NEXT AVENUE SPECIAL SECTION
When Siblings Remember Childhood Differently By TJ Butler
Last fall my husband and I drove by the house I lived in at thirteen. I don't know why I expected it to still be there; in my memories, it was barely standing, part red and white aluminum siding and the rest a mishmash of wood and brick. The roof sagged in places. A house like that wouldn't have survived the decades. In its place stood a picture-perfect two-story brick house with a manicured lawn. I wanted to stare into the windows. Instead, I looked away. Part of my childhood had been erased. It wasn't a good part. There were so few of those.
I was the black sheep, at the center of the family's dysfunction. I explosively butted heads with my mother. There was a constant undercurrent of drinking, hitting, and yelling. My memories are like flashbulbs of violence with my mother's boyfriend as the aggressor. My sister was four years younger and quiet. She rarely if ever bore the brunt of his anger. I was the one who fought back while she shrank into the safety of her bedroom.
I read a quote once that said something about how no two siblings have the same parents.
It's taken me decades to realize that rather than sharing similar memories, my sister likely remembers me as the problem. The last conversation my sister and I had was by text seasons ago. She'd read something I wrote that described details about my abuse and subsequent years in foster care. She was furious about how I'd described our mother. She said I was lying and gave examples from her own memories to illustrate that things had been fine back then. I haven't heard from her since. I'd always incorrectly assumed she and I bonded over the shared experience of our childhoods without stopping to consider how different they were. I read a quote once that said something about how no two siblings have the same parents. The two of us are living proof of that.
TJ Butler visiting her mother's house the summer after high school graduation.
I considered my younger sister's and my own childhood when we lived in that house. I've written a lot about my childhood; the domestic violence, the rage and the alcoholism. The house was the last place I lived with my family before my mother put me into foster care.
Read more stories like this on NextAvenue.org. Photo credit: TJ Butler
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