4ever-imperfect

[4ever-imperfect]

On the night before my last final exam, my stepdad informed me ‘we need to talk’.

He asked me where I planned to live ‘tomorrow’. The obvious answer ‘here’ was my reply. “Good,” he said. “We need to discuss your rent.”

Furious, I said, “I’m definitely not paying rent to live here! You receive more than $900/month from my dad’s death to cover my rent.” He explained he didn’t see it that way; that the check was “to put up with me”. By now, I had a room in their house and provided everything else for myself.

I packed my belongings in my red Ford Festiva that night in lieu of studying for my final exam. The following morning, I woke and readied myself for school, took my final exam, and headed for Arkansas.

[4ever-imperfect]

My ‘fresh start’

Our next home was in Missouri. I quickly discovered I could get a job at 14 if my school gave me an authorization form. I was once again a straight A student and started working right away. I felt liberated! I could buy clothes and shoes and be ‘normal’. I was making friends for the first time and feeling as though this really was a fresh start.

In January, a friend from school called my mom to say he wanted to take me to the school dance and his sister had a dress I could wear. I was elated! We began ‘dating’ and spent as much time together as we could outside of school and work. In March, I was at work waiting for my mom to pick me up when I was told I needed to find a ride home. ‘Kevin’ offered to take me home. I did t know him well, but I did know his girlfriend and foolishly accepted. After drugging and raping me, he put my clothes back on ripped, inside out and covered in blood then dropped me in my front yard. And the fresh start was gone. My stepdad and mom told me I should have made a better choice on who would take me home.

I started a second job over the summer to keep my mind busy and my thoughts off of what had happened. I found solace in having some measure of control even when I felt dead inside.

When I started my second job, my stepdad informed me I was no longer allowed to eat the food they purchased and I was given a small section in the refrigerator where I could store food. In that space, I kept a bottle of orange juice and a dozen eggs. Each morning, I would crack an egg into a glass of orange juice, stir it up, and drink it before leaving the house.

My determination to get away grew and I saved my money and eventually purchased a used car. I worked 2-3 jobs throughout high school and, after one more move, met with my school counselor and learned I could adjust my schedule and graduate a semester early.

[4ever-imperfect]

Grief, interrupted

155 days… that is the time it took for my mom to overcome her loss, start and drop out of nursing school, have 3 live-in boyfriends, go on vacation and return to announce she had a new last name.

155 days was not enough time for my sister or for me.

We were told to be happy for her. Our grief kept her from being happy and we were selfish to not want her happiness.

We now had ‘a new dad’ and three ‘new sisters’. We ‘should be happy’. But we didn’t… and we weren’t.

We soon moved away from our grandparents and felt completely isolated - we only had one another… and the eternal grief we were forbidden to show.

By the time I was 11, my sister and I spent our summers caring for our ‘new sisters’, cleaning the house, and preparing meals for the family. It was our ‘duty’ to earn the home we lived in and the food we were provided. We wore clothes given to us by cousins and were told the money received from social security was ‘to pay the bills’ and any requests involving money were declined.

That same year, my stepdad came down the hall angry at my sister who had just gotten out of the shower and was headed to her room wrapped in a towel. He grabbed the towel and she shrewder, pulling the towel away and ran for her room jumping under her bed covers in an attempt to stay covered. He attempted to remove her covers and we both started yelling at him to stop as I was trying to pull him away from her. He hit me, knocking me to the floor then left her room. After my mom arrived home,I ran away to a friend’s home and called my grandmother begging to buy me and my sister bus tickets so we could get away. She replied, “You know I would do anything for you, but your mother has already called and said if you girls come here, she will have us arrested and jailed for kidnapping.”

I stayed at the friend’s home 6 days then returned home, defeated. My stepdad’s apology was, “You need to know you almost caused me and your mother to get a divorce. Nothing like this will ever happen again.”

When the new sisters decided not to come visit for summers, my sister and I were signed up to volunteer at the nursing home or with Special Olympics so we wouldn’t have ‘idle time’. We really enjoyed volunteering but longed for some downtime at the end of the day, but this was not possible as we were responsible still for housekeeping, preparing meals and cleaning up after dinner. Days were often exhausting.

There were two summers that were the exception. Mom took us to see family and we were allowed to just be kids. We played with cousins or neighbor kids, went to amusement parks, and swam. We were normal.

In the 9 years following Daddy’s death, we would be moved 7 times. New towns, new schools, new people, but the same stalled grief, the same loss, the same nothingness held its grip.

At 14, I was weary from being taunted for my old, often too small clothing and tattered shoes. I longed to be ‘normal’. My Junior high school had a drill team and all of the girls on the team were ‘normal’. I showed up for tryout week and was laughed at and told by the other girls I was wasting my time. I worked harder than anyone else and, on the day of tryouts, I became a member of the team. I was sure it was a turning point! But, uniforms cost money and camp costs money and everything else costs money. I was devastated.

