MY STORY TO TELL

INTRODUCTION

If you are easily offended by the truth, stop reading now. I am laying it down, 100% of what you are about to read is the truth and it is my story to tell. It is my version of events throughout my life that have broken me, molded me and made me into the man that I am today.

It is a story of adoption, family, religion, death and self-healing. There are many stories to my life and for way too long I have just quietly kept them to myself. Not any longer. It is my story to tell and I am going to tell it.

Also, if you are offended by language, stop fucking reading now! It is who I am and I am angry. Anger has driven me my entire life, driven me to be the best and the worst. So, understand that with the story I am telling, it is mine to tell in my own words. Words that are true and raw and totally mine.

To those mentioned in this story, I will never apologize for what form you took in my life. Your actions have reactions, as do mine. I suffer from mine and if you feel as though you have been wronged in this, take a look in the mirror. I don’t give a fuck how you think I have portrayed you in this, you did it, not me. I am simply calling you out. Thanks. Anger is a precious commodity when used to fuel the fire inside a person.

Lastly and most certainly most important, I dedicate this to my adoptive father, John Vinsant. You were, you are and you always will be my inspiration to live a good life. To love unconditionally and to always get back up after you’ve been knocked down. Thank you for always being there for me. No questions asked, you were my best friend and I could always count on you to have my back. You are missed daily and I love you more than life itself. You are my rock and I have always lived my life to make you proud. I loved you so much and I still do.

The Beginning

So, let’s jump right in. I was born in Mobile, Alabama in January of 1974. I was born out of wedlock to a young mother who already had one son who was probably around the age of 2 when I was born. Shortly after I was born, my biological mother had a daughter from another man that was born a little over a year after I was born. Are you following me, my biological mother had 3 children by 3 different men? Who truly gives a fuck, ok? I don’t give a fuck about that; she could have chosen to abort any of us and she didn’t and for that I am grateful. You understand, I am grateful to be here. Even with my angry heart and my frustrations, I am very grateful.

I was born to a promiscuous woman. My mother was not the Virgin Mary, so that means I had a biological father. Apparently, my biological father did not want to have anything to do with me. He too had older children. He was the father of two sons that were both older than me from a marriage he had prior to his brief, romantic, encounter with my biological mother. His family knew I existed; they even took time to meet me. My biological mother’s family along with my biological father’s family all knew about me. That to me is an important fact, one I hang on to.

Let us fast forward a year and a half. Remember when I told you my mother had shacked up with another man after she gave birth to me. Well as I said above, she and this man had a child. I was now an older brother to a baby sister. I have a picture of the two of us, 1 picture. Well at some point, my biological mother gave my older brother away to one of her older sisters to raise. I am not sure why. They didn’t think she could take care him for what ever reason or she didn’t want to. Well, he shouldn’t feel bad, because it became apparent that she didn’t want to take care of me. It is my understanding that without telling anyone in the family, one day, my biological mother took me down and turned me over to the state for adoption. At no point did anyone from my biological mother or father families come get me. My biological mother and father both had numerous brothers and sisters, many older than my biological parents. Didn’t matter. I was discarded like a fucking pile of trash. No consideration to the chain of events that it would cause in my life. It is what it is.

Bear with me as I jump in time for a brief minute. When I was around the age of 19, I went through the State of Alabama and found my adoption records. I made contact briefly with my biological mother and father. It was very briefly and I will get into all that at a later time in the book. The reason I bring this up now is because when I asked my biological mother why she gave me up for adoption, I was not prepared for the answer. I learned right then, never ask a question you do not want the answer to. Her response to me was a response that made me cut off all contact. I would not reach back out to any of my biological family until I was 38 years old. OK, OK, OK….the answer, trust me, it is not what any 19 year old male wants to hear. My biological mother told me that she was shacked up with my baby sister’s father at the time and that he was a transvestite. Meaning he like to dress up like a woman. Well my mother caught me at the age of 1.5 putting on my baby sister’s panties and trying to put a dress on or something along those lines. My biological mother said she knew that she could not keep me in the house with that man. So instead of getting rid of the man, she went straight to the state to drop me off. That is it, I was sent to foster homes and on to adoption because of the sexual desires of my biological mother’s 3rd baby daddy.

I have to say, when she told me that. I lost my shit. I was like who the fuck tells that to a 18/19-year-old son? I would have rather she lied to me. Got to give her credit though, she was honest. It took me a long time to come to terms with her answer. I finally did and I eventually met her in person, right before she passed away. When she answered me though, I didn’t talk to her again for almost 20 years.

Back to the beginning of my life. I was now in the care of foster homes. One after another after another. Lucky for me though, I was not in the foster system for too long. I was officially adopted by an amazing family from Birmingham in December of 1976. I was almost 3 years old. My adoptive family drove down to Montgomery, Al and picked me up. One of my favorite stories about this was on the car ride home, the one toy I had was a Mickey Mouse doll that you could pull the string and it would talk. Well during that initial car ride to my forever home, I pulled the string of the Mickey Mouse doll and after the doll said it’s phrase, I told that Mickey Mouse doll that I would spank his ass if he didn’t shut up. Of course, this was language I had learned in the foster care system. Have to love those who take advantage of the foster kids just for the money paid by the state. Well after I made that comment, my adoptive father told me that under no circumstances am I to talk that way and that it would not be tolerated. I then told him I would beat his ass too. Nah, I am just kidding!! I didn’t say that to him. I was a good kid, at least from everything I have been told.

