Recovery

Today is when I start. For a long time I have knew that there was a reason for the continuous suffering. Even still as I begin, I don’t know where this road will be going, but I do know that I was the one chosen to travel it. I have found myself asking why, what was I supposed to learn or accomplish from years of loss, tragedies, suffering, and pain? Why was I having to battle everyday with new suffering, year after year? Would it ever stop? Now in my older ages, I have finally realized that none of it was really all about me at all. This life that I am about to share with you, turned out to be about us all. Everyone that I ever saw or made contact with. Even you, as you read this page.

Most people in my life have always been amazed at the fact that I was born on July forth nineteen seventy three. Everyone seems to believe that this day was an incredible date. It may have been to most people but for a new born child that was just brought into the world addicted to drugs and alcohol, it was the the very day that started a life of true hell. Although I did not know it at the time, I would be fighting for my life everyday from then and ever after. Even my very first memory as a child turned out to be a terrible nightmare. The first thing I recall as a child was sitting in my fathers lap on the porch rocking in a rocking chair. In the very next second I would find myself falling backwards with him while blood was shooting from every area of his head in anormous amounts! I had no idea what was happening and I remember screaming for my mother to come. Once she saw the scenes view, she began to scream for me to go get help. My family did not have a lot of money in the year of 1978 and a telephone was simply not on the property. At five years of age, in a terrified panic state all I knew to do was run. At the end of the dirt road that we lived on was our only neighbors house, and today as I look back, I believe it was a safe choice I made at the time by going there. Considering I was only five and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I remember telling my neighbor what was happening and the next thing I knew was they would not let me leave to go back to my parents. After many hours of complete confusion and fear I finally heard a knock on the door. Thank God it was my mother’s voice. She called me to her lap and that’s when she informed me that my father was dead. I remember feeling like this was the worst thing in life that could happen, little did I know... it was just the beginning.

The next thing I remember was riding down the road in a car with my mother and her brother. We was on our way to let my older sister’s Know that their father had died. I love my sisters dearly, And even with them being ten years my elder And already considered young adults, My heart was breaking for the news but they were about to receive. I remember being so hurt by the response when they heard the news that I tried to apologize for the pain I was feeling. Looking back now I believe this was my first true experience with a loved one’s heart break. After we left their home the next few days went by in a bar. I can’t recall the family discussing the fact that my father would be coming home for his viewing. I did not really know what a viewing was and I was very confused because They had told me he would not be coming home again. When they brought him through that door lying in the casket, I do believe that I had my first panic attack at five years old. I had never seen anyone dead like that before and even though he was my father. I was terrified speechless. I remember lying awake through the night just waiting on him to get up and come and get my mom and take us to this place called heaven with him. I could repeatedly recall the blood that was coming out of his body that day, and I remember laying there Waiting on our heads to start doing the same. For two nights I watch that bedroom door just waiting for the first sign of him coming through. I was so afraid that I could barely catch my breath, and not one time did it ever occur to me that my mother had not even acknowledged anything about how his death was affecting me or why she had not.

His burial was the first time I ever experienced anyone being put into the ground. Even at the young age of five, it was still an experience that I could not quite accept completely. That seems like a very cold and dark place to put some one we loved, especially my father.

Before I really even had time to get through any kind of grieving process, the next shock was already knocking at the door. Within a week our landlord had shown up. My mom was a stay at home mother and without any kind of income to pay the rent it turns out that his news was not going to be pleasant for us . As a matter of fact his exact words were “ you have thirty days to find you another place to live”. Just like that our home was gone right along with my father. Not only his love, his laughter, and his presence had vanished, but also everything he work so hard for each day to provide for us was dissolving right along with anything that I would ever know as a normal life.