At church, there was a kind woman who was an attorney. She needed someone who would clean house for her on Satudays while watching her son so she could work. I happily took the opportunity and earned just enough money for the uniform we were required to purchase along with the required socks, shoes, and makeup. I also earned enough to buy one of the old uniforms from a girl who had been on the team before. I was ecstatic even though I was not able to afford camp.

When practice started in July, I was hopeful I would feel a sense of belonging. I arrived to practice enthusiastic and excited to learn the new dance routines the team had learned at camp. I was clearly behind, stumbling through unfamiliar routines, and again facing the laughter and taunting from my peers. “You should just give your spot to Stacy. She should have been in your spot anyway.”

My spirit was broken. Once again - or maybe still - I was alone. I tried talking to my mom who told me if I didn’t like it I should just quit. It would be easier anyway because she didn’t know how I could expect her to take me to practices and games. I assured her I would ride my bike to practices and find a way to the games but I didn’t know what to do about the way I was being treated. Her solution was ‘you’ll figure it out’. When the girls hatched a plan to get me off the team and planted the team captain’s makeup in my locker, i was completely devastated… they had won.

Weeks passed and my grades began to drop. I made my first C’ ever and my mom took me and had me checked into an inpatient t psychiatric facility, telling them, “I just don’t know what to do with her”. Because my stepdad worked there, I was admitted at no cost. When I refused to entertain his personal visits, I was told I would not be allowed to see anyone else in my family and I would stay there until I met with him. I refused and remained in the facility until, one day seemingly out of the blue, my mom picked me up. She informed me my stepdad was out of town looking for a rental home. We were moving again. It would ‘be a fresh start’ for me.

[4ever-imperfect]

When I was 8, my parents’ marital strife reached an all-time high and my mom took my sister and me to Oklahoma to ‘visit’ our grandparents there. After some time, my sister and I were elated to hear Daddy was coming to visit on Friday after work!

Friday afternoon, the phone rang. My grandmother answered the phone, screamed ‘Oh my God, no!’ and dropped to the floor.

Daddy had been killed in a logging accident when the brakes failed and his skidded rolled down the mountain, crushing him. And, just like that, my silver lining vanished.

My grandparents drove us all back to Arkansas to pack up our things (our home was a rental) and hold the funeral. Mom locked herself in her room for the two weeks we were there… she was understandably distraught.

Granny told me and my sister, “Don’t cry. Be strong for your mom. She is sad.” So, I didn’t cry except when I was alone. The bathroom became my safe space because I could cry in the bath alone and no one would see my brokenness.

When I started school a month later in a new state and fatherless, I was an outcast. I was poor, sad, hungry most of the time, and I went to the bathroom A LOT! One day, I was so consumed by sadness, I asked to be excused to the bathroom. When my teacher came in and found me crying, she said I had been gone for 45 minutes and I worried her. She asked me if I would be willing to meet with her after school for a few weeks and take some tests for some work she was doing. And, with my mom’s approval, I began taking daily tests - and I had a new silver lining.

[4ever-imperfect]

Daddy

As a child in rural Arkansas, my early life was a mosaic of turmoils with a sliver of a silver lining.

My father was my silver lining.

He was a logger who worked long hours to provide what little we had. He would leave at 4am and return home late in the day to take a bath then lounge in his recliner in his underwear. I remember watching wrestling as I sat on the floor next to his feet some days. Junkyard Dog, Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan… Other days, he would return home and retreat to the makeshift workshop so he could keep that old F-150 running just a little longer. And I would be right by his side asking to help, asking ‘Daddy, what does this do’ and ‘Daddy, how do you know what you have to do to fix it’ and he would humor me and teach me how to help.

Daddy hunted all year long to keep us fed. He would take me and my sister to a wooded area to hunt for squirrels, deer, quail, whatever we could find to eat.

He often brought home baby animals from the woods and we would keep them as pets - baby red fox, baby skunk (they inactivated his scent gland), baby raccoon, 7 baby squirrels, and more… all of which lived in our home.

When my sister went to kindergarten, I felt alone and upset that she was learning and I wasn’t. Daddy would come home from work and take me to grab a bite to eat, then he would teach me math. By the time I started kindergarten, I had read Moby Dick and was able to perform long multiplication and division calculations with ease. He always had a way to turn lessons into ‘play’.

Many days, my Papa (Daddy’s father) would be intoxicated and angry at the world. He would show up at our house yelling, cursing, and threatening to kill all of us. My mom would shove me and my sister into a closet and close the door telling us not to make a sound and ‘whatever you do, don’t open the door’ - we opened the door. We would look out the window curiously and see Papa (again) pointing a pistol or rifle while Daddy tried to talk him down. Soon, BL (the Sherrif) would arrive and haul Papa off to jail to sleep it off once again. Daddy showed a steadfast love for his father despite his evil.

On weekends, we would often be taken to Papa’s house. Granny Edith would save clipped coupons, ‘credit cards’ from ads and clipped fingernails for us to play with. She had the purest heart! Some days, I would walk with Papa, plowing his field behind his mule. I loved him despite knowing there would again come a day when he would threaten to kill us all.