coming full circle

Well, it seems that there are folks out there reading my ramblings (Hi, Scott, it was nice to hear from you again)

I hope that this finds all of you well! My son has had the flu, but I think that we are all on the mend now. Please, folks, the flu is nasty! If you are out somewhere and someone coughs.......RUN RUN RUN!

Now on to the good stuff..........

So here I am now, just a few miles from the mountain that gave me my first memories and a few miles from the father who didnt want a daughter. Just a few miles from what most people would consider the beginning of misery. I am no longer hit, lol, quite the opposite as my hubby would tell you. Here a cute story:

Several years ago, I started cleaning my church once a week. I needed some extra income and the church needed someone to clean it. Funny how God works things out like that. So anyway, I was cleaning the church one summer day. I had all the windows and doors wide open, so that church could air out. I was alone and really enjoying some time away, when this man walked in, real slow and real careful like. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye and instantly knew he did NOT have good intentions. I was in a small room, off to the side of the entrance and there was no way to get out without asking him to move. Then he caught sight of me, making me even more sure that he was not a friendly sort of guy, sooo, I picked up a metal folding chair and went a little WWF upside his head. There is still a dent in the wall where his head hit it.

While he was sprawled out on the floor, I took off out the door. By the mercy of God, there was a man who lived in a neighboring house, driving up his driveway. He saw me and came to my aid. Turns out, he was a retired New York cop! Hows that for coincidence? He and I went up to the church to wait for the police and the attacker was still inside. He took off when we got there though. The police trailed him for a while but he was never caught.

It really struck me hard, even harder than that chair struck that man, that God had ALWAYS provided me with the safety I needed, even when I was too little to realize it. All those things that happened as I grew up were not God's fault, what WAS His fault was that I survived and grew to marry and have children, be a happy and normal person. Ok, maybe not normal, but who's counting?

For instance, Two years ago, I got sick. Really sick. I had a complete pelvic prolapse, which required an 8 hour surgery to repair. During this surgery, I was dropped and had my shoulder dislocated. Other than that, I healed quickly and went home. Three weeks later, I was doubled over in pain. After a cat scan, the Dr told me that I had an abcess. We tried for months to cure this abcess, four more surgeries, tubes coming out of every hole I had, and lots of pain. Once I had enough, I told them to cut me open and take it OUT. So specialists were called in, a team of Doctors did the surgery. The thing they thought was an abcess was actually my ovary, swollen to the size of a softball. Its out, so I"m cured! Yay! Not so fast.

I had to go home with a tube that went in at my elbow and ran directly into my heart, so that I could give myself IV medication at home for awhile. I formed a five inch blood clot in the artery in my neck. HMMM.
So back into the hospital. One particularly wonderful nurse panicked every time I sneezed, and when I told her to chill, she told me "You could roll over and bust that thing lose. You would be dead in less that a minute". HA, thats a nice thing to hear. Oh well, Christ died for me, I am forgiven, a child of God, so I have nothing to fear. I turned on Bill Cosby, and he made me laugh for the rest of the night. The blood clot dissolved away after a couple months of heparin injections. Then a couple months ago, my other ovary did the same thing, but was not a big deal, as we knew what we were dealing with. We just got rid of the little bugger and all is well.

I am sooooo glad that I was sick! So many good things came from it. Like my relationship with my church.
They called me, sent me cards, flowers and BROWNIES! I taped their cards to my wall, so that I could see them (after I ate the brownies). It amazed me that these people actually loved me enough to think about me when I was not around, to take out time to cook for me, to come see me. They love me and I did nothing to earn that love! This was a totaly new concept for me and it still amazes me. They even took up a fund, giving their own hard earned money to help us out with the massive medical bills. God provided, abundantly, through my wonderful church.

And then there was my kids. They were terrified though the whole two years, but they stepped up and took over the house. They mopped, cleaned, cooked, did laundry, and took care of me. They even helped me with my bandages and IVs. Best of all, I caught my oldest son praying for me, asking God not to take his momma.
He loves me enough to want to keep me around AND he loves God enough to talk to Him about it! Big WOO HOO! I have a newfound respect for my kids and they for me as well.

And hubby. OH the hubby. We had gone thru a VERY rough spot in our marriage, coming very close to divorce (no details here). When I became ill, I needed a man that I could count on and was terrified because I felt as if I couldn't count on hubby. But, the man stayed with me EVERY SINGLE night that I spent in the hospital. We spent more time in the hospital than out. He washed me, fed me, and crawled up in that hospital bed to hold me. At night, he slept in a recliner, pulled right up next to the bed so that I could reach out to touch him when ever I needed. He brought me food (hospital food is GROSS), pretty nightgowns, brushed my hair and painted my toenails. He held my hair back when I threw up and wiped the sweat from my face when I wallowed in pain. I had a man that I could count on. Over the past two years I have gained new love and faith in the man that God gave me, and once again, I know that I will grow old and wrinkled and saggy with this man!

