Missing Normal

 "What's it like being in such a BIG family?"

I got that question a lot when I was growing up. Having no basis for comparison, my answer was simple. Normal. That's what I'd say. I didn't know anything but and wasn't going to pretend I did.

To me, it was normal for 14 people to live together in a small, three-bedroom ranch house. Why would anyone think otherwise? I couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t include bedrooms with multiple bunk beds or beds large enough for siblings to sleep four across. To me, this was normal.

Normal was three teenage sisters fighting for mirror space in the only bathroom in the house each morning while the “little ones” snuck in between them to brush their teeth. Normal was the dining room table doubling as a makeup and newspaper reading station in the morning and a study hall in the evening. 

Normal was staking out your claim on the living room floor when it was time for the family to watch a movie or televised event together. And in this case, if you snoozed, you really did lose. Remember that year when the Bears shuffled into the Super Bowl? Yeah, I snoozed my way outside the bounds of the carpeted living room and onto a corner of vinyl on the dining room floor.

Normal was crowded, but I think I would’ve been quite lonely outside of our little, crowded house. 

Crowded brought both chaos and nervous anticipation. Wedding days were met with scrambling and dressing and hair-doing. The biggest decision for the younger ones was whether the girls were going to put their hair in braids or wear it down. Holidays meant tidying the house while smells of dinner cooking tempted us into the kitchen periodically for a sneak peek. Oh and, the little kids’ table was a year-round phenomenon. Once a sibling moved out, we’d graduate to the big table through a line of succession. See? Anticipation.

Having 12 siblings meant 12 times everything. Twelve times the birthday cakes. Twelve times the first communions, confirmations and graduations. Want to make my Mom cry? Start humming Pomp and Circumstance. We had more reasons to celebrate the small wins—track meets won, good shows at bat, spelling bees won, good report cards, inductions into National Honor Society, etc., etc., etc. 

As we got older and people got married and had their own kids, the anticipation amplified. I remember watching out the living room window for people to drive up on the holidays. The front yard would be lined with cars as my siblings’ families arrived one by one. 

But 12 times the good also meant 12 times all the other stuff. Twelve times the mouths to feed, bodies to clothe and minds to educate. There wasn’t room to socially distance, so when one kid got sick, we all got sick. That meant 12 times the attention and affection my Mom had to dole out. More kids meant more sleepless nights waiting until the last teenager was safely home. It meant more reasons to worry when money was tight and times were tough. But we got through it. Together. 

This was our normal.

Now, in a year that has been everything but normal, we find ourselves in a place we’ve never been. Not together, even in fractions. But apart, in the hopes that being cautious this year will bring cause for celebration in the next.

And even if we were able to get together in the normal sense, there would be a palpable absence at the table. As we get older, so comes the realization that 12 times the happy times also means 12 times the grief. 

But I wouldn’t trade my brand of normal for anything else. 

While I’ll miss this normal this year, I will hold it close in my heart. And wait for the next moment of chaos with nervous anticipation.