I’m going to back up just a bit to the Spring of 1990, when my mother and stepfather met. They met in AA, both recovering alcoholics. At the time, my mother was 33 and my stepfather was 25. My mother was pregnant with my middle brother at the time, and they married very quickly – while she was still pregnant. (My brother’s father was not around, not sure of the full story there.) My brother was born in July, and she put my stepfather’s name on the birth certificate and allowed my brother to believe that was truly his biological father until he was in his 20s. (More details on that in a future episode). In Spring 1992, they had my youngest brother. So, although there is about a 6–8-year age gap between me and my brothers, they are very close in age.

I met my middle brother for the first time at Christmas 1990. My mother made a trip to NC to visit, along with my stepfather and new little brother. He was about 5 months old at the time, and I was obsessed with him! I was 6 years old, about to turn 7. My friends had baby siblings, and now I have a baby brother!

So, it was after my youngest brother was born in the Spring of 1992 that my mother and Peepaw had the discussion regarding me moving to Texas. I had met one brother and already fallen in love, and now I had a second brother that I had yet to meet. It sounded so exciting! For Christmas 1992, instead of my mother coming to NC, my grandparents and I flew to Texas. It was an opportunity for me to see where I would be living. My mother, stepfather, and brothers lived in a single wide trailer in a trailer park. I thought that was kinda cool at the time. I saw lots of kids around so I saw a potential to make new friends. My brothers shared a room with a bunk bed, and the plan would be for me to also share that room and for them to share a bottom bunk and I would sleep on the top bunk. We drove to the elementary school where I would go, explored the area, and in my little 8-going on 9 year old brain I was excited! My grandparents and I flew back to NC, I finished out the school year.

On that day in July, I got on a plane and moved halfway across the country to what I thought would be a “normal” life, getting to live with my mother and brothers. However, at age 9, I was naive and unaware or oblivious to how great my life was with my grandparents. I knew they were loving “parents” to me of course, but I assumed I was just moving into another happy loving family that was more conventional with my mother and siblings. My mother met me at the gate at the DFW airport when I arrived (remember, this was pre-9/11 when you could do that, but I was also an unaccompanied minor.) There was no hug, no “I’m so happy you’re here,” my arrival was treated like just any ole other day. And so did my existence for the next several years.