Our little brother was born in August. I remember being excited to come and meet him. He was the one who would now join both families by blood. I had so much interaction with my baby sister that I assumed it would be the same with him. Unfortunately, this relationship ended up a little different.

The younger years of coming to visit were full of restrictions and protections of this new baby boy(J). As J grew, it became more and more clear that he was definitely a cherished one of the bunch. We felt as though we would easily get in trouble for things he did or even be restricted on what we were able to call him. You see, he had a nickname that everyone else was allowed to call him but we were not.

I began to build up a lot of anger towards this little boy and feeling more and more unloved and pushed aside as they built their family. None of my anger was because of him specifically but rather how we were treated in comparison to him and the others.

As time went on, he was a fun little guy who I actually enjoyed escaping to the basement with in order to launch cars at each other to crash. He had TONS of matchbox cars and we would lay there on the basement floor crashing them, racing them and sorting them.

He was the bridge between the kids that connected us together. I came very fond of my little brother as we grew and I still am very happy that he came into our lives that day. He didn’t do anything to cause the harsh feelings that I had back then. It was the actions of others and the perception that caused me to feel like we were less loved amongst the children.