Well, all that brings us up to the present. To who I am today. A woman who is slow to make friends, and is honest to the point of being too blunt at times. I do have baggage.........I don't trust people very much and I get emotionaly hurt easy by those I love. I know how to defend myself and my children, and will do so with a vengence if cornered. BUT, I have faith in my God who has saved me once spiritualy, and physically many more times than I can count. I live in a rather ugle rental house, and we are strapped financialy. I have two wonderful children and a man that I love so much that it is disgusting. Life could not be any better!

So, I guess in the next few posts, I will tell you more about me. What I do, my hobbies and all about my animals......and we have alot of animals, lol, including a 130 pound 1 year old PUPPY. I hope that you will enjoy the rest as much as you have said you have enjoyed the beginnings.

Much love to each of you!

no second chances

I am wondering if anyone is actually reading this......besides, you Scott. Well, maybe Scott is not reading anymore, I took so long getting back in here. SO, tell ya what, if anyone is out there, leave a note, so I will know that I am not sitting here talking to myself. Ok, I'll probably talk to myself anyway, but that's beside the point!

Now, where were we?

oh, yes, Daddy called!

So I answer the phone and hear, "this is your daddy, can we talk for a bit?" I gritted my teeth and thought. I was still having nightmares about the things this man did to me, I had so much emotional baggage leftover from daddy's "love". Did I really want to hear what the man had to say?

I let him talk. He told me that what he had done was wrong, and that he knew that he couldn't take any of it back, but he was sorry and begged for my forgiveness. He was remarried now, with two small children. He was going to church and had been saved. And he was dying of a heart condition, so he needed to get right with the Lord and with me. He actually said all that to me.

I hung up and spent a couple weeks in thoughtful prayer. I knew that Christ could forgive him, just as Christ had forgiven the thief on the cross, but was I strong enough to forgive him? Eventually, I decided to lay it all on God's hands, and as soon as I did, I felt as though a huge burgen had been lifted from me. I called daddy and told him that I could forgive him, and then helped him decide what route to take for his heart condition.

A few weeks later, he asked me and my family to share Christmas dinner with him. I reluctantly agreed, and bought some presents for his two children. We ended up having a very nice dinner together and his children seemed pleased with the gifts that we got them. My boys felt a little awkward during the beginning, but soon relaxed and enjoyed themselves as well. To top it all off, the heart condition was improving!

Daddy was killed in a motorcycle accident about six months later. He was within a mile of home, and was pulling out of the gas station when an elderly man hit him, throwing him from the bike.
I was a little shocked at how upset I was. I really didn't expect to feel the sadness that I felt when my sister made the call to tell me that he was dead.

Then, when it was time to go in to view the body (a VERY morbid custom), I had a very hard time! I stood for about 15 minutes and stared at his hands. I kept remembering horrid things about those hands and there they were completely still as though frozen in time. After awhile, I was able to find comfort in knowing that he had made things right, with both me and the Lord. I do wish that he and I would have been able to continue the relationship that we had formed so shortly before his death.

It seems so ironic to me. When me and my siblings were younger, he wasn't there for us, we grew up without a daddy. Now that he had two young children, he was doing so good with them, but now despite all that, they too will grow up with out a daddy. He also had another daughter that lived out of the country, and had just met her for the first time. It seems to me that we, as mothers, fathers, sisters, etc NEED to take care as to what we do because, sometimes, there just are no second chances. We should love and love right from the very beginning, and never part in anger because you don't know if you will be able see that person alive again. Live as though there are no second chances!

It was at daddy's funeral, that I met my stepsister who live out of the country. She was a beautiful person, and I very much look forward to seeing her again! We hit it off pretty quick, in part, I think, because we both knew what it was like to not know who our father was. She is hoping to make it back to the states next year, so maybe there will be a huge cookout with me and ALL of my siblings! I hope so.

It was worth it

Married life was great! well, except in the morning, when I threw up for half an hour at a time.
Note to you men out there.......When your pregnant wife is in the bathroom, gagging and wretching and making otherwise terrifying and disgusting noises, it is NOT appropriate to tap on the door and say "are ya ok in there honey?" If your wife is the nice type, she will roll her eyes and say yes, but any other wife could possibly fling something at you, while screaming horrid things. For your own safety, go get her a nice cold drink and a cold wash cloth, then stand and look guilty and apologetic until you are rudely and abruptly dismissed.

Other than the morning sickness, the noon sickness, afternoon sickness, and the middle of the night sickness, pregnancy was pretty cool. I could feel the baby rolling around in there, kicking squirming and bouncing when he had the hiccups.

