Illness, debt and fear have seemingly tried to steal who I am right out from underneath me. I am sometimes paralyzed by the enormity of all the change I am facing. Then I remember who I am. I have faced worse in my past and always come out on top somehow. I need to put my thinking cap on and pull up my big girl panties and beat down my challenges. Like the dance of a bullfight, I will fend off adversity with a flick of my wrist, red billowing in the wake of my actions. I am not going to lie down and be trampled.
"I can count on no one but myself. " A thought that has remained constant since childhood.
My mom left on a Saturday morning. George Jetson was telling his daughter Judy how she spends too much time thinking about boys and that she should stay home with her family for once.
Mom said that she was going to Grandma's for a while and that my brother and I would see her soon. If by soon she meant 18 months, then yes, she kept her promise. My father was angry that she dared to leave him. He ranted day and night about how I was so much like her. He spat it out like cuss words. The hatred was palpable. I did not want to remain in that house. I wanted to run away. I wanted to be with my mom. That would not happen for ten years.
For a while I concentrated on taking care of my brother. Dad worked the early morning shift on the ramp at Delta, so he usually left around 4:30am. I set my Tinkerbell alarm clock for 6am, woke my brother, made breakfast, ate, dressed, dressed my brother, made our lunches and then cleaned up, packed up and locked up before our walk to school. Then after school we rode the daycare bus and waited for Dad to pick us up in the late afternoon. Even that little respite from responsibility vanished one day when my brother opted to walk home alone instead of waiting for me and the after school bus.
I scoured the school for my brother. He had never just not been there. I could not understand why he was not there now. Instead of being afraid for him, I was terrified of what my father was going to do to me when he found out I had lost his son.
"I can count on no one but myself. " A thought that has remained constant since childhood.
My mom left on a Saturday morning. George Jetson was telling his daughter Judy how she spends too much time thinking about boys and that she should stay home with her family for once.
Mom said that she was going to Grandma's for a while and that my brother and I would see her soon. If by soon she meant 18 months, then yes, she kept her promise. My father was angry that she dared to leave him. He ranted day and night about how I was so much like her. He spat it out like cuss words. The hatred was palpable. I did not want to remain in that house. I wanted to run away. I wanted to be with my mom. That would not happen for ten years.
For a while I concentrated on taking care of my brother. Dad worked the early morning shift on the ramp at Delta, so he usually left around 4:30am. I set my Tinkerbell alarm clock for 6am, woke my brother, made breakfast, ate, dressed, dressed my brother, made our lunches and then cleaned up, packed up and locked up before our walk to school. Then after school we rode the daycare bus and waited for Dad to pick us up in the late afternoon. Even that little respite from responsibility vanished one day when my brother opted to walk home alone instead of waiting for me and the after school bus.
I scoured the school for my brother. He had never just not been there. I could not understand why he was not there now. Instead of being afraid for him, I was terrified of what my father was going to do to me when he found out I had lost his son.
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