Growing up on the edge of existence

After thirty years you think I would be done sleeping on couches and drifting around. This isn't a case of “how the mighty have fallen” this is just a long series of events that culminate into life.

I was born to an 18-year-old mother freshly dropped out of high school and still living with her mother and grandparents in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I had some health issues shortly after coming home from the hospital, so we had to go back. I was unable to keep food down. My stomach didn't seem to have an exit. I was three months old. She moved out not too long afterwards. We lived in a few places. I seemed to drift from her house wherever it was back to my grandmas. Eventually I just ended up staying with my grandmas for good.

Now skipping a head a few years once again i am in the hospital at age three. This time with pneumonia. I was in the hospital for three weeks delirious with fever and scared to death about being alone and getting so many shots. I still hate needles, but I won't forget the nurse always telling me they will give me the shot after a countdown from ten and doing it way before they get to one. The oxygen tent was terrifying because I didn't know what was going on. All I knew was I didn't feel good, and I was in a strange place with strange people, and they were sticking me with things that hurt.

I got to come home on May 28th which happened to be my fourth birthday. This was also the day my brother Eddie was born. It is vague to me, but I remember him being presented to me jokingly as if he was my birthday gift. At this point my mother had married and moved to a small town just down the road and it was starting to sink in that our family wasn't normal. Why did my mom, brother and stepdad live somewhere else? Where was my dad? The families on tv aren't like mine. Maybe something's wrong with me?

I start to go stay with them now and then. This is where things start to become far too real. My stepfather and mother were alcoholics, druggies, and degenerates. They would get drunk and start beating on one another. Screaming, throwing things. There was blood, knives, broken bottles. I have so many memories of these nights. So many terrible memories. I used to hide under the kitchen table while they fought screaming, begging for them to stop. He was hurting my mother and I was helpless. Why was he doing this? I would tell my grandma these stories, but nothing ever was done. I just didn't understand.

My second brother Andrew came along the following year, and I still continued to go stay with them through the brawls but now I was older, and the fighting was getting worse. I now had a new baby brother to take care of while they fought. Hiding under the table now with Eddie who was just over a year old and Andrew who was still pretty new to the world. I held the baby, while he cried because of hunger or whatever and Eddie while he cried because he was terrified as I was. I would be told to make them stop crying. We didn't always hide under the table. Sometimes we'd hide in the living room with the tv turned all the way up or in their room under blankets waiting for it to end. But nightmares like that don't end. They just get more and more scary or more and more comfortable. Both are awful outcomes.

Tony was born the following year. He was born at the house because my stepfather refused to take my mother to the hospital. Thankfully I wasn't there for that. But the fighting and the abuse had started to grow worse by this point. We were 6,2,1, and a baby. I had three to protect from the ever-growing severity of the drunken beatings.

Now I cannot recall ever being beaten myself in those days, but I was threatened. Now I know I was abused as an infant from my mother and whomever her boyfriend was in those days. I'd have bruises and be malnourished, and my grandma said I would pretend to sleep in my crib when I heard someone come near me. I also found out as an adult from my doctor that my nose had been broken but I have no memories of this. Alas

During these times hiding in fear. I would try to get the phone and call for help. Being told once that if I called anyone, I was going to get it next. The few times I got the phone I called my grandma, and she came and got me some of the time. Other times I was told that I could come home in the morning. Well morning was a very long time away. Sometimes I get 911 but no one ever came to help. Maybe I am not worth helping? I started to feel so very alone and helpless about this time.

One time my mother either was too drunk or overdosed or was knocked unconscious, I am not sure. I just remember begging her to get up. My stepfather told me she was just sleeping, or mommy was too tired. I am not sure. I just know there was blood, and she was in the bathroom not moving.

Somewhere in this time it was a Sunday morning, and I was home and as was my weekend ritual when I was home, I took my box of cereal over to my great grandma's house who lived right next door to was cartoons and have breakfast with her. I knocked on the door and no one answered. That was not normal. I could see she was in bed by peeking through the window which was also odd. So, I went home and told my grandma that she didn't answer. My grandma and her Fiancé went over to check on her and discovered she had passed away. I was the one to discover this so to speak. Shortly after this my brothers were taken away by the state for neglect and abuse.

