Remembering...

Alot of what I write are things that I remember. I am on a little mission to get it all out of my head... before my head implodes or something. Like I have said before... I write for self healing of old hurts... to remember happy and sad things... and I would like to have a place that Hannah can come to if something were to ever happen to me. Then she can have the words from her mother's heart and mind. I know this would be an important thing to her... it was to me. Of all the tough times that my mom went through... it is her words and her memory that lives on.

I get jumbled up in the things that I have posted to this website. One reason for this is that something will just pop into my head and I will write about it. Another depends on what is going on around me and the moment. So bear with me.

I was born in Pomona, California. My mom and dad were fairly well off during my first 7 years of life. I did not ever lack or want. I never knew what it was to "not have enough money right now" during those first years. We always had food to eat. We never had to go to the food bank. I always got to order what I wanted when we went out to eat... money wasn't an issue...and if it ever was my mom and dad never let on. My clothes were bought in a mall... and my shoes always came from Stride Rite...(pardon my spelling).

My dad was a California Highway Patrol officer. My mom... as I said before... was a stay-at-home-and-teach-my-child-everything-imaginable mom. I went to a private pay Christian School for Kindergarten and first grade. We had a fairly nice house... (nicer than any I have lived in since). We had a car and a truck with a nice new camper on it. Times seemed good... looking back.

The things I am writing about was brought to the forefront of my mind by something... (more like, someone)... completely unexpected. ((I will explain more about this part later)).

We used to go camping alot. The camper was nice... it had a little toilet... and a gas stove/oven... and lots of room for a little camper. We used to go fishing off of the piers in various locations in California. I remember one time in particular my dad had either a crab or a starfish on the line.... I can't remember which one... I just remember it scaring me a little. I remember eating fresh hot smoked salmon right on the pier. It was wrapped in aluminum foil and it was still hot out of the smoker. I have... to this day... tasted nothing that has even come close! Some of the good times were also spent inside the camper when it rained. I have old slides of my mom and I eating oreo cookies inside the camper together in our jammies. Please tell me what in life could ever get better than that?

My dad was a photography buff. Everywhere we went he used to have a nice new 35mm camera wrapped like a tourist around his neck. He got slides of everything. We had a slide projector and one of those little screens that you could set up in your living room to watch them on. I still am carting around that box of slides that my mom carted around for years. Once in a while... I get them out... and hold each one of them up to the light. I could tell you where almost all of them were taken... and what we were doing when they were taken. I keep them for sentimental reasons. It was my part of "the good life"... "back in the day"... kinda stuff.

It was when my mom and dad loved each other... and life as a little girl growing up... was perfect.

(ok... I got a little choked up just then writing that sentence... big lump in throat and a lil teary).

I don't really know what... or why it happened... but when I was 7... my dad quit his job with the C.H.P. and we moved to Washington state. I know that my cousin's family had just moved to Washington state... and we ended up in the same town as they were in... so perhaps that was part of the reason for the move.

My mom and dad didn't seem to have as much money. I can actually remember the first time I realized that we didn't have enough. I remember feeling really proud that we bought my dad a snow shovel for Christmas... but I remember thinking that it cost too much. My mom made all of my clothes. I had one pattern... but all different types of material. We didn't go to malls anymore... and my mom started canning food. We hardly ever went out for dinner anymore. Things were alot different than I remembered them being in California.

Then... I remember the first time my dad left us. My heart wrenched from my chest. How could he leave us? We had always been together. I don't know why he left... but I do remember my mom and I crying ourselves to sleep... alot. My whole world deflated. Like a big bright blown up beach ball that someone took a sharp knife to and smashing it in the dirt making it flat. Things were different.

I think that children make the best out of any situation... or at least they try to. I still played with my cousins and went to school. I made snowmen and played barbies and listened to music and colored. But I knew what sadness was... and I knew just how deep it could go. I shoved alot of stuff way down deep inside me... only to find out as I grew... that all it was doing was festering.

