family
Family unites us; but it's also a challenge. All about fighting to stay together, and loving every moment of it.
The Perfect Example
There is so much I have learned about life from my mother, but not how most might think. Yes, my mother had SOME positive influences, but mostly, my mother taught me some of the harder things in life that most parents try to shield their children from. One of the best things about life that my mother taught me, that was positive, was how to never to rely on a man to be the provider of the family. My mother married my dad when they were younger, so her highest level of education had been a high school diploma. She never could have imagined that by her early 30’s she would be a widow with 2 young children trying to survive on just a high school diploma. I was 6 when my father died from cancer, and for that first year, my mother really struggled trying to provide for my brother and me. Eventually, she had to send me and my brother to stay with our aunt and uncle during the week, and she used that time to go back to school. That is about as far as the positives go when it comes to my mother. But everything else she has taught me, as negative as the experiences were, has made me the person I am today. Someone that is the opposite of her. After my father died, I had a very rough life, thanks in large part to my mother. At the age of 6 years old, I had to grow up rather quickly due to my mother having a severe mental illness. She was diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD/DID) less than a year after my father’s death. Her alters were suicidal and she “lost time” for majority of the day. My mom could barely handle just showing up for work and school. Everything else, I had to step up and take care of. By the time I was 7, I was in charge of doing all the cooking for me, my older brother and my mother, writing and mailing checks to pay all the bills including the mortgage, all the laundry and cleaning of the house, and I also had to check the house everyday before leaving for school to make sure I remembered to lock all of my mother’s medications (or any medications for that fact) and remove any and all sharp objects which she could use to try to kill herself with. After school, I always had to come straight home and get the house ready for me to be on suicide watch for her. My mother worked extremely hard in therapy to get better, and she did for a while. But her progress, while it helped with her mental illness, her true colors started to show through, and she was not a good person. I think I would much rather prefer having a severely mentally ill parent than what my mother was. I finally got enough courage to tell someone (my aunt), that my mother’s step-father had been molesting me from the NIGHT my father died, up until I was about 12 or 13. When my aunt helped me tell my mother, I got blamed and called a “little slut”. That was my first lesson I will never forget. Can’t trust anybody, not even family. Someone who was supposed to protect me, blamed me. Then she tried to say I was making it up, yet, he had done the same thing to her which is why she had the mental illness. She failed to protect me then and she failed to protect me from my older brothers physical abuse. Then her personalities got out of control again. Just as I was about to go into Jr. High, and starting to make a lot of new friends, and I couldn’t even do normal kid stuff, like sleepovers, or even have friends over after school. Not because she didn’t allow me to, but because I was too embarrassed because I never knew if I would come home to find my mother, a grown adult, sitting on the floor playing with cars because her 5-year-old alter was in control at the time. Just before my freshman year, my mother taught me the biggest lesson of all-that I was nothing to her. After years and years of emergency room visits for broken bones and other injuries as a result of my brother’s abuse, he had finally hurt me so bad that the hospital no longer believed my mother’s lies about how I got hurt. My brother had gotten upset because he thought I was eating his favorite snacks (which I absolutely hated) so he took a metal bat and cracked me in the face with it, breaking my jaw. I had to get metal plates on both sides of my lower jaw, and had it wired shut. The hospital staff knew it was no accident, so they wanted to talk to me alone. I couldn’t speak, but I could write, and I didn’t hesitate to write my brother’s name when they asked who hurt me. The hospital called the police and got them involved and my mother begged and pleaded with them not to arrest my brother. She asked if they would at least release him to her custody so he wouldn’t go to juvenile hall. The police informed her that due to the emergency protection order for my safety, my brother and I absolutely could not live under the same roof. My mother looked at me and told me not to worry, she will pack all my things and my aunt can pick me up after the surgery, I was not her problem anymore. That was the best thing my mother has ever done for me, letting me go live with my aunt and uncle. My aunt is the one who has been there for me, who taught me right from wrong after so many years of “this is wrong but….” Justifications my mother taught me. But more importantly, my aunt taught me how to work through all the trauma my mother caused me, and still see the good in everything instead of closing myself off and not trust anyone, or anything else that could hold me back from my full potential. My aunt taught me that although there are bad things in life, that does not excuse anyone from doing the same thing to others that had happened to them. My mother never did finish college, but she did get a good job working at a church as a secretary. She worked there for quite a while, almost long enough to earn a pension, but she even messed that up. 6 months before she would have had enough time working there to receive a pension, she got caught stealing money. When they confronted her about it, she admitted she had been stealing thousands of dollars every month for the past 8-10 years (basically the entire time she had been employed there). I do not regret the experiences I went through with my mother, nor would I change anything if I could, because in her sick and twisted ways, she taught me exactly who I DIDN’T want to become. My biggest fear is having any sort of resemblance to my mother in any way, but it is that fear that proves I will never be anything like her, according to my aunt. My mother is content with her evil and twisted ways, regardless of who is hurt by her, and I could never be like that to anyone. I know the pain she can cause and it sucked when I went through it, so why cause someone else that sort of pain? I could never do that. So regardless of how horrible my mother truly is, I am so thankful for teaching me about the many evils in this world (and how to overcome no matter what), and for teaching me exactly who I don’t want to be. Everything good in my life, is because of what my aunt has instilled in me. If I end up even half as great as my aunt is, I could honestly be satisfied with all I have been able to accomplish in my life.
