As a young girl, my favorite story was Cinderella. It was my favorite story mostly because it was the only book I owned. I think they were called Golden Books. They were the little books with the cardboard like covers bound by gold foil. My mama got the book for me using stamps at the Piggly Wiggly. My mama read this book to me so much I had it memorized cover to cover. It was my prized possession.
I was ecstatic to learn that I got to go with Mama and Daddy this time to work in Oklahoma. I packed up all my clothes. They just all happened to fit in a brown grocery bag. Mama made potted meat sandwiches for the trip. My Aunt Mira Jane bought me a coloring book and some crayons. I was ready. Mama put Shawn and I in the backseat and away we went. Little Ira never went with us, he always stayed behind with grandmother.
It seemed to take forever to get to Oklahoma. I remember singing along to the 8 track tape of Hank Williams Jr. I remembered the words to every song that I heard. I wondered what our house in Oklahoma would look like.
I remember waking up as my mama carried me inside and put me into bed. I wondered what the house looked like but I was too tired to look.
The next morning, I woke up and looked around to see that we were in a hotel… wait hotel is way to nice a word to use. They probably charged by the hour. I saw the two beds, TV, and bathroom. I sat quietly on the bed and waited for Mama to wake up. I knew I was to never wake them up. I didn’t know how to tell time but they always woke up about the time the Price is Right came on at least by the first time they spun the big wheel. Shawn was awake too. I attempted to changed his diaper and found a bottle in the cooler to give to him. I then realized what I had done. As I was taking the diapers out of the diaper bag I spilled my dads bag of weed on the floor. I am sitting on the floor frantically trying to pick the weed out of the carpet when my mama awakes in horror. She jumps up and starts to help me. I am crying but trying not to make to much noise. We are both satisfied that we cleaned it up properly. No worries.
When Daddy woke up he was grouchy as always. He wakes up, lights his cigarette and begins to walk over to the diaper bags. Even though I was only four years old, I probably knew how to roll a joint having seen it done so many times. I saw his face turn red and the panic set up in my mama’s eyes. I spent what seems like eternity under the bed as my daddy beat mama for “smokin without him”. You see he always measured his stash so he would know if anyone touched it. He did this with his liquor too.
We had to leave the motel in a hurry because the manager called the cops. We couldn’t get busted. I remember seeing my mama’s face battered and starting to bruise and feeling really bad about it. She looked back at me from the front seat and whispered “it’s okay”.
It was then as we sped away that I remembered that I left my Cinderella book under my pillow. I was heart broken.
Stay tuned for more as I chronicle my journey from extreme poverty and abuse to my new life of love and happiness.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
but you didn’t leave behind your dream of a different life for yourself.
You may have left the book, but you didn’t leave behind who you have become today. People tend to think of things as what defines a person, but things are only material, it is who we become that is the most uplifting and empowering.
I just wanted to say the way we are as adults is a choice we make. I am glad that you have made the choice to become a mother and wife and take care of your family. So many times children become what they grew up with. It’s a choice. You can be what you know — or you can be what you want! I subcribe to your husband’s blog for coupons and deals and now to yours to read this journey you are telling. I look at my children all the time and think…they will never know what it is like to grow up with memories like I have.