Being the eleventh of eleven children and losing my “twin” For the longest time, I hated being the youngest. I wanted to be an only child because my friends who were only children got their own clothes, their own attention, etc. I never had the chance to make a decision when I was younger. No one ever asked me what I wanted to do in a day, what I wanted for dinner, what movie I wanted to see. I just had to follow. I spent my whole childhood following other people. This is why I find it hard as an adult to have a leadership role. However, as a mother, I had no choice. I had to be in charge. That took a long time getting used to for me. It also took me awhile to figure out why I was the way I was, why I had no control. I still look back and recognize that we really had it good as kids. While we didn’t have much, we had all we needed. And my parents were selfless enough to give us ten best friends for life.
Photo by G. E. Anderson, Maize House Makeup by Juna T
For me personally, it was very stressful to see how much faith everyone had in Jim before he even started. But for him, that was a challenge he was ready for, and despite upsets with Ohio State, things have gone well so far. I’m proud of him and of the team. I try to stay focused on the positive despite the losses. Overall, there’s still a big fan base and people are excited about the season to come. And while it’s exciting, it’s only July and I already have the nervous butterflies in my stomach. The expectation is so high, and while Jim handles it really well, every mention of what people are hopeful for puts more anxiety in my life. In my heart, I always think the best, but I’d rather think it’s not going to happen and be surprised when it does. I’m pretty sure this has something to do with the way I grew up.
12 | The Brick Magazine
I was eight months old when my brother, 18 months older than me, was diagnosed with cancer. It was an aggressive form of the disease, and he was lucky enough to have it go into remission after many years of treatment. My mom lived in the hospital with him for several months at a time while he received chemo and recovered from multiple surgeries. She cared for my brother and my dad worked to support the family. I was a baby and my parents couldn’t really care for me, so I went to live with friends of theirs. For a while, I experienced being an only child, and I loved it. I would go home on the weekends and it felt like two totally different worlds. In my “real” family (I consider them both my family), there wasn’t a lot of affection—no “I love you,” no hugs, that kind of thing. They loved us, they took care of us, but you never heard it. We didn’t really do emotional intimacy. Then I’d go to my other family and all they did was cuddle and spoil. For a while, that made me question who I was and how I was supposed to act in the world. As I grew older, I understood both situations better and I learned to appreciate both (very different) upbringings. Unfortunately, my “adopted” dad Darryl (who raised me until my brother went into remission) died in a plane crash when I was ten, and that was a big loss for me. Quite often after that there was another big loss of some sort. My brother ended up getting cancer again and died at 22. This was devastating for me. We were always together; everyone thought we were twins because we were the same size and so close in age. We had big plans for our future, he and I.