When I was about 6 months pregnant, my legs and arms began to swell pretty bad, so I had to quit work and rest more. However, my blood pressure began to rise and I was put on bedrest. At one point, the dr was concerned for the baby, so I was sent in for a stress test.

I was hooked up to monitors that would register both the baby's heart beat and how often he moved. We found a heart beat, but the baby wasn't moving. at all. We waited for 45 minutes, no movement. I walked a little, jumped a few times, still nothing. The nurses tried to "stimulate" the baby, by practicaly punching me in the belly and nothing. He wouldn't move. So, of course, I got scared and panicked, calling my hubby at work. I asked him to come and he said ok, but he had to run home first. Can you imagine how irritated I was? Had to run home! and here I lay, strapped up to monitors, wondering if my baby was dying inside of me! THE NERVE.

B showed up soon enough, with his guitar case in hand. He quietly sat down next to the bed and strummed his guitar. The monitors registered as the baby IMMEDIATELY began to move. Do you see a trend here? DO you see how often I make a fool of myself? lol Needless to say, the baby was fine. (Baby is STILL a sound sleeper by the way)

Eventually, my blood pressure got very high and I was hospitalized at 7 and a half months. The plan was to stay there until the baby was born, but the medication they gave me did not work and so, baby "M" was born by C-section! He was/is beautiful and perfectly formed. I fell absolutely and instantly in love.

When M was about a year old, My mother called and said that my grandfather had died. The father of my biological father. I made some calls, and within a week, I was sitting, for the first time, in front of my biological father. We had a nice chat, and then mutually decided not to further our relationship. It seems that he was concerned that his three "other" children would find out about me, and I was unwilling to lie about who I was. But, I did get to look him in the eye for once in my life.

Get this, he lives not two miles from where I live. I had been riding past his house for over two years without realizing it. I had seen him in the gas station down the road without realizing who he was. Creepy! (the origanal house I spoke of in my first post, is less than 10 miles from me now, so I really have come full circle)

Two years later, married life is still good and mother hood is good, so we decided we wanted to try again, despite the Dr saying it couldn't be. I prayed, asking for God's blessing, and within a month, we were pregnant. This pregnancy lasted about 5 weeks, when I started bleeding and ultimately lost the baby. I was heartbroken and devasted, but each time I looked at my little M, I felt better.

B and I had taken a side job of installing some flooring about three weeks after the miscarriage. I had to leave for a follow up Dr appointment to make sure I was "cleaned out". I did have some concerns, because I was throwing up and sore. Well, SURPRISE! I was already pregnant! OOOOOHHHHH, was I going to get to shock some people silly!

I went back to the job site, giddy and giggling, anticipating telling B about our new baby. Yet, when I walked back into the room, he didn't look up.......he just said "Did the Dr tell you that your pregnant again?" He already knew, he knew before I even went to the Dr! The nerd.
SOOOO, I can shock my mother!!!!!! We went straight to her house after finishing the job, again with me giggling and giddy. I walked in the door and said "hi ,mom" and mom said "your pregnant". GRRRRRRRRRRR

Baby A was born 8 months later, an easy pregancy, still threw up the whole time, but didn't swell up like a beached whale. His delivery was a hard one, 24 hours of labor, and pushed for over 4 hours. Sure I had an epidural, but it didnt work, AT ALL. It was worth it.

After I pushed forever, it was decided that I was going to have to have another section, this baby would not come down any further. As I was whisked away to the operating room, I had another contraction, let out a blood curdling scream (Im sure you must have heard it). The baby had budged.

Have you ever read the story where Poohbear gets stuck in the hole at Rabbit's house? Well, Pooh got stuck in this hole, and every pushed and pulled and didn't feed poor Pooh bear until one day.........He budged! Rabbit and every one else got so excited that they ran around screaming "He bidged......Be bodged......I mean He BUDGED!"

This is precisely what the Dr and nursed did. "HE BUDGED HE BUDGED". I am of course, thinking "Great, he budged. NOW GET HIM OUT OF ME!!!!!"

Unfortunately, he had budged a little too far and was now too low for them to do a section without breaking his little neck, yet he was still stuck. He wouldn't go back up, nor could he come further down, and his heartbeat was getting weak. So old doc, grabs a HUGE pair of tongs, and RIPS the child out of me.

Turns out that my pelvis was full of bone spurs that were blocking the babys designated path. His pretty little head broke them off (still no pain meds, by the way) as the Dr yanked him into our little world. Yep, you said it. OUCH. It was worth it.

Baby A was fine after a few minutes. He gave me a scare, he was grey and not breathing well, but he pinked up pretty quick and gave the most beautiful scream, similar to the one I had just given. I had a baby!!!!!

