Tidbit of a Family History

When I went to check my phone alarm was working (for today’s shift) just before bed, I notice my parents’ group chat was blown up with twenty notifications.

Me: *jokingly, out loud* Geez, who died?

Turns out they were talking about our old family history — just before they adopted me. When my brother was still a normal kid, unaffected by mental illness and move disruption. Not so much him, but that period of our lives. I wonder if there are any other old pictures of that time period… when he was little, just before they moved, just before the adoption happened, and after they returned.

In the past I never thought to ask because so much of our family focus was trying to help my brother stabilize his life, and because I was spending so much of my energy and time trying to keep employed.

Also, my brother and I don’t have a relationship. So while he could possibly have memories of that time period… he wouldn’t be the right person to ask.

Anyway, my dad had uploaded a single photo — when I was perhaps two years old, and they had just come back from living overseas. My grandma was holding me — she looks to be in her early sixties; that would explain why my childhood memories of her is when she was elderly, and by the time I was a teen, she was definitely more frail. I don’t remember ever seeing her look “young” before aging took its toll on her younger features.

There’s always been this gap: we adopted you (age 2), you were a toddler (age 3), you weren’t happy in our first home, then we moved and you settled (age 5).

But what happened before that? What was my memory unable to hold onto, at so young of an age? When I was deeply unhappy and no one could figure it out?

Presumably this time period was when they had just come back from adopting me, and I was two, and my brother was in his early teens (and possibly when his behaviour disturbances began). Sadly, I needed to go to bed, but I did gain a tidbit of backstory about when my dad started helping to parent my brother, and maybe I can get more insight into their lives back then.