Welcome Home Mama

The photo above is the house I grew up in. Now granted this photo was taken several years after I left, but it looks pretty much the same as it did when I lived there.  Don’t let the looks of abandonment fool you. It is inhabited, that is until my dad got drunk and burned it to the ground.

This is the home that I grew up in along with my two brothers and sister. It had three bedrooms,  one bathroom , a kitchen, and a living room.

Next door to this house lived my dads parents. They lived in a much nicer house. It had the modern amenities that our house did not have like running water, heat, air conditioning,  electricity, and a bathroom floor. When you opened the  door to our bathroom all you saw was the great outdoors. And yes,  I did say running water. We did not get that luxury until 1989, up until then we had a water hose that ran from my grandparents house  through the kitchen window.

I wish I had the memory now like I did back then.  I often wonder how I can remember the smallest of details of my life as a child but I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. Anyway, on to the story… I was a couple of months shy of my fourth birthday. It was 1979.  I was very sad and I remember crying in the closet uncontrollably because my mom and dad were leaving to go to work in Oklahoma. This was not a rare event but I hated when my mama left me because that meant I had to stay with my grandmother (my dad’s mom) and she was mean. The two of them were always going to work somewhere. They worked on oil rigs.  I knew as soon as my mom walked out the door I was in trouble. My mom left and promised she would come back for me. It was the day after Christmas when  she left.

Every night I would cry myself to sleep because I wanted my mama to come back. Every day I had to listen to my grandmother bash my mother. I thought my mama was a saint.  My grandmother was angry that my parents left me and my brother in her care and took it out on us, well me.

I thought sure my mama would come back for me by my birthday, February 1st, but it wasn’t’ until after Independence day  that she came back and when she did she brought with her my new baby brother, Shawn.  So my 20 year old mother now has three children ages 4, 2, and newborn. I was so happy to see her.  I ran up to her and grabbed her by the legs. When my dad asked if I was going to come give him “some sugar”, I hid behind my mama.  He took his belt off and spanked me until I had whelps for “not minding”.

Welcome home Mama.

Stay tuned for more as I chronicle my journey from extreme poverty and abuse to my new life of love and happiness.