M was thrilled to have a little brother, B was thrilled to have two sons and I was thrilled to have a family that was so wonderful, a marriage that was so wonderful!

I knew that I would not be able to have another baby, as my uterus was now properly ruined. (God broke the mold when he made baby A). But I was ok, though I would have really liked a little girl to add to my family.

Eight years pass, with our family getting absurdly happy in the process. Hubby and I were STILL inseparable, just like when we were dating. The kids are smart and well behaved. I am raising an training dobermans. Hubby has a steady job, though money was still tight. Everything is going great, and then.....

Daddy calls me. The stepfather who did those horrible things. The stepfather who I have not spoken to in years. He calls me up out of the blue...........................

The green circle

So.....long time no see. I have been ill, with first a nice tummy virus (I'll spare the details) and then a lovely case of the flu (again, no details, aren't you glad?) Life is a little hectic right now, but I will try to get on a decent blog schedule. (lol, no promises) now back to it.........


After the death of Susan, life began to take on some wierd changes. The most memorable one took place on the green circle gathering area that the college I was attending. I was walking across this grassy area, on the way to Anatomy class, when I saw this guy. He had on boots, jeans, and a hat. AND he had THE most incredible blue eyes. I was staring at those blue eyes, thinking amusing thoughts to myself when suddenly, I realized those blue eyes were staring right back at me! Horrified, indignant and embarrassed, I hustled off to my Anatomy class, thinking "he was WAY too hot for me! He had to have been laughing at me". Can you IMAGINE how embarrassing?

Then a few days later, he was in the student union, and for some reason, just happened to be sitting right next to where I was playing pool. He asked me for a cigarette, saying that he always smoked when he played pool. So with me being the level headed woman that I am, I panicked and came back with "well I only smoke when I breathe" and then basicly FLUNG a cigarette at him. Smooth, huh?

Later on that week, he asked me out and by the grace of God and God only, I didn't paick and make a fool out of myself (again). On Friday, he showed up to pick me up from my mothers house, with a little plush seal holding a red rose (I still have a petal from that rose). Problem was, that my mother JUST HAPPENED to be weeding her flower beds with a 10 inch butcher knife, and my little brothers and sisters stood at the door giggling and saying "are ya gonna KISS him?". SO, what was there to do? I held up my head and walked down the sidewalk, got in the car, and promptly told him that if he tried to do anything innappropriate, I would hit him rather hard and in a not so nice place. He didnt try anything at all.

We went to a dinner theater. I wore a very nice black sequin dress (loaned from a friend) and had my hair up and all, but geesh, the forks! I am a steak and taters sort of gal, and this table had two or three forks and two or three spoons. I had no idea which fork was for what, so I had to wait on others to pick up a fork to see which one to use, and then his leg bumped into my leg. Gracefully, I came pretty close to jumping out of my seat.

I was about five minutes past curfew that night, so momma met me at the door. SHe raised her fist to hit me and I blew up. I hit my mother. Hard and then, I packed my bags and left. That was the last time she hit me.

When I was back at school the following Monday, I told him, whose name is "B" by the way, what all had happened, and instead of decided that I was a nutcase from a family of nutcases, he asked me out again!!! And thus began the love of my life, one of the greatest blessings God gave me.

I decided to plan the date this time, so I took him to the barn to ride horses. I put him on a nice little paint horse while I rode Moondancer, my hanoverian mare. I had gotten Moon for free, even though she was a dressage horse that had been shipped in from Europe. She was at a show once, and someone hit her with a crop. She went a little batty and decided that it would be cool to try and kill people, so she was put to pasture at the barn I was working at (I had stopped working at the nursing home for awhile). Her owners decided to put her down, so I offered to take her. Moon and I had a real nice fight that ended her both of us sweating and panting, then we had no more problems after that. Well, that was a nice little tangent, wasnt it? back to the story at hand......

B was on the little paint and I was on Moon. I had planned a nice easy ride, since Moon was pregnant, but the little paint had other plans. Once we got a little ways from the barn, that little paint busted the girth, threw the saddle straight up in the air, with B still in it, and ran right out from under them! The saddle landed on the ground, B landed on the saddle and Moon and I took off to catch the paint, after a quick check to make sure B was ok. At least I wasn't the one looking foolish that time!

Not so long after that, I told B that I was barren (The Dr had told me that I had been internaly damaged from the molestation and would not have children). I told him that I was not interested in marriage and any of that "stuff". He told me that I was beautiful, so naturally, I cried for hours, so hard that I had to call in sick to work. And to think, the man kept coming back for more.

During this time, my Granny fell ill with cancer. I knew she was dying so I took B to meet her. She fell in love with him instantly and as we left the room, she said "you need to marry that one". She died a week later.

We spent all our spare time together, were literally inseparable. AND then...................