After we got to Birmingham, I was sick with a fever. My adoptive parents immediately scheduled me a visit with a pediatrician. While in the great care of the State of Alabama foster care system, I was malnourished, sick, teeth rotten and I had tape worms. I actually had a high fever the very day I was adopted. Since I was in foster care and not given medical care that most children would receive, I had mouth full of rotten teeth. So bad that my adoptive parents spent thousands of dollars to get my teeth fixed. Since several of my teeth had to be pulled, I then developed a speech impediment. Want to be teased as a child, talk like a toothless fool and pronounce R’s completely different. So instead of saying Mark, I would say Mork. Everyone laughed. I had to go speech class all through out elementary school to correct it. To this day I sill get it wrong at times. For example, when I say for, I say far. I still have to be conscientious of that speech impediment.

Just one more thing in my life I had to overcome. I learned how to deal with things on my own and for that I am thankful. I honestly believe that due to my first years on this planet, I learned how to adapt and see the best in things. Some of that though was definitely instilled in me by my adoptive father John Vinsant.

I was definitely one of the lucky ones to be adopted by an amazing family. I say this with all due respect, from the outside looking in, it was an amazing family. I am sure that is going to piss some people off. I was adopted to a couple who was told they could not have children. They had adopted a daughter who was 6 months old probably two and half years before they adopted me. I was definitely a lot older than the first child they adopted. Never the less, I was adopted into a loving family and I instantly had an older sister. Again, from the outside looking in, boy was I lucky, and in so many ways I was so lucky.

I was a very smart child. My adoptive mother told me I was reading at the age of two. Which I was adopted just a month shy of my third birthday, so I am not sure where I learned to read at such an early age. What I do remember is that I was smarter than my older sister. This was a cause of tension between the two of us that started at a very early age. I can remember my adoptive mother doing flash cards with my older sister, she would struggle and I would know the answers immediately and always get told by my adoptive mother to allow my older sister time to answer. I didn’t know how to curb my eagerness to please my adoptive parents. I went from going from foster home to foster home to being adopted and having my forever family. The satisfaction I received from pleasing my adoptive parents was as strong a drug as anything in this world. It was amazing. My adoptive mother was always at the school, she was the room mother, I was definitely one of the more intelligent kids in the class. Her pride in me was something that I will never forget. Little did I know that pride was short lived.

Fast forward to 1978, my adoptive parents who could not have children suddenly found themselves pregnant with “their own” child. We were all very excited, especially me because for the 2nd time in my life I was going to have a baby sister. Just like it was scripted, on Christmas Day 1978, my baby sister Lindsay was born. It was exciting and is definitely the best present any one could have asked for. I never did ask if this was something that my adoptive parents wanted or prayed for or if it just happened. I always assumed it was a surprise since they were told they could never have children.

With the addition of Lindsay to the family, things were still great for me. I still had my mother’s love, pride and attention. We took family trips, traveled the country as a family and we never did without, things were just like a postcard except it was real life. Funny how life has a way of saying fuck you. As Lindsay grew older, things were great until Lindsay went for some vaccination shots at the age of two. It was at this point my life changed dramatically. In 1980, Lindsay changed. She became a different child. She was kicked out of a church preschool because she was uncontrollable. (Fuck you God’s House!..name of the church where Lindsay was kicked out of preschool). When this happened, this devastated my mother. The realization that Lindsay was not like other kids hit the entire family like a ton of bricks. The only way I can accurately describe this turn of events is imagining a car traveling down a road for a long time, gaining traction and speed and out of nowhere running straight into a mother fucking brick wall. No warning, no braking, no stopping it. That is what happened to our life.

The adopted mother that I grew to love over the previous 4 years of my life no longer existed. As a child, it was as if it totally happened in one day. In one day, it was like my life change all at once. As an adult writing this, I know that it was not that way, it was definitely over time. The end result was that my mother became a recluse. She was diagnosed with depression and with no hope of finding answers to Lindsay’s condition, she was completely helpless. The mother I had grown to see at my school, in my class, tutoring me after school, reading me stories, was gone. She was always in bed, crying, shouting, embarrassed, angry. She too was angry, angry at God, my father, me, everyone around her.

As time went on, my parents traveled the country to doctors in search of a diagnosis for Lindsay. Well, they finally found one. Lindsay was Autistic. Except who the hell knew what Autism was in the early 80’s. Who knew what caused Autism? Who knows to this day what causes Autism? I know my baby sister was perfect until a certain round of vaccinations. I know that Autism was not around in the 50’s or 60’s. It wasn’t until certain vaccinations were given that we started seeing Autism spread. Anyway, I am not writing a book on Autism or anything like that. I am just speaking from personal experience.

The diagnosis of Autism at least gave my mother some peace to know what was going on. The days of her being a recluse eventually faded, though the mother I once knew was gone. Any and all attention my mother had went to my two sisters. My older sister struggled in school so she would always get the nightly attention from my mother and during the day, my mother’s attention was always on Lindsay and her treatment. Which was all experimental with diets, vitamins, etc. It was believed that since I was academically advanced, I could provide for myself in terms of doing homework and at school. In a flash, the life I had come to know and love was gone, stripped from me with no warning.

This was the second time in my life as a child that I would lose the mother I once knew. I cannot begin to explain the difficulties this caused in my life. I quickly learned that the one true way to get attention from my parents was to get in trouble. Once a child that never got into any trouble, always trying to please and continue to receive the love and praise of my adoptive parents was over. I learned that it did not matter what I did, it was expected of me to be the one to carry the load of being the “good kid”. I am writing this book for me, not for anyone else and the reason is because of the wounds I carry around with me from these times.