A perfect family? What is a perfect family? Is there even such a thing as a perfect family? If you do have a perfect family you should cherish it and hope it will never breaks apart. I know what it feels like to grow up in an unstable family. Though it is all I have ever known, I cannot seem to ever recall the moments where my parents were together and happy just raising me and my sister. I know that time existed, but they got divorced when I was only 3 years old and by then my Mom said it had been bad for a while. My Sister, my Mom, and I were all ripped away from what we had known for so long.

We had to leave our beautiful house, our neighborhood, our friends, and even our state. We moved to get away so someday we could have the life we should have had. We left Texas and all the memories that we had made there and had to move to California with my Grandma. My Mom tried, she did, she worked hours on end trying to support us because we left all we had in Texas, we only took half a UHaul truck and our car stuffed to the brink of explosion. We were basically starting from scratch we even left our precious family heirlooms that we have never seen since.

At the time we were too young to understand, all we knew was we were with Mommy now and who knew where Daddy was. My most distant memory is the month we moved to California so it is a lot easier for me because I do not know any other life besides this one. My life, it is mine, no matter how hard it was or will ever be it is mine. It is just how I deal with it, not doing all the sports I wanted to, not having brand new clothes all the time, not going to Disneyland every year because Mom doesn’t make enough money, these are all the things my friends whose parents were still married enjoyed, but I did not complain.

I knew what I had and I had a loving mom who tried with all she had to make me happy, which I was. I had my Grandma who took care of me and my sister when my mom was working. I never really understood how my life could have been better if my parents never got divorce, but I have always wanted to know how different I would be and how different my life would have been. Would I still live in Texas, would I be happy, would I still want to be a doctor, would I be a bad person, but all of these question I will never know the answer to and I do not think I would even want to know. There is no point of wondering because what is done is done.

My father, he gave me life and he has helped shape who I am today, but he has also hurt me. I do not want to say I hate my father, but he has done some bad things that makes me ashamed to have him as my father. Sometimes I have wished he wasn’t my father and that I was not apart of him in any way at all, but the truth is I am. When I was little I always had to go with him for at least half of all vacations and half of the summer. I had to visit him against my will even though he did not support us he never once paid a dime of child support until I was 13 years old and then that was not a regular thing.

When he would come to pick me up I would hide under my bed hoping he would forget me and leave with just my sister, who he adored with all he had she was his “number 1”. We would live in his tattoo shop and eat maybe a small bag of chips a day to share and the court system did not care. They say they look for the best interest of the child, but they do not. How is it in the best interest of the child to not bathe for a week until Mom came to get them? My Mom tried to resist and do what was best for us, she went to court to get his visitations revoked. Did they get revoked? Of course they didn’t. Even after he kidnapped my Sister for a year he got his visitation back. It was only after he did not show up to court that he no longer had a right to us. I still talk to him, but I have not seen him since I was about 9 or 10 years old.

Every family has some kind of drama I believe. Your family may not have as much as mine or it may have more, but if your family is truly the elusive “perfect family” you must treasure that with your life. You do not know how much people strive to achieve what many of you take for granted, like a stable family with two parents who do not fight and love each other with as much as is humanly possible.