By Kaine McKinsey

Student Submission

I am from hand-me downs and cheap store clothes. From the bright, large, and colorful Tv and video games in the cold of winter or heat of summer. 

I am from a military vet that fought in Operation: Desert Storm as we played games of fantasy and war in the backyard. My family’s foundation seemed solid but looks can be deceiving. Someone else lives in that house now. With canned goods, microwavable meals, to almost no AC Winds tempted me to go, but I would not go until the winds howled with their temptations and I followed many times, trying to resist each time as a tree does in a storm.

I am from the stone of the city and the trees of a town. From solid to liquid to gas. I am a castaway like boxcar kids. Hoping that someday, I would have someone or something holding on strong.

I am from McKinsey, brave, hard-working, and middle of the hill living. Why live if you don’t work for it? In a moment, I can be like a Deibler, giving comfort and encouragement when people need it the most. The kindness causing friends and family to grow.

I lived in my fantasy worlds of video games and Tv to ignore my parents fighting. “Just one more minute,” turned into “Just one more hour.” I held things together like string, twisting and stretching. I’m half from protestant and half secular. Not going to church at all for most of my life until sickness hit my father. My brothers and I went to our small sweet grandma’s house, then moved in with our mom who had left almost a year before to our Deibler uncle’s house.

Soon, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Trevor took two of my brothers and I, leaving my twin brother, Holden to our mom and when this happened, our grandpa threw my dad, my brothers and I out as if we were garbage not belonging to him. I have not seen either my dad nor mom nor my twin brother in a very long time. 

I’m from Red Lion, and Stewartstown, and Delta, and in the middle of nowhere. I have been lied to, used, made fun of, and other things all for others enjoyment by people who have called me a friend. But there are few, I get to truly call a friend and they are the gold in the river; the sun smiling upon me.

In my Aunt Mary and Uncle Trevor’s home, the photos are hung up on walls, frighes, and cubirt doors. Also, in scrap books and in photo frames each showing the good times and bad times. Some are bittersweet to my brothers and I. While most are from a time when my family was not divided by personalities, choices, or distance.