My dad used to say it plainly: we are all that we have.
He didn’t say it as a warning. He said it as a fact. Six kids in the same house, and that was the foundation everything else was built on.
We didn’t always get along. That’s the honest version of this story, and I think it’s the more useful one. We challenged each other, competed with each other, and yes — we fought. The kind of fights that only people who know each other that well can have, because you know exactly which buttons to push and you’re not afraid to push them.
But when it counted — when something came from outside that circle — we stood up for each other. Every time. That wasn’t a conversation we had to have. It was just understood.
This photo is from Christmas, early 90s. I don’t remember the exact year — ’90 or ’91, somewhere in there. I look at it now and what strikes me most isn’t how young we were or how much the fashion dates it. It’s the energy. Everybody’s laughing. Somebody’s getting grabbed. It’s loud even in a still image.
That’s us. That was always us.
As the years went by, the fights got fewer. Not because we got more polite with each other — we’re still pretty direct — but because somewhere along the way we stopped needing to compete and started needing to lean. Life has a way of making that shift for you.
We lost our dad in 2002. There are moments when something happens — good or bad — and you reach for him first, and then remember. But what he left us was already in place. The foundation was built before he was gone.
We lost our oldest brother in 2017. There are five of us now. And that number — five instead of six — is the kind of thing that makes you understand what your dad meant in a way you couldn’t when he first said it.
My brothers and I are real estate partners today. We built something together because we trust each other in a way that only comes from sharing the same roof, the same parents, and yes — the same fights. My dad would probably just nod and say he already knew it would work out that way.
We are all that we have.
He knew. He always knew.
“To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts.” — Clara Ortega
Happy National Siblings Day to my brothers and sisters. And to everyone out there who has that circle — the ones who know you at your worst and showed up anyway — hold onto them.
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