My older brother (April '88)
Me (June '89)
Brother (August '90)
Sister (April '92)
Brother (February '93)
Brother (July '94)
Brother (January '96)
Sister (September '96)
Trans Sister (August '98)
Sister (October '99)
Sister (January '03)
Sister (January '09)
Sister (March '11)
Out of my 12 siblings, + me making 13 total, we have 5 different mothers among us, and 6 different fathers among us. All of us were born in Sacramento except two of us, but currently we all live in 5 different states, and 10 different cities...
Three of my brothers are currently locked up: my bro right under me, August '90, has been locked up in Georgia since May 2016 and is serving a 20 year sentence; February '93 just got locked up again two weeks ago in Georgia on a gun charge and he was on probation, so he's about to do a few years and he's generally in and outta jail 3-4 times a year for bullshyt for the past 7 years or so, so he's been throwing darts at the pen and they finally about to take him in...
And January '96 been locked up in California since December 2020, he's getting out in August of '23...
As you can imagine with so many different parent groups we all grew up fractured and the closeness of us as a group is fractured. I don't even know my two youngest sisters----->January '09 lives in Tucson with her father and he's cut communication with our mom; and March '11 is in state custody in Kansas, because our father is in prison in Washington until '27 at minimum, her mom died two years ago, and her mom's mom who had custody of her died early this year and her grandfather has Alzheimers. My September '96 Sister thought of making a play to be her guardian but she lost her baby this past summer and abandoned it, and our grandmother says she's too old (69) and doesn't have the means to take her in...
So I don't even know my two youngest sisters...
I have a working relationship with all the rest of my siblings except April '92, who basically separated herself from our side of the family (dad) and doesn't talk to anyone. But I'm not particularly close to anyone, when we talk we talk, when we see each other we see each other...
February '93 is probably my closest of the bunch but he's in Georgia and always in and outta jail. My older brother is the only one here in NC with me, he's an hour away in Fayetteville and when yall hear me reference my stepparents, and how I got to the East Coast, it's his dad and his dad's wife, who I regard as parents and definitely have that kinda relationship with. I see my brother a few times a month when I take my daughters to see my parents, but my brother and I don't talk on the phone or text, we aren't particularly close, I just see him more than everyone else because he's the only one in NC...
My August '90 bro and I were pretty tight before he got locked up. Me and my Trans Sister and my September '96 Sister are tight in the sense that when we talk, it's for hours and when we see each other, it's very lit but we only speak 3-5 times a year, maybe text each other 10 times a year. They both still in Sac, never been out East, I haven't been to Sac since '18 so I only see them when I go home...
Everyone else we talk from time to time but we aren't close...
Having to think about this makes me sad if I'm completely honest. No kid asks to be here or given the circumstances they are given, and you learn to do the best with what you have. I had a pretty traumatic upbringing, so did a few others of my siblings (my older brother, April '92 sis, February '93 bro, January '96 bro, September '96 sis, and clearly my March '11 sis has been dealt a rough early hand at life). I'm the second oldest out of all of my siblings, and I wish life made it so I could have been there for everyone, it's hard to explain but I carry a small weight of responsibility for everything they've gone thru, that I couldn't be there to protect them...
And you realize how many black families aren't this fractured, and resent your parents for doing this shyt to us, but then you realize how many of us DO come from this background, and it hurts my heart. It hurts my heart for every black child who came up in dysfunction because when that's all you know, you have to teach yourself to unlearn it and you need help doing so...
I'm 33 and still learning to sever the cords of dysfunction that were planted before I even knew what they were doing to me...
I don't talk to any of my siblings much but I love them all tremendously and wish I had the opportunity to be the big brother so many of them needed at different parts of their lives...