The Colorful World of Ashnut

My name is Ash, but at home, I'm mostly known as “Ashnut.” I'm thirteen years old, and my life is a vibrant, noisy, and incredibly colourful canvas, much like the drawings I love to create. My dream is to one day buy a dark blue Bugatti—not just for me, but for my parents too, so I can see their faces glow with pride. But for now, my world is defined by my three sisters, who are my best friends, my occasional enemies, and my first teachers.

I’m the youngest kid of the family, and they never let me forget it. Danielle, my eldest sister, is ten years older than me. She’s like a second mother, maybe even more experienced than Mom. She picks us up from school, solves our problems, cooks for us and is basically a walking ATM. To me, fifteen dollars from her feels like a fortune. Then there’s Diana, my second sister, who's often locked in debates with Diana about university and her future. And finally, there’s my partner-in-crime, Heidi, who’s only a year older. We go to the same school, sharing every walk there and back.

Growing up with them is an education you can’t get anywhere else. While some boys at school make jokes that make the girls uncomfortable, I know better. My sisters teach me about gender sensitivity all day every day. I know what respect looks like, and I’m not afraid to tell my friends to stop. I can probably name more skincare products than any other boy in my grade, thanks to countless trips to the mall with my sisters carrying their shopping bags. I understand their jokes and their language. My female classmates sometimes say I understand them better than some of their friends do! This makes me a “double-agent” of some sort. I know all the boys’ jokes and all the girls’ jokes. And trust me, they are very different. Sometimes, it’s a superpower; sometimes, however, it’s a curse. When I mention a boys’ joke to my sisters, they just stare at me, like “WHAT?!”. When I drop a girls’ joke on my male friends, they have no idea what I'm talking about.

Our weekly movie nights are my favourite. We snuggle up on the sofa, watch a film, and our special rule comes to life: if someone makes a joke that cracks everyone up, they win a prize from the other three, like an ice cream. We love pointing at characters on screen and shouting, “That’s you! You do that exact thing!”. It's in these moments, when laughing until my stomach hurts, I feel the most warmth and joy.

But there’s a catch to this family love. In our family’s decision-making hierarchy, I’m at the very bottom—Dad, Danielle, Mom, Diana, and Heidi, then there is me... My opinions are rarely taken seriously. They'd say, “You're just a kid, you don’t understand.” Sometimes I’d fight back, but I never succeed. My opinions are always ignored.

This used to frustrate me, especially since Heidi, only a year older than me, seemed to have so much more say than I do. Recently, however, something changed. When I got my second cat, Simba. My older cat, Lanci, would hiss at him a lot, and we were worried that they would never be friends ever. Simba was very active and ran everywhere, so it was hard to keep them in a separate room while making sure they didn’t meet. To solve the problem, I proposed an idea to keep Simba in a box and keep Lanci, the older one, outside the box, but no one would listen to me. So, recently, during a family dinner, I raised that proposal again, and when my older sister Diana considered it more seriously, she thought that my idea could work. We tried it, and the cats became friends and got used to each other. Since then, our cats always cuddle with each other. After that incident, I saw a new look in my sisters’ eyes—a flicker of recognition that Asher is climbing up the decision-making hierarchy. Now, not only do they thank me for my idea, but also listen and agree to my new ones.

There is one hilarious exception to being treated like a kid. The moment we step into a shopping mall, their tone changes dramatically. “Ash,” they say, with their sweet voices, “you’re a mature teen now. And a mature teen helps carry the bags.” Suddenly, I transform into the “person who should carry our stuff,” with my shoulders draped with bags of their “treasures.”

My world is already full of extraordinary women—three incredible sisters who are shaping me into the man I hope to become. A man who will one day drive a dark blue Bugatti with my sisters and mom in it. I look forward to that great future. 

Note: We adopt fictitious names to protect our service-learning clients’ privacy.