I missed my period.

We were pregnant. SO, we told our parents. My mother, well, she completely blew me away.
She cried, no yelling, no fussing, just cried and hugged me. When I told her that B and I were to be married, she insisted on buying the cake and dress and doing the reception. Go figure.

His parents, well, they didn't like it so much, but they adjusted, slowly. very slowly.

We were married at B's little church. It's a little white church up on a hill. I wore a 40 dollar dress from Goody's and we invited 12 people, all family to the wedding. The reception had punch, and cake. The cake was wonderful, it was a gift from another family member and it had fresh flowers on the top. Yellow flowers to honor my gran (her favorite color was yellow) and purple flowers to honor my great grandmother who had recently died as well (her favorite color was purple). B got off work about two hours before the wedding, came home, changed clothes, married his woman and hauled me away to start a new life. lol, the next morning, he went back to work and told them he was married.


I loved being his wife from the start, though I missed my brothers and sisters to the point of crying and I was really scared about having this baby. But God does provide...........................

livin the good life

(again I have done two posts today.......these are hard posts to write, and sometimes I need some motivation to write another, so I try to fit in as much as possible)

So, now I'm at college..........I didn't have much money so I got a job to pay for school. This left me working and at school most of the time. I usually stayed after work and did my studies there, instead of going home, because momma got irritated at the sound of my pencil scratching or an extra light bulb burning at night. It was easier to study at work, more peaceful, no mother yelling or kids in my lap. I went thru a little phase where I really didn't want much to do with my sbilings, after going to the Dr and finding out that the sexual abuse had left me so scarred inside that I would never have children. I was angry and hurt, but eventually learned to live with it.

I worked in a nursing home, on the "death hall". I know, it sounds morbid, but I grew to love my job, and stuck with it for 12 years or so, before I "retired". It was in the nursing home that I met the woman who changed my life forever............

Susan, a tiny scrap of a woman, dying a horrible death of cancer, in constant pain, unable to eat and so, she was to starve to death. The cancer she had caused her body to decay before she died, so on top of her pain, she lived with the smell of death seeping out of her body for over six weeks. She smiled every day.

I would go sit with her and hold her hand, sometimes she would have me read to her out of her Bible. She told me once that Christ had died to save me from my sins. I told her that I knew this, that my granny had told me the God was love and Christ died for me and blah blah blah. But what I REALLY needed was someone who could save me from other people's sins. She sighed and seemed to understand, and then prayed aloud for my salvation.

Several weeks, and prayers later, I sat with her as she died, in pain like you or I could never imagine, with blood leaking from her nose and mouth, as well as out of her rectum and at times her ears. She had gone from a healthy woman of 136 pounds to a shriveled 68 pounds of bone.
She no longer wet the bed as her bladder didn't have the strength to squeeze out the few drops of waste her body created, and everyone who visited her did so with Vicks rub smeared under their nose to cover the horrid smell of death still pouring out of her. And she smiled.

I sat with her that night, reading to her (I think I read out of Psalms but Im not sure). I do remember reading something about dancing and her eyes glittering with laughter because she knew how I loved to dance. I stumbled thru my first time praying aloud with her because it was so hard for her to talk. As time passed, she began to go in and out of sleep, and at one point, she looked at me with such tired and dull eyes , and closed her eyes, but her lips moved, so I knew she was praying. When she opened her eyes again, I watched at the dullness slowly crept out and a light began to shine. Her face relaxed and I saw how truly beautiful she was shortly before she drew in her last breath. And, even in death, Susan smiled.

It hit me hard, like a brick wall, what I had just seen. God had not sent someone to save her from her sins and just left her at the mercy of others......He had been right there inside of her the whole time! AND, it was so with me! He was right there with me, and had been there, holding my hand, loving me thru everything that had happened.

I welcomed God and was overjoyed, though I was secretive about my having been saved because momma was very adament about us kids not believing in God. But I had Him there, and even she didn't have the power to take Him from me. Little did I know that my life was about to change, dratically change, and God would bestow upon me blessings like I never imagined possible.

and Daddy leaves home

Momma and daddy split up soon after that. He just up and left......we had nothing. No money, nothing. Before long the bills piles up and the utilities were cut off.

My four siblings and I shared a room with momma so that we could all sleep in front of the little kerosine heater. The heater became the center of our household, we would heat up water for bathing, two kids to a pot of water, each night before crawling under a blanket or into a sleeping bag.

It was winter, which was actually good, because what little bit of food we had, we could put on the porch to keep it cold. We tried to keep milk in the house for the kids, but I really didn't drink much, or eat much either. Momma explained it to me.....she had to work alot, so she needed to eat her fill and the kids, well, they were growing and needed not to be hungry. That all makes sense, right? So, I ate the leftovers and it was ok at first. I had been a little chubby, but after I lost 30 pounds, I passed out at school. I hadnt eaten anything since breakfast the day before, and was walking the kids to and from school and daycare, plus walking myself to and from school, about a total of 6 miles a day (the children only walked about a mile a day). So I passed out in Gym and they called momma. She was angry that I had interupted her day at work and I was punished.