By Jennifer R Mckinney5 years ago in Humans
Belsara and Nidas Narrative poem by Leo Auciello
Page1 'BEGIN' Slowly, yes slowly do not make haste for the fancies of the heart must aspire freely and not at the will of the suitor Patience, yes patience the machinations are known to no-one, with patience the fall from heaven is not so wounding Love, what of love ? comes and goes of its own choosing, merit that some are more prone to its seduction and fall deeper into the abyss Heart, yes beating heart erupt from my chest in anxiousness, leave me, be gone! Be strong, my mind must will it! I, what of you? Know this truth and walk steadily to the well from which you wish to drink, For many in their haste have drowned.
By Leo CountKronus Auciello5 years ago in Humans
Through the Fire
My mom is anything but average; she's a lover of psychology with a deeply held desire to be a part of the medical world, she's strong and independent to a fault, she's an autism parent who has seen it all. Most importantly, she showed me what it means to truly be selfless in love.
By Mary Tophen 5 years ago in Humans
Guitar Repair Woman
My mother told me, If you ever become a rock star, don’t smash the guitar. There are too many other poor kids out there who have nothing, Buddy, and they see that shit, when all they wanna do is play that thing. Boy, you better let them play.
By Buddy Wakefield5 years ago in Humans
Tom Tom Was A Big Cat:
Tom Tom Was A Big Cat: Tails of the East Side of Town John W. Gilmore Tom Tom was a big cat...the biggest I have ever seen. Some may think Tom Tom was a Maine Coon Cat. They are often giants with very long, shaggy hair. They are big enough to look like small cougars. Tom Tom wasn’t like that. Tom Tom wasn’t shaggy. Tom Tom was your typical domesticated cat, but he was very big.
By Om Prakash John Gilmore5 years ago in Humans
Ladybugs
Start writing... Ladybugs I can remember being a small child feeling pure joy. I’ve recalled this memory many times when I think about being truly happy. It was a bright, sunny, fall afternoon as I stepped from the big yellow school bus. It was red at the bottom from the long red dirt road I lived on with my Grandparents. I walked around the bus in the slow manner I normally did. I was tired from the school day and my constant striving to be perfect. I was, as always, dreading getting home. As I turned the corner I saw her standing there in the grass just inside the black wooden fence. Her long, red, curly hair was blowing across her big smile, the smile she tried so hard to hide from the rest of the world because she was self-conscious, but not from me. My mommy was waiting on me! I ran into her waiting, open arms. She picked me up, spinning me around and around. We laughed until we cried. We cried the kind of tears that flow straight from the soul when it can’t contain its joy. Dizzy from the spinning, we fell into the tall grass in the field. To this day, I can remember the sound of her voice, the way she smelled, and how my hand fit into hers. I can remember how I felt, calm, safe, and completely loved. I find it difficult to remember a lot of my childhood. I’ve managed to block most of it, letting it fade into clouds of my mind like a deep thick fog. But, I remember every detail of this moment vividly. As we laid there in the tall bahaya grass, she told me how much she loved me, bunches and bunches she said. I rambled on and on telling her everything I had to tell, which was usually a lot. She was the only person alive that eagerly listened to what I had to say. She was the only person I could talk to, with everyone else, I would say my thoughts over and over in my head and then choose to keep my thoughts to myself in fear of being judged or ridiculed, a habit I am still trying to escape. All my emotions and words built up over the long periods of time we were apart, time that felt like an eternity to a child’s mind. As we talked, a ladybug landed on my cheek. It tickled as it crawled on my face. I gasped with excitement as another ladybug landed on my bare leg. We both giggled looking into each other’s eyes. Her eyes were like looking into the deep ocean, both blue and green at the same time. She whispered softly in my ear, “Be still my love, they will come to you.” I laid perfectly still, closing my eyes. Sun spots danced behind my eyelids. The sun was shining down on us warm and calming. The wind was singing through the blades of grass as they swayed gently around us. One after another, ladybugs began to land on both of us. She whispered once again in a voice that I now conjure as angelic. “My sweet baby girl, my Hope, anytime I’m away from you, when you see a ladybug, know that I am with you,”
