Missing my family

Recently, I've been missing my family more than usual. I reflect on how different my life is from my family’s life in Mexico. Growing up, Mexico was my dad reading to me before bed, learning new things with him, seeing him sing, and hearing him sing to me. Mexico was my mom taking us to visit grandma, making the thirty-minute walk to her house, sometimes picking flowers on our way for her, listening to my mom’s childhood stories, and singing with her while cleaning. Mexico was my middle brother accompanying me to after-school computer classes, waiting for our parents in the library, playing together, and pretending to speak English. Mexico was me taking care of my baby brother, watching him play and do sports, walking him to kindergarten, and laughing at the funny things he'd say innocently. Mexico was seeing him grow up, but only for the first six years of his life.

I remember breaking down crying the day I was on the phone with my family, catching up, and they gave the phone to my youngest brother to say hi. His voice wasn't the same; it wasn't the high-pitched voice I remembered that would laugh with me while watching movies. His voice was getting deeper. He was growing up without me, and I had missed over half his life at that point. And I missed it all, terribly. I wanted to sleep and wake up in my bed in Mexico. Sometimes, my life before moving here feels surreal, and my memories fade away like waking up from a dream.

I sometimes wonder what my rebellious teenage years would have been like if I had grown up with my parents. What arguments would we have had, and how would they have shaped the person I am today? I think about how difficult it's been for all of us: my parents feeling like they lost two children since my middle brother and I moved here, my middle brother feeling like he's always had to figure things out on his own, and my youngest brother feeling more like an only child, not having us there for him and maybe not having many memories of us together.

I wonder if, in another life, I get to be with my family. I’ve grown very accustomed to my life here but the thoughts linger. What if I had never moved? What if we had all stayed together? What if we lived here in the U.S. together? I miss them and I miss Mexico, but I also miss things that never happened. I wonder if, given the chance, I would go back to the way things were before I missed it all.