In the Spring, momma and daddy got back together. Joy joy, at least I got to eat and stay warm. Somehow, daddy had gotten into some money and was now driving a Mercedes, and wearing some spiffy clothing and enjoyed spending money buying me nighties, that only he could see. Momma seemed a little happier, now that there was more money in the house, but she didn't quit her job. We did get a bigger house, which was good because I got an even bigger closet.

Once again, Daddys friends would come over to "play" and D (the one who bought sexual priviledges with me from daddy) came for a visit that summer (I think I was 16). I came home and there was a limosine in the driveway, D was inside waiting for me. Daddy and D had been so kind as to plan my first date for me! D was taking me out to a fancy restarant. I really was left no choice, so I went. After eating (which was oddly nice), D took me to a store and bought me a lot of clothes, nice cloths that I could wear in public, then we went to a movie. On the way home, D asked me to marry him and presented me with a ring the size of Texas. He told me that if I would marry him, momma would never again need money. If I would marry him, daddy would no longer do those things to me and momma would never beat me again, so I could wear shorts in public, even. Well, needless to say, I hated D with a golden passion and said NO HELL NO. Once we got home, D told daddy he wanted his money back. Apparently, daddy had attempted to sell my hand in marriage. Daddy was angry, and told momma that I had tried to seduce D, so I was severly punished and sent to school with several bruises and cuts, which I blamed on my falling off a horse.

Then, one morning, daddy was gone, this time for good. Things were a little better, but momma resented me. I was still hit and screamed at while at home. I graduated high school, and started college, and with that enjoyed some newfound freedom. The kids were all in school now and could stay at home (we lived with my grandfather now) for a few hours before I got home. So I got a job and a horse. Every girls answer to problems, lol.

I had a couple of bad relationships, the first one was with a fellow who seemed to enjoy hitting me as much as my mother did. At least until I went a little bezerk and beat him with a pitchfork.

Daddys home

****This is the second of two postings for today, please read the first post "On getting housetrained" first. *****


As the years went by things got worse and worse. Daddy worked all day and spent his money on other women and momma worked two jobs to support us. She worked second and third shift, so that she could sleep during the day, while I was at school and the rest of the kids were at daycare. Yes, the rest of the kids, she ended up having four babies with daddy.

So, that left me to get them up in the morning, feed them and walk them to day care. After school, I would pick them up and walk home to clean the house, fix supper, and put the kids to bed, then do homework until daddy came home (if he did). Once he got there I would try to hide in my closet, not my clothes closet but my sleeping closet. I slept in a walkin closet in the kids room so that I could be there when they woke up at night, frightened, wet or in need of a bottle.

Daddy visited me each night that he was home, eventually it got to the point that he took my virginity. I will never forget the spot of blood left on my blue sheets with the horse print. Usually after he was through with me, he would shower and go "out", to return in the morning for clean cloths and a fight with momma. I did try a couple times to say something, but he would lie to momma and she would get mad and hit me with whatever was near, a garden hose, a broom or even a shovel.

One night, daddy tried to get into my room to find the door locked, so he told momma that I had called one of his friends a "bitch", and she made me eat a bar of soap, and spanked me until I went unconscious. I woke up in my closet to find the door locked from the outside, but this time I had a five gallon bucket to use the bathroom in. After this, the lock was taken off my door, so that I could no longer lock it from the inside (it locked only from the outside) and I was left at the mercy of daddy.

I guess it got to the worst when daddys best friend "D" came over one night. He and daddy got into an arugment because D wanted to touch me like daddy did and daddy told him not with out my permission. D offered daddy a hundred dollars to be able to touch me and daddy took the money, and watched while D did all those things that daddy did.

When I was fourteen, I left home. I ran away and was gone for a week until momma found me.
Of course, Social Service got involved and they decided that I needed counseling. Just me, not my parents. This wonderful counselor made the comment that many kids my age had hormonal problems and normal kids go thru phases, one of which being suicidal. Well, I wanted to be normal! It made sense, so I went home and swallowed a bottle of pills and laid down to die.
I waited and waited, but nothing happend except a nightful of throwing up. The only reason that I can think of that I am still alive after swallowing thirty pain pills is that God literally turned my stomach inside out getting that junk out of me. It really made me mad then, but now I am grateful to the only Father who has stuck things out with me.

