Only Half

Leave It to Beaver we are not.

Our family is more train wreck in nature. Divorce. Abuse. Drugs. Poverty. Childhood is a thing we survived, my sister and I.

My brothers 17 and 13 years my junior, had the Leave It to Beaver lifestyle. Two parents who treasure them, and tell them so on a regular basis. A hippie/yuppie of a father and a precious balanced woman for a mother, mature before the arrival of their children. Always a nice house to live in, pantrys full of food, the latest toys, money for the sports they wanted to play. An international childhood. It makes sense then why they do not understand where we girls come from.

They have no concept of what we lived, it was not even in the same section of the library, they relaxed over in the private reference, while we were backlogged, in a bin out the back. Books in dire need of repair.

I do not mind, I have thrived. My sister crazy as she is, has survived in her own way, occassionally at the expense of those around her. Witnessing selfish behavior all through her childhood, it should not be surprising.

We know the whole story of their childhood, it is no shocker they are attending university, one in undergrad and the other in graduate school. They have only looked at a sliver of our lives. Until they do. We love them.

You can't caste stones until you read the whole book, look further than your earliest memory, choose to find out why your oldest sister acts crazy, there are reasons.

THey are only half brothers, until then.