My dad came back a few times. I actually have a picture of him and I out in our yard on one of the times he came home. I have a soft little smile on my face... but when I look at that picture... I feel sad... because I know the sadness that is in that little heart. (lump and tears again...)

My mom and dad moved to Florida... for what??... only they (and God) know. All I remember was misery and scorpions... and I learned how to spell penguin. Other than that... Florida was a miserable blur of heat and spiders. It was quite a gift to move back quickly to Washington state.

We moved to a little town called... Chewelah, Washington... eventually. This is the town we ended up staying in for several years. This was the place that my mom started into her "crazy times"... mental breakdown... whatever you want to call them.

My mom and dad were managers of an apartment complex for a while. Things seemed ok... off and on. My dad and I would go up into the forest and cut firewood for money. We had long since sold the camper that USED to reside in the back of the truck. Getting firewood with my dad was hard work... but it was fun. He used to go up into the woods and cut the trees down... cut them into chunks... and roll them down the hill to me. I would have to stop them before they rolled off the other side of the road. Then after they were all down...my dad would come down and split them all... throw them up into the truck to me... and I would stack them. We sold split and delivered tamarack that was stacked tight and up to the top of the cab all the way back (with siderails).. for only $45.00 per load. $45.00!!!! ((People really rip ya off these days!... you can pay $150.00 to $180.00 for wood like that now.))

My mom became pregnant with my twin brothers in Chewelah. I wrote about them a little in another post of mine. When they were born... I was delighted. I was finally a sister! I was ((and still am)) very proud of them. My mom and dad bought a house that was financed for low income buyers. We planted a yard... and a little tree. ((that is now huge!!)) I still to this day drive by that tree and think back on all of the times I spent watering it... and trimming it... it is beautiful... and it stands tall and proud..(as it does in my heart) symbolizing life. Through all of the heartache and tragedies... that tree still lives... and so do we.

My dad left us for good when my brothers were 18 months old. I helped raise my brothers. My mom still periodically went through "crazy times"... and really it is not fair calling them crazy times... but what else do I call them? She was not herself... she was different. When she went through these times... I stepped up to the plate... and made sure things were done to the best of my ability. I want to make it known right now... no matter what others saw... or thought... we were always clothed... and fed... and cared for and loved. Our house might not have been the cleanest... and our clothes had seen their better days... and our cupboards had seen better tasting food... but when three children and their mother were on welfare in those days...(1980's)... in a small hick town... and at the time there wasn't alot of child support.......... what else does one expect? My mom took us to the park... she took us out to McDonalds (when she could afford it)... she helped us with homework... and she spent alot of time crying and praying.

My dad had become an alcoholic. Visits from him became few and far between. We would get postcards from him once in a while. For the longest time I resented his absence. How could he leave and not stay to take care of his family? I actually can say that I hated him for quite some time... and to my own heartache... many times I let him know it. At the time... saying hateful and hurtful things made me temporarily feel better. But the hurt was always still there. It never went away. My mom and him had a very bitter divorce... with an even nastier custody battle. I hated my dad (and his new wife) for trying to destroy what was left of the family that I loved. I knew my mom was having troubles... but we were never "neglected" like "they" said we were.

My brothers were taken from our home for a year. My dad and his wife Donna cared for them during their kindergarten year. During that year... when it was our time for weekend visitations... we were there without a missed minute... to get my brothers. My mom had to beg and borrow gas money sometimes to to all the way to DeerPark to get them... but she did it. I am sure that they liked going to school and getting to know their dad for a while. But they loved coming home to visit. I am torn between my thoughts on this. I know that my dad needed them to live with him during that time. I know now... that it meant alot to him. He got to partake in the two little lives that he left behind and never had a chance to get to know.

My brothers have their own opinions on this whole situation... but I know that they both loved that I was the one who taught them both how to ride their bikes!! I did as much as I could for my brothers. I knew my mom couldn't run around with them as much as I was able to. I helped bathe them...and feed them... and dress them... and play "trucks" with them in the sand pit that they dug right outside our back door! I also had my healthy dose of "yelling at the little brothers" age. "Stay out of my room!" "Don't touch my things!" ~But... I love them with my whole heart... and so did our mother.............