On getting house trained

I was definately a handful for my gran. She would buy me tpretty dresses for church and fancy frilly dress for Easter. One Easter, she dressed me up in this big dress that poofed out and some tights that had little bows on them. Boy, was that an itchy outfit! She put shiny patent leather shows (complete with a bow) on my feet and bows in my hair. Then, she made her mistake. She sent me out to the porch to sit while she got herself ready. I was bored and hot and uncomfortable (and itchy), so I somehow ended up in the sandbox and made BIG pretty mudpies. I even tasted a few of them, but they werent so great really. When my gran came out, she was really, really mad and switched me with a hickory. But, in the end, I won. I wore a nice comfortable demin jumper to church, and it didnt even itch!

Gran had this porch swing that would lay on at night alot, and watch the stars and bunnies grazing. I could literlly reach out catch fireflies. I always had this idea that I would catch enough fireflies to make a lantern, but somehow they always escaped after I went to sleep, no matter how tight I screwed on the lid. One night I woke up with a real bad pain in my belly, and gran took me out so that I could lay in the swing to wait on momma to come home. It turned out that I needed to have my appendix removed.

Surgery wasnt so bad, but the silly doctor said that I had to be still for a couple weeks. He really didn't know what he was asking of me. The day I came home from the hospital, Gran put me on the couch to rest and watch TV while she worked in the garden, but I heard the neighbors kids playing football in the field in front of the house. Well, I went out just to watch, but I ended up playing football and Gran caught me. I got another hickory that day too. I really used to sit in my tree and fantisize about cutting down that hickory bush.

I also got to start school while we were living at my Grans and momma got a job working in the school cafeteria so she could be with me more since she also worked second shift. I was very excited about school on the first day, but quickly decided that I didn't like school so much after all. The kids all teased me because I looked different, and kept asking me if I was "mixed" and where my daddy was. So I asked momma.

She told me a little about my real dad, that he was Cherokee and that's why I looked different. She also told me that he didn't want me, so he left. I was hurt and angry about not having a dad and got pretty sensitive about being teased about it, so I ended up in a lot of fights. After my first year of school, I took alot of pride in how tough I was and how well I handled myself in a fight, but I was still miserable so I told momma to find me a daddy.

About the time I got out of kindergarten, momma and I moved to our very own house! It was green and it had three rooms, a bedroom that momma and I shared, a living room with a kitchen, and a small bathroom. All round the house was a huge cornfield that I loved to play in. I caught snakes and lizards and brought them home to play with every day. We got a cat, and a red irish setter named "Red". (original huh?) Red died shortly after we got him and we replaced him with another irish setter named "Missy".

A couple weeks after I started 1st grade, I came home to find momma sitting with a man on the couch. She looked me straight in the eye and said "I think I have found you a new daddy". Well, what's a kid to do? I just stood there and stared. I think my first words to him were "Do you like snakes?"

In short time, we moved in with him. This new house was huge, five bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room AND a den, plus two bathrooms upstairs and another downstairs, and a basement. I snuck out of bed the first night we were there and walked wround drawing myself a map because I was so afraid that I would get lost. But things settled down soon enough, I learned to help out in the restarant that we now owned, and learned my way around the house well enough to sleep at night. Things were good............

But my new daddy, well, he wasn't what I expected. He yelled at me alot, and once he got so mad that he spanked me. The next day, he had some friends over and he made me pull my pants down and show them the bruises. I really didn't like his friends very much. They always said stupid things like "kissed any boys lately" or ask me to model a bathing suit for them. Daddy always thought this was funny, and he liked to tell them how nice I was going to look when I got a couple years older.

And Momma said "I'm gonna have a baby". I shrieked and screamed and giggled with joy. A baby brother or sister, how I had wanted one (I end up with many many many). I watched momma's belly grow, howled with delight when I could feel the baby moved and listened carefully with stethescopes to hear a little heartbeat. Then, in the middle of the night, she got up and left for the hospital.

A waitress from the restarant came to babysit while momma had the baby. When daddy came home the next morning, he told me that I had a little brother and we could go see him and momma the following morning. I thought that since daddy was home the babysitter would go home, but that night I heard noises, so I got up to go investigate. I found daddy and the babysitter, naked on the couch. When daddy saw me, he got my little chair and made me sit and watch them, telling me that he would whip me if I got up. After she left, he told me that when I got older, we would do those things and that I would keep my mouth shut or REALLY bad things would happen to me and momma. I believed him, so I kept my mouth shut.

This just opened a door for daddy. After this, he would sneak in and watch me take my bath, and sometimes I would wake up at night to find him standing at the foot of my bed, masturbating. Eventually, he got to where he would make me touch him there. If I complained he told lies to momma, maybe that I had called his friend a "bitch" or spit in his drink, so that momma would be mad at me too, and I would be punished by both parents.

