St. Louis Missiouri 1956, this is where I was born. My mother and father met when my mother moved to St. Louis to live with my aunt Mackie and work. My father lived across the street and my mom thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. And he was. They fell in love and married in 1956.
I was the first daughter of four. A year and half later my sister Christy was born, 2 years later Kim, our special sister. She was born down syndrome, 2 years later Angie.
I didn't like Christy to much growing up, she was always a drama queen, cried to get her way, prissy, center of attention, and a tattle-tale. I was very mean to Christy growing up, I made her eat dog poop once, told her it was bubble gum, shoved her head in a toilet for telling mom that I sold their wedding pictures to the neighbor kids for a quarter so I could buy candy at the local store.
Even when we did get along for short periods of time we always managed to get in trouble and it always seem to be my fault... Once we were playing house, I always had to be the dad, and we were pretending like we were going to the store, so we went out to my fathers 1958 Red Chevy, that always shine like a new penny, and I got behind the wheel and Christy sat on the passengers side, pretending she was rolling her hair and off we went. I pulled the shift down into drive and we began to roll. Parked in front of my fathers car was a new 1958 Blue Mercury that belonged to our neighbor across the street. He just happened to be in the yard watching us play and seen the car was moving. He ran, grabbed the bumper of our car and held it until his son could run to our house and tell my dad what was happening. Dad ran out open the car door put the car in park and told us to stay there until he got back. Now Christy didn't have a clue that she was about to get a belt across her butt, and when Dad came back to get us, he grabbed Chris first, all Christy was worried about was he was messing up her hair! She is still like that to this day.
Through the next few years, my mother found out that looks weren't everything.
My father was an alcoholic, womanizer, couldn't hold a job and would leave us for days at a time.
He would come in drunk start an argument with my mother and before the night was over she would get her four children up out of bed, in the middle of the night and take us to our grandma Lil's house. Grandma became a security to me. I was old enough to know what was going on, I was 7 years old, and had spent more time with my grandmother than at home with my family. Grandma lived across from the school that I started, and my grandpa was the crossing guard. Everyday I would get in trouble for walking across the street during lunch to see them. After school I would spend time at grandmas. I would cry to stay the night, and if mother had not seen dad in a few days, she would let me and Christy stay, so she wouldn't have to drag us out of the house later that night if he did come home.
March 30, 1964 was my mother's birthday. My dad had been trying to get help with his drinking, and he had been to a doctor who told him he had a chemical imbalance. Later, Mother told me he just couldn't cope with it. The morning of mom's birthday, they had woken early. Mom was in the kitchen cooking breakfast and dad was in the bedroom getting dressed for the day.
At about 6 am, mom heard a gun shot ring through the house. My dad had shot himself in the head...Christy and I slept in the room across the hall, the noise woke me up. As I walk out of my bedroom, I heard loud screaming coming from outside, mother had run out of the house, to the neighbors to get help. I pushed the door open to my mother and fathers bedroom, to find my father's blood splattered on the wall and him laying in a pool of blood. In shock, I returned to my bedroom and crawled back into my bed, laying there staring at the ceiling , not truly understanding what I had just saw. I heard voices, crying, screaming...the police had come to the room to wake us up and take us to someones house I didn't know. My sisters where taken some place else. As we walked through the living room I could see my mother laying on the couch with nurses and doctors around her, giving her oxygen and trying to help her calm down.
I had nightmares for along time after my father died. I could never tell my mother what I saw because she couldn't talk about my father without crying and I was afraid if I told her what I saw it would make her cry more, so I kept it to myself for several years. Suffering with the memory of a selfish, inconsiderate act of suicide and not really knowing how to tell someone what I had witnessed at the age of 7.
The next thing I remember is my mother telling us that we were going to move to Paragould to be closer to her family. I was devastated! I didn't want to move away from the only security I had ever known. My grandma Lil.
I became even more rebellious, and very angry. I told mom she could leave and take my sisters with her but I was staying with grandma Lil. I remember I spent the night with grandma the last night we where in St.Louis and we were sitting on the couch in the living room watching T.V. I ask her if I could stay with her and go to school. And she said to me, " No , you have to go with your mother, you are the oldest and she needs you to help her with your sisters." I went to bed that night crying, scared of what was going to happen to all of us, me...I laid awake all night listening to the sounds of the city from my safe bed, praying that my grandmother would change her mind before morning and let me stay.
I heard grandma get up early and start breakfast. As I laid in bed, I prayed one last prayer that God would change her mind and let me stay because she couldn't live without me like I couldn't live without her. I got up out of bed and went to the kitchen. I went in and sat down at the table and she walked over and kissed me good morning and ask if I was hungry, I said no, I couldn't eat my stomach hurt. And then I ask her one more time, "Grandma, please let me stay here with you, I promise, I will be nice, I won't get in any trouble and I will be good all my life, I promise, Please let me stay!" With tears in her eyes she turned to me and said " I can't let you stay, you belong with your mother. I will come to visit and you can come to visit and we will always be close, I promise. Your mother needs you." Shortly after my third and final rejection, mother and the girls showed up to get me. Mother had to physically pulled me off of grandma Lil and force me in the car. I cried all the way to Paragould. Even as an adult every time I left my grandma Lil's house I cried all the way to Corning Arkansas....
Moral of this Blog: "We don't have choices about who our parents are or how they treat us, but we do have choices about whether we forgive our parents and heal ourselves."
"Even a child is known by his doings, whether it be pure and whether it be right." Proverbs 20:14
1 comment:
Patiently ;) waiting on Ch. 2
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