I was the "protector"... during the times that we spent in two foster homes... I made a stink every time the idea came about to separate us came around. I kept a close eye on my brothers. I double checked and asked lots of questions to whoever we were staying with at the time. I wanted to know what they were doing... and where they were going... ANYTIME my brothers were involved. They were mine...and we were a family... and no one was going to change that! I grew up fast as a teenager... and I saw and went through more than I should have...but that is ok... because I survived... and I have good news about it all.

My mom eventually came out of these strange times she was having. I have alot to say about some of the stuff she went through... but that is a whole other story in itself.

This is about my relationship with my dad.

On the day we went to visit Rich's heart donor's grandma on April 8th of this year... we also visited with my dad and his wife Donna. My dad lives only about 1 mile away from Rich's heart donor's grandma... odd isn't it? Anyways... My dad drives a semi-truck across the country... and has now for about 17 years...(or so). I was wanting to meet up with them because I hadn't seen them for years. Donna wasn't sure if he was going to make it home on the day we were going to be there...but he was going to try. Well... he ended up making it there for our visit. They got us a motel room and took us out for dinner. There was nine of us for dinner. Rich, Hannah and I... My dad and his wife, Donna... Donna's daughter Shelly and her husband Bob and their two kids. It was nice to see them all. We went back to their house after dinner. At first it was just Donna and I. We kind of talked a bit about some of the "things of the heart"... and other stuff. She told me about some of the things her and my dad talk about regarding our relationship. It was good to talk to Donna like that. Without me having "my guard up" like I had so many times in the past.

After everyone else got there... my dad and I got to just talk. Everybody else was in the room... but I was just talking to him... and he was just talking to me. (lump and tears again... ) I asked him if he ever loved my mom. He told me that the first 5 years of their marriage were perfect and he loved her very much. I told him that no matter how many times my mom said that she hated him and wished he weren't here... that I know she always loved a part of him. And I know this because after she died... I found in a trunk of hers... every card and letter he ever wrote her. I asked him why he wasn't there for me when my mom died. I sobbed and told him that it would have been nice to know that he was there for me. I told him at the time that she had passed away... but as I talked to him that night... he didn't realize that she had a tumor wrapped around her left kidney... and once they removed it... the cancer had taken her within 3 months.

He told me that he has alot of time when he is driving around in his truck back and forth across the country. He has time to think of "things". He told me something that I have been waiting to hear all my life. He finally said it.

My dad... since his being sober from alcohol for 20 some odd years... has told me often "I'm your dad and I love you no matter what." Not to make light of that statement... but it always sounded rehearsed. I know that fathers usually love their daughters... but I wanted more. I wanted explanations... I wanted "I'm sorries"... I wanted ................. what he said to me that night sitting at his kitchen table.

My dad told me that when he sits in his truck... he sometimes thinks about the times he took me to the mall... and bought me clothes...and nice shoes... and took me out to dinner with my mom and him instead of dumping me off at a babysitter. He remebers taking pictures of me in front of all the mall fountains... posing for pictures in my new outfits. He said he remembered how much fun we used to have going camping together..........and he told me that yes... at one time he truly loved my mother. Through my tears...(*that night at the table... and NOW)... I saw his face. I watched him say these words that my childhood heart has longed to hear for so many years. His face looked like all the rough life lines were softened over by the years. I looked at his eyes... they are a really pretty blue-ish color. His crooked teeth make a funny little smile that pushes his cheeks up in chubby little grin that actually lights up his whole face. THAT WAS THE DADDY I REMEMBER! I just wanted to hug him.

I cherished the talk that we finally had. And most of all... my child-like heart thanks God for it. I have come to the realization that comes from something my mom used to say to me all the time. "I may not always like what you do... but I will ALWAYS love you."

Thank you dad... for finding the time to come home on the day we were there. Thank you for remembering what I longed for you to remember. No matter what we have been through... very hurtful times... and happy ones too... know that I am your daughter... and I love you. ((and know that my pile of kleenex just got bigger!))