By Lori Santana5 years ago in Humans
Mama
Sometimes it ain’t easy to talk about my mama. We had a rough go at it in the beginning. More like my sister sometimes, but my mama nonetheless. She met me kicking and screaming in the fall of ’82 and if you ask her, I gave her about as much trouble since. My mama wasn’t raised like women are now, she was taught to cook her husband’s dinner, and smile, and eat whatever bullshit life gave her with a silver spoon. She rallied against it as best she could, but she was what her mother had intended her to be in those early years of her marriage to my Daddy. She tried to get me to be a good little woman too, but that just wasn’t in the cards for me. When my Daddy left her, she cried in a rocking chair and asked me to stay with her, but I left. I feel nothing but shame now remembering how pathetic I thought she was. Sometimes I wish I had stayed that day, but that wasn’t what was meant to happen, so it didn’t. I spent a lot of time thinking my mama was weak, or even stupid back then. Took me havin’ my own life and kids to see just how hard it can be, and how we are all just running around like chickens with our heads cut off tryin’ to do our best. And she really did her best. We always had clean clothes and good food on the table. My mama may have screamed a lot, but she loved us just as loud. We may not have had every new toy, but we found little notes in our lunch boxes, and came home to our dolls dressed up perfectly in my baby sister’s old clothes. I could never dress them up right like my mama could. She made us wear a jacket when it was cold, and she cleaned our blood away when we got hurt. She was a good mama, but after some years had passed, she discovered that maybe she just wasn’t that good a woman after all, and maybe she didn’t need to be. Maybe she didn’t want to be. She changed after the divorce. She cared less what people thought of her, especially what the church thought. She smoked and cussed when she wanted to, and she told us to fix our own dinner. She lost weight and began to really live her life for what seemed like the first time ever. I started to see my mama in a different light then, she was not the weak woman that Daddy made her, but stronger than I knew. Stronger than I could ever know, even now. She was there when we needed her, she is there even now if I need her. She won’t tell you everything is okay, and she won’t feel sorry for you, but she will be there. I used to want a mother that would hold my hand every time I felt sad, someone who would do my hair for a dance, or tell me they are sorry my boyfriend hurt my feelings, but that wasn’t my mama. There were worst things than a broken heart or a messy head of hair, and she knew it from personal experience. I now know that I get my strength from her. I don’t sit and wallow in whatever sad predicaments I may face, because I hear my mama’s voice telling me there are worst things, and to quit feeling sorry for myself. I hear her telling me to keep going, that nothing is so constant as change, and that things can’t be that bad for too long. I know I will be okay after every breakup, because she was. I know my kids will turn out okay, even if I am not perfect, because we did. I can’t tell you all of the sacrifices she made for us, but I can say they were many. I know she worried a lot more than anyone should, and she cried when she was mad, like I do now. I will never know the struggles she faced in reality, but I know they were there everyday and she did her damndest so that we wouldn’t have to face so many when we grew up. I know that everything good in me is from her. I used to want to be nothing like her when I was too young to know this world, and now when people say I am like my mom, I take it as one of the biggest compliments someone can give.
By Lolita Libra5 years ago in Humans
