eventually though, I had to laugh at myself and realize that they did exactly what I groomed them to do. They are friends. They have their own lives, they have their relationships and I am not a necessary factor in every situation – The Nerve.