During my sophomore year of high school I had been living a pretty consistent life. Having my parents been divorced a few years before I often spent much of my time moving back and forth from house to house but I had still been able to enjoy family time and see everyone that was part of my family, including my brother and sister. I was still able to see my friends and have fun at this time though because my parents had moved only a few blocks away from one another. It was around half way through sophomore year that I began to start to miss and appreciate more the times before when my family had been whole and I was able to live with everyone in one house. Just when, after several years, I had become able to grasp the concept that this would be how I would be living life from now on things took a sudden change.
My mom told my brother and I that she would be moving to Boston before the end of the year. Originally I did not believe the news. Why would she be moving? And what did this mean for me at school? The news was more relieving to me when my dad had told me that my brother and I would not have to move and that we could finish high school in Washington. This was very exciting news to me but this also came with a catch. My sister, who I had grown very close to following the divorce, was going to be moving to Boston with my mom. This news hurt me deep, I didn’t know what this meant. She had always been there with me through everything and her being only 9 at the time it was even worse. I instantly had regretted al of the times that I had tried to avoid and ignore the family time over the years.
Now being in college things are still the same. While in high school I had been able to see my sister at least one weekend every month. This was time that I cherished and dropped everything else that I had been doing or had planned so that I could spend as much time with her as I could. Being in high school now this time that I had with her is even less. It is very important to me now every moment that I get with my sister and brother. Every break and vacation that we have I try to do all that I can with them, such as going out to dinner and going to go and play all sorts of game together.
- Jake Leinas