Momma had changed, I thought that she had begun to hate me once the baby was born. Her punishments were getting worse and worse. She hit me alot, and her and daddy fought alot, most of the time about me. Once, he told her that she had better get me under control or he was leaving her and me and my brother. So momma whipped me, and locked me in a closet fora day and a night. When she let me out, I had peed in my pants, and was whipped again. She told me that I was a mistake, that I had messed up her life and she never should have had me. She has a good chance at a good life with this man, and I was screwing it all up.

All thing from a mother who had rarely even spanked me. I missed my gran. I missed my tree and going to church on Sundays. I missed fried chicken, and the porch swing. And I just didn't want a daddy anymore.

Off to reality

Late that night, we arrived at what would be my home, off and on, for two and a half years. My great grandmother's house, otherwise known as Gran. Gran couldnt read or write, and could only do very basic math. I don't think she every spent a day getting formal education, and she could not drive. She was also the smartest person I ever met.

Anyway, we arrived at Gran's pretty late, and slept outside in the car, so that we wouldn't wake her up. When we went in the next morning she fed us a hot breakfast and gave me a nice warm bath. She said that we could live with her, but her brother was living in the house, so we decided to live in the smokehouse out back.

The smokehouse was a small room, about 12 by 12 feet, built of wood planks. There was a queensize bed and a dresser that momma picked up at a yardsale, and Gran supplied us with blankets. There wasnt any electricity in the smoke house, nor running water, of course, so we went into the big house for eating, bathing and bathrooming. But there were chickens! The coop was raised off the ground about 4 feet, so I would sit under the coop sometimes and talk to the chickens. Those poor chickens knew everything that had ever happened to me, and I got a lot of comfort from their innocent little stares, except when they pecked my toes.

Momma soon got a job and Gran would take care of me most of the time, so I got to attend church for the first time. Since Gran didn't drive, we got up early on Sunday morning and ate, so that we could walk a mile or so to the church. I was very scared the first time I walked into the church, it was so big and there were so many people that just HAD to pinch my cheeks and smear red lipstick on my forehead. My first day in Sunday school, I got so scared that I threw up all over my brand new sweater!

Eventually, I settle down enough to get into a Sunday routine......eat, get dressed, sit on the porch swing and try VERY hard not to go play in the creek while Gran got dressed. After church, we would eat fried chicken and I would sit in the chair to watch "The Little Rascals" and "Dance Fever". Sometimes, as I learned to read, I would read to my Gran out of a Bible and she and I would talk about the stories in there. I really didn't understand much of it, but she was planting a little seed in my heart that would take many many years to sprout into a tree of faith.

My Gran was a real spitfire, too. She was a kind woman and would do anything she could to help you, but if you did something mean to me...well, you'd better just look out! Once after church, I was sitting in the chair, watching tv when her brother came in. He was very drunk, as usual, and got angry that I was watching tv when he wanted to watch a baseball game. He grabbed me by one arm and threw me across the room into a wall. My little old sweet Gran came into the living room and hit him upside the head with a big black frying pan. Uncle fell down and I thought he was dead, so I poured some water on his face to see if he would wake up. I knew that he was alive, though, because when I poured the water on him, he peed in his pants! He never bothered me again after that day, and Gran never had to hit him again.

Once for Easter, Gran got me two of my very own baby chickens, tiny black bitties that I named Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Snoopy died shortly after I got him, but Charlie Brown grew into a beautiful, red, black and green bantum rooster. Charlie was my best buddy, he would ride in the basket of my bicycle and follow me around the yard so that I could dig up bugs for him. Sometimes, after momma left for work, Gran and I would let him in the house so that he could clean up the biscuit crumbs off the floor, and then he would sit on my chest while I laid on the floor to watch tv. Eventually, some dogs killed Charlie Brown. I remember that we ate fried chicken that night, everyone but me. (I later found out that it was not Charlie Brown on my plate that night)

There were so many wonderful things at Gran's like the blackberry patch where I would hide and eat berries until I was purple and ran home crying with a tummy ache. There was an old magnolia tree that I would climb and hide to read for hours. And there was the man across the road who had Beagles.

I would go out with him sometimes to hunt rabbits with his dogs. I thought the baying of the dogs was beautiful, like music, until he quit hunting. I tried for awhile to hide under a tree with a laundry basket and jump out to catch a rabbit, but this just didnt work, so a neighborhood boy and I came up with a plan. We built severl homemade traps, and trapped rabbits ourselves. He was pretty softhearted, so I got the dirty work of killing what we trapped, but I also got to sell them to the neighbors for fifty cents apiece.

About a year after we moved to Grans, her brother died, and we moved into the house. This left the smokehouse empty. So, I filled it up with animals, snakes, possums, coons, you name it and I brought it home. Gran stayed out of the smokehouse, for sure.