Sister reevaluates relationship with brother in light of tragedy

“Just shut up already!” my brother screams from across the Golden Corral table.

Being me, I have to reply with a smart comment, accompanied by a smirk. As any parent would when their children are fighting, my mother gives us the knock-it-off look, especially since we are in a restaurant.

However, her gaze isn’t enough to break the tension my brother and I have created. He then throws me nasty looks every chance he gets until, finally, I can’t handle it anymore. The argument resumes and I find myself close to screaming my lungs out. We both open our mouths to say something when Mom throws us another look.

This time, though, she doesn’t play the same card. Instead, her eyes go watery and her face flushes a light pink. She gets uncomfortable and avoids our eyes. She looks as if she is reliving a traumatizing event. My brother and I exchange glances, and I can tell we are both thinking the same thing: Not again.

This happens every time.

My mom always does this.

I used to wonder why she gets like that. She doesn’t look disappointed or mad. Instead, she looks as if she is about to break down.

I thought it was just her parenting method; I always overlooked it.

Until the day I stirred up enough guts to ask her about it, I didn’t know that she gets like that because she lost both of her brothers. Her only siblings. Of course, I knew that they passed away, but I didn’t know that when her oldest brother passed away, they had just  made up from nearly four years of fighting. She had lost so much time being angry that she now has few happy memories that both of them shared.

I didn’t know, but now I do. I understand that she doesn’t have those memories normal siblings can look forward to telling their grandchildren about.

It’s more than likely that you have heard someone tell you to cherish your family. Most of us probably don’t think about it and continue to have little arguments. Or maybe some of us tend to think that family is forever. While that may be true in a sense, it isn’t in another. They won’t always be there.

Sometimes teenagers get so caught up in fights with their siblings that they take it to extremes, like my mom. They blow things out of proportion. They hold grudges. Then they regret it later on.   

           The day my brother and I fought in Golden Corral is now a huge regret. To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember why we were fighting, except for the fact that it got pretty ugly. I look back on it now and realize that it was a waste of a good memory. It did damage to my future when I will be looking back on my childhood years.
           Ten years from now I might have been able to look back to that day and remember how good the food was. How my mom actually had money to take us out. How many times we laughed. I could have held this great memory in my head instead of the one I have now: seeing my mom like that. I now have a memory of how dumb I was. How I let things get to me. How disrespectful I was.
           Now, I remember the memories I could be making before I retaliate. If I get an opportunity to argue, I choose to let it go. I don’t want to look back and have to say that I was stupid back then. I want to look back and laugh at the times I shared with my family. I want happy memories.