My parents got married early, right after college. I have six siblings and there was a two-year interval between each child except for me; there was a five-year interval between my immediate older sibling and myself.
I had always felt my parents regarded me as a child they did not plan to have. I noticed that when they did things for me, it was not out of love but out of obligation. My siblings all had achievements that I couldn’t seem to live up to; they were better than me academically and otherwise, even in physical appearance. We all attended the same school, from pre-school to high school. I was always compared with my siblings all the time, such that it was so difficult to even join an extracurricular activity that I enjoyed in school.
It was time to apply to college in my final year of high school, and I picked two schools; one was an hour away from home, and the other was miles and miles away, such that you needed a plane ticket to get there without a hassle.
I got home one evening and showed my parents my college applications.
'Mum, Dad, here are the schools I applied to,' I told them excitedly.
‘Let me see it’, Dad said. He looked at it and gave it to my mother, who also looked at it in silence.
I gazed at them, and I saw anger and disappointment registered on their faces.
‘Why are you picking an art major? What would you get to do with such a degree?', my mother asked.
I looked at her in shock. ‘I want to be a Writer', I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper. My dad was clearly upset. ‘Why can’t you choose better? Look at your siblings; they have chosen fields that we can be proud of. Why can’t you be like them? What do you expect to make of yourself by writing? Writing! How would you make a living with that?', he shouted at me while flinging my college application to the floor.
I was speechless and started to cry. I picked up my college application and went into my room. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. I cried till daybreak. I wondered if they would’ve supported me had I chosen a nobler field of study. I looked back at the previous years which I had spent living with my parents and noted that it had almost always been like this. They were never genuinely interested in what I loved to do or what I liked, and now they are unhappy and disappointed with the path I wanted to take. I called my immediate older sister, Zoe, and told her everything that had happened, and she told me to go ahead with my application and that whatever I decide, she will support me. She was the only person in my family I could talk to, and I was glad I even had such a person in my life.
I went ahead and processed my college application, and luckily, I was accepted into the two colleges I applied to. I chose the college far away from home, and Zoe helped me out with my flight ticket and first-year fees. My parents said that they wouldn’t support me. And so I left home without looking back.
Today, on the morning of July 26, 2023, I woke up to go and open the window blinds. The soft glow from the morning sun hits my face. I took a deep breath and realized that this day, twelve years ago, I left home. I left my family of nine, including my father, mother, and six siblings.
I am Tamela Fredrick, editor at Rouge magazine in New York, the last-born child of the Rufus Fredricks.
My phone rang suddenly, throwing me into a temporary state of disturbance. It was Zoe.
I picked up the call, saying, ‘Hey sis'. ‘Hey Tam, how are you?', Zoe asked.
'I am okay,' I replied.
‘I know you do not like early morning calls, but I have wanted to talk to you since last night’, Zoe said. I wondered what she needed to talk to me about that was so important. ‘Go ahead, I’m listening’, I said.
‘I feel concerned, Tam. It has been years since you left home, and we miss you. Mother and Father called me last night, and they asked me to tell you to come home’.
I was suddenly angry and said, ‘What do you mean they asked you to tell me to come home? All these years, they have not called me since I left, even after they abandoned me without caring what might happen to me. Frankly speaking, I believed that they had forgotten about my existence. Why now? Why now in twelve years?
‘Calm down, Tamela. I know how upset you are’.
‘I am not upset, Zoe. I am hurt. Do you know what it feels like to be neglected by those who are supposed to be your parents? I bet you don’t’, I said angrily.
Zoe kept quiet. After a while, she said: ‘I know you must be hurting, and believe me, I can’t say I understand how you feel because I am not in your shoes; however, our parents are trying to reach you and talk to you. I am sure they couldn’t call you this time because they felt ashamed of their actions towards you. Please give them a chance to apologize and love you. It is going to be hard, but find it in your heart to forgive them and let go. I’ll be there with you if you decide to go, Tam’. I was quiet.
‘Just give me a call when you’re ready. I’ll leave whatever I am doing to go with you’, she said and dropped the call. I sat on the floor, held my head with my two hands, and cried. To be honest, I miss my parents. Life was more difficult for me with them cutting me off like that. I had to work to get myself through the rest of school, with some help from Zoe. I do not know how I will repay my sister. She was there for me when I had no one to rely on.
It took me two weeks to make the decision to go home to see my parents. I called Zoe, and we agreed to go home three days from that day.
The flight back home was not so bad, but the anxiety I felt at the thought of reuniting with my family made me want to vomit. I tried to leave the airport twice before boarding the plane, but Zoe was there to hold my hand. A lot of things passed through my mind. How will my parents look now? What about my other siblings? Would they be there? Would I be compared again? ‘It is going to be really awkward’, I thought.
We landed in the city of Wyoming and boarded a cab to take us home. We found our parents standing at the entrance of the house, ready to welcome us.
Zoe alighted from the cab before I did. On getting out of the cab, I stood still, looking at my parents with an indifferent expression on my face, although I just wanted to hug them.
My mother ran up to me and hugged me, saying, ‘Tamela, I missed you. I am sorry’. I started to cry the moment she hugged me. My father also came and hugged us and apologized, saying, 'We should never have cut you off. I’m sorry, baby’. Hearing ‘baby’ coming from my father had me crying harder. He hasn’t called me that since the second grade.
I do not know how much time had passed, but I knew that we had been standing outside the house for a very long time. We finally broke apart and went into the house. I heard a shout of surprise the moment I entered the house and saw my other older siblings. They began to hug me one after the other, saying they were sorry they treated me that way and didn’t try to reach out to me all this time and that the surprise was for all my birthdays and other celebrations of mine that they had missed. I felt happy. The house still looked the same, although the same couldn't be said of my parents. They already had gray hairs on their head.
We all spent the entire day eating and catching up. I realized this was what I wanted, which was missing from the start, but I am glad that I finally got to experience it—the feeling of being wanted, and of joy and oneness shared by a family.