I continued to go stay with my mom and stepfather on weekends though for some reason. I was probably six or so, maybe seven. It doesn't seem like I was that old. I shouldn't have been so scared. The fighting was worse than ever at this point. Throwing things, screaming, hitting. One time my stepfather had my mom's arms twisted and pinned down. I was certain he was going to break it, so I kicked him in the shin and ran and hid. I hid in their bedroom hiding under blankets with the door shut. I remember hiding in there a lot towards the end. There was this stuffed cat and I remember clinging to it a lot while I hid. Sometimes my mom would hide with me while he raged out among the house breaking stuff until he passed out.

I always hated going there. It was always so scary, and I hated it. It was years after that before I was able to go stay at a friend's house without crying myself to sleep. Nighttime became a scary to me for me. Even when I was home in my own house and bed, I cried myself to sleep sometimes just because I was so unnerved by everything that had become my life. To me it was normal though.

I do remember sometimes after the fight's would end for the night. Sometime my mom and me would snuggle on the couch and catch M*A*S*H reruns on the tv. The old grainy footage and that theme song. It was calming to me. To this day I still watch mash and have it on quite a bit in the background.

Not terribly long after this time period I was at home with my grandma and her fiancé, and they were making roast and potatoes on the grill with onions and carrots all wrapped up in foil. The phone rang and I was the one who answered. It was someone from the county Sherriff. There was commotion in the background, they asked for my grandma. Everything was changed in a hurry. The roast we were going to have, was taken off and I was told to gather toys and get ready because I was going to the Doris’s (Doris was an elderly lady who babysat me in a pinch.) A taco pizza was ordered and sent with me. (Taco being my favorite.) and off I went with no idea what was going on.

Come to find out that my mom had stabbed my stepfather in the back in an attempt to kill him. She had stabbed him and cleaned up and went over to the neighbors for a drink, acting as if nothing had happened. He wasn't dead though he managed to get up and stagger over there and barged in and said she had stabbed him.

She was sent to prison for some time. I am not sure how long. I did have a sense of relief knowing she was safe. When she got out, she came to live with us for a while. It was nice having my mom around for once for more than a few days. It was just my grandma, my mom and me but it was nice. It was like a family of sorts. Good times don't stay around long. My grandma's fiancé who was currently in prison for something had a seizure and found out he had terminal lung and brain cancer. My grandma left for Kansas City to be with him while he had surgery and began treatments. He was released right about the same time. While she was gone it was just me and my mom. At first it was fun. We played Nintendo and played games, but things started to unravel. A couple times I was forgotten at the pool and walked the mile home barefoot. Then the food started to become more and more scarce. I was down to eating crackers and or canned meat because my mom didn't go to the store or cook, and I was too young. My grandma had come home for a few days and things serrated to go back to normal somewhat.

One night my mom was supposed to continue our story book she had been reading me, but she had to go buy a pop or cigarettes or something and didn't come back. I was so confused and hurt. For years I kept that book on the shelf with the book marker in the exact same spot where we left off. It is hard to comprehend at any age, why your mom would just leave but I seemed to be very forgettable too.

I went with my grandma after this and stayed the summer with her fiancé and his family on the family farm. We stayed there on and off doing farm stuff for months until her fiancé's passing that fall.

The following spring my mom came back to stay with us once again. Just like before it was nice to have a family again. I still didn't quite see how my mother truly was. I just wanted a family. During this time, we were remodeling my great grandma's house next door to move into. We seemed to fight quite a bit with her, and I called her out on leaving me and other things but for the most part we got along. We played PlayStation together and watched tv. It was nice but she started working at a factory and she would come home at 10 pm. I would always stay up and wait for her but one night she didn't come back. Once again, I was sitting up waiting. Checking the door every time I heard a sound. Worried that something had happened like a crash or something. It was two years before I saw her again.

I was in the dollar general one time when she began to walk in and saw me, she turned and left but sometime later I actually did run into her and talked to her. I was less than polite to her. Right about this time she was admitted to the hospital for chest pains, and we were notified and went to see her. I am still not sure what that really was about but not long after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but we found out after she had already had surgery and started treatment.