As long as I can remember my brother Frank was my best friend. We had a great relationship. He taught me how to skateboard and play baseball. Wherever he went he would bring me with him. He was also 11 when I was born, so there was a large age difference. His friends liked me and I always had a good time. I felt really cool hanging out with teenagers when I was so young. I lived in Westbrook at this time and in 2004 we moved to Cromwell. My brother was 16 and I was 5. We still had a wonderful relationship at this time. Some of my best memories with Frank were going to Hardware City Skatepark in New Britain every Wednesday because it was only $5 to skate. One specific day I remember we went to a chinese restaurant next door to get sodas while waiting for my mom to pick us up. As I was drinking my soda I remember Frank calling me weird because I would put my mouth over the whole top of the bottle to drink. Ever since then I have drank out of a bottle normally.



My brother started using drugs around the end of 2004 early 2005. This is when it started to go down hill. At this time I didn’t really know what was happening. All I remember was my parents fighting with him and him running away. He ran away around May and went to my Aunt Nancy's house and he dropped out of school in June of 2005. Aunt Nancy is my mother’s sister. I don't remember if I really knew what was going on at the time. I do remember a DCF worker coming to the house to talk to the parents because my aunt had said that my parents were neglectant of Frank. My aunt took my mother to court to have custody of my brother. My mom said that that was fine that she took custody of my brother because he would be 18 in 3 months. The only reason my aunt took custody of my brother was because he received child support from the state because his father never paid any, she only
wanted the child support money. I remember my brother calling the house leaving messages screaming and cursing that we were getting his child support money.This was not true. It was strange to me because I had never heard my brother talk like this. That summer my brother moved up to New Hampshire to live with my Grandma(my mom's mother). A year later my mom agreed to let my brother move back home as long as he paid rent since he wasn't going to school. I remember my dad saying he wasn't going to change and my mom being the loving person she is believed that my brother could do it. I remember going up to New Hampshire to pick up Frank. Frank followed the rules for a month or two then he went back to his old ways of lying and stealing. My parents kicked him out of the house again and he went back up to New Hampshire to live with my Grandma.
Frank visited virtually every summer and I still had a really superb time with him whenever I was with him. I remember crying every time he left because I loved him so much and I missed having my older brother always there for me. This changed the summer of 2011. Frank's girlfriend had left him and he had no where to stay. My parents agreed to let him come back and live with us. Again my dad told my mother that he won’t change and my mom, as stubborn as she is, didn’t listen to him. Again my father was right. I remember going to the house him and his girlfriend were living in at the time. The house smelt as awful as a public restroom. There were holes in the wall and a lot was broken. The deal for my brother was once he got home he had a month to get a job.
Frank had a dog named Phin that came to live with us when he moved in. For the first month I asked Frank if he wanted to sleep in my room with me. I had not seen him in a while and really missed him. So Frank slept on a mattress in my room and Phin slept with him. This was ok until Phin started using my room as a bathroom and Frank giving me a hard time to clean it up. I didn’t understand why he gave me a hard time when it was his dog p***ing in my room. I remember one specific time Phin had ripped up a shoebox in my room and there was a big mess. I asked Frank to pick it up and he said he would. Later that day it still wasn’t picked up and I told my parents and they yelled at him to pick it up and he talked back and they got into an argument. It took my brother a week of yelling to pick up the box when it would have taken him 5 minutes when I first asked him to pick it up. After that I did not want Frank to stay in the same room as me. This is where our relationship started to go down hill; it was one of the first times where I didn’t want to be around him. Frank blew my parents off and lied and said he was looking for a job when he wasn't. I still got along with him ok but it wasn't like before. He was different. I was 12 at this time and I knew when he was lying and I wouldn’t tolerate it.; I would call him out on it whenever he lied. It would bother me a lot when he lied and thats why I hate liars in general. My brother would go out alot with his friends smoking weed and drinking. I remember I had a wallet with around $50 dollars in it in the top drawer of my dresser. One day I went to look for it and it was gone. I don’t have any evidence that Frank stole it but I was almost positive it was him. He didn’t have any job so he didn’t have any money. Also, he had stolen from my mother before. I told my parents that I think Frank stole my money. We confronted him and him being a liar, he denied it. My father just told me to hide my money somewhere else in a better spot.
I remember my brother had been working at this restaurant named Pazzos. It was his first job during the time he was living with us. My mom was really happy that he was finally working and she
thought he was going to change; despite this belief, nothing changed. Frank was working at this restaurant for maybe a week and a half. I can remember It was a friday and my parents weren’t home when I got home from school. Just out of curiosity I checked my drawer where I kept my money. I had around I think $90 dollars and there was only around $20 in the drawer. I knew for a fact I hadn't spent any money. My parents got home around 4:30 and Frank had to go to work at 5. When my parents pulled in I went outside and told them. They got angry and went in the house and asked Frank why he stole my money. He denied it and got all mad and refused to go to work. My dad was furious and told me to go upstairs into my room to show him my money and what he stole. I remember him screaming at me for not hiding my money better and keeping it in the same spot. I was choked up and was about to cry. We went back downstairs where my mom was trying to get Frank to go to work but he was refusing. I remember my mom walking by me and she asked me why couldn’t I have waited till after he went to work to tell them. I was already really upset and my parents words really confused me. They had made me feel like it was my fault. I knew that’s not what they were trying to do but thats how it made me feel. I remember my mom stormed up into her room and she layed in her bed for about an hour crying. I went up into her room with her and cried also because I had so many emotions and questions running through my head I didn’t know what else to do. My brother went for a walk and I think he went to a friends house. About an hour after he left my parents talked to me and reassured me that it wasn’t my fault they were just angry with Frank. I couldn’t understand why Frank would steal from me. I had loved him so much. He was my big brother. He was supposed to protect me not hurt me. He continued to live with us after that. I didn’t get why they didn’t just kick him out. I loved
him and wanted him to stay but on the other hand he has not been a good person to us so I didn’t feel like he deserved to stay. He continued to stay out late partying. One night my brother came home drunk around 12 o’clock and my mom told us to take out the dogs before everyone went to bed. We walked up the street and he was talking to me in a drunken stupor. I would just look at him and I didn’t see my brother, Frank, I saw a stranger who I didn’t like or want to try to like.
Frank still didn’t work and told us he needed help to stop his addiction to alcohol. So, he decided to check into a rehab center in New London. After completing the program he lived in a house with other people from the the rehab. My mom agreed to pay the first two weeks of rent but after that he had to pay for it. After two weeks Frank had not gotten a job and was kicked out of the house for not paying rent and using again. It is about February when this happened and I was glad that he didn’t live with us any longer. That might sound mean but being home was not stressful anymore. We didn’t have to deal with Frank and all the fighting. Frank decided that he wanted to go back up to New Hampshire. My mom said fine and bought him a bus ticket to New Hampshire. I didn’t know where he stayed and I still don’t know where he lives. He has called and my mom talks to him. I don’t really want to talk to him. I feel like he doesn’t care about me. So why should I care about him. Last Christmas he called and I talked to him. He said he was sorry and that he is going to be a better brother but I don’t believe him. He said that he was going to send me the money he owes me but that never happened. I really wonder why he has to lie. I loved him maybe the most out of anyone in my family and he knew that, but yet he steals from me. I really feel betrayed how he could just do that to me. It’s not like he only did it once, he stole from me many times then lied about it. I just stopped caring about him
and that might not be the healthiest way of dealing with my problems but it helps me get through it.