I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.
Trigger Warning: Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse, Threats of suicide, gun violence.
Why I lived With My Grandma For A Year
When my parents divorced in 1981, I was 11 years old and my brother was 8. My mom started seeing Larry right away. I actually think she was seeing him before she left my dad. But my dad was not a nice person. He beat my mom up all the time and hit us kids but so did my mom. There were a couple of times I got beat so bad with a belt that I couldn't walk for a few days and my mom told her parents that I had the flu instead of telling them the truth so she wouldn't have to open the door and no one would see me. My little brother got beat by my dad more than I did though so when my mom started dating Larry who also hit my mom, she told him that I never got beaten as bad as my brother. For some reason that made Larry dislike me a lot. So when he and my mom told me that they were moving to Fresno, Ca to live with his parents, Larry took me aside later and told me that I should stay with my grandma because it was my brothers time to be treated good instead of me. Because he thought my dad loved me more and didn't beat me as much. So I ended up moving in with my grandma (my moms mother) while my brother went with my mom and Larry. I didn't want to be around him anyway because he hit my mom all the time and they drank and were drunk all the time.
While living with my grandma, I only saw my dad maybe twice. He was off living his life and didn't want to be bothered with his kids. I lived with my grandma from 1981 to the beginning of 1982. It was the entire school year for my 5th grade. In that time I only saw my mom once when she had me come to her house on a Greyhound bus for my 12th birthday. Larry seemed to be on his best behavior and he even made me a cake. But nothing had changed and I hated being there. I was glad to go back to my grandma's house at the end of it.
At the end of the school year, Larry, my mom and brother showed up with a couple of Larry's family members and sprung on me that I would be moving back to Fresno with them. That was a nightmare for me and I put up a fight but my grandparents told me I had to go. Larry's parents didn't like me because of what I had said about Larry Sr. the year before. So Larry's mom, Thelma made me sleep outside in the yard on a cot. My mom said nothing. Thankfully we only stayed there for a few weeks and then we took off on a vacation to see The Grand Canyon, Moro Rock, Sequoia National Park, Crystal Cave in Sequoia, Big Bear, Las Vegas and The Petrified Forest for the Summer.
We spent most of the Summer traveling and visiting all these places but because they were drinking so much and he was still hitting my mom and hated me, it was a nightmare of a trip. The worst was when we visited Las Vegas though. My mom and Larry spent all their time gambling and left my brother and I in our hotel room by ourselves. I was 12 and my brother was 9. They left us money to eat and I would take my brother to go get fast food. Sometimes they would be gone for a couple of days at a time. Larry won a bunch of money and then lost a bunch of money. After he lost a bunch of money and was banned from going back inside one of the Casino's for some reason, he took my mom's gun and locked himself in our motel room's bathroom and drank until he passed out. He had been threatening to shoot himself but my mom and brother were able to push the door open after he passed out and get the gun.
We all (including Larry) ended up moving back in with my grandpa after that instead of going back to Larry's parents house. My mom and Larry started working at my grandpa's welding shop again as well. I called my dad and let him know where we were after that because my mom hadn't let me call him the whole Summer. My dad was carrying around a gun in his car and had threatened to kill my mom if he saw her but I told him what went on all Summer and asked him not to do anything like that so we could see him and he promised me. So he was allowed to come and see us a bit later. My dad was a jerk but he was still my dad and I missed him.
Things were kinda normal for a little while....
