The Price of a Sentence

Thousands of foster children may be removed from their homes because of a well-intentioned federal law http://www.newsweek.com/id/226777

A matter of will: Custody fight over Idaho orphans becomes intercontinental tug of love — latimes.com

A matter of will: Custody fight over Idaho orphans becomes intercontinental tug of love — latimes.com

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Employees Knit Scarves for Orphan Foundation of America – State Journal – STATEJOURNAL.com

Employees Knit Scarves for Orphan Foundation of America – State Journal – STATEJOURNAL.com

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Disputes with my Aunt and Uncle

I’ve been feeling guilty about my portrayal of  my aunt and uncle.  That maybe, maybe I blew things out of proportion.  So I dug out my journals, but I was horrible about keeping a routine of writing.  When I did remember to my references of incidents were vague.  Maybe I wasn’t as “whiny” as she said, maybe I feared she’d read it.  The most I usually wrote was “we fought today.”  The search wasn’t a total loss, I found 1 instance where my uncle lectured my boss for taking me home on a snowy night.  The roads were extremely bad and my boss didn’t want me to drive so he took me home.  I guess the charity was unwanted because he told me that my uncle had yelled at him for doing it.

They constantly compared me to their children, I played the flute, if you would call it playing.  I wanted to be a majorette, but you had to be in band first.  They didn’t have majorettes in my new school, so I was stuck with my flute.  My aunt wouldn’t let me quit band, so I played poorly.  Hey, I even went to contests with the goal of sucking.  She’d remind me that my mom spent money on my flute, while I’d remind her that Mom also spent money on baton lessons.  So my aunt tried lessons, then she threatened to stop paying for the lessons (with my money) if I didn’t practice.  I practiced twirling my flute.  I didn’t want to play that stupid thing.  She told me that ALL of her children could play more than one instrument.  What in the world was wrong with me?  I couldn’t even play one.  I ignored her as usual, but stayed in band.  I sat in last chair and trilled everything.  Maybe I played every 4 or 5 notes.  Trilling was awesomely fun, but I think I frustrated the band director, who gave me special lessons once a week.  The problem was that I couldn’t practice at home, my uncle would complain about how horrible I was.  How their children ever became good at 2 or 3 instruments is beyond me.

So I was on a quest – what made life with them so horrible.  I’ve already mentioned giving away my stuff and putting a time limit on packing up my house.  My aunt and uncle telling me how horrible my father was and burying my parents.  Picking on me for my acne and tearing apart my word choices and trying to snuff out my dreams as mere shit.  What else could I want?   The times they called me fat or stupid?  Then it came to me in the form of my Social Security benefits.  Yes, they harassed me for being an orphan.  Apparently my $500 a month since Dad’s death was the culprit of Social Security being broke.  So world I will say this proudly I alone bankrupted Social Security.  At least according to my uncle who said that I took all of the money and was mooching off of the government my whole life.  Because of me he would not get his social security.  That’s right folks, my meager $500/ month is the SOLE reason for it’s loss of liquidity.  I took it all there’s none for you – sorry.  Thanks though, I did enjoy eating for 18 years, especially the last 3; because I didn’t have any parents.  But the government didn’t intend survivor’s benefits to actually support children, now why would they do that?  I mean if they didn’t feed the orphans then the genocide will create room for more non-mooching people, like my uncle who earned his retirement.  Or maybe I was supposed to just not use it.  Because it’s just there as a show piece, not to be really used.  At three weeks I could have and should have told my mom that I didn’t want the ridicule, that I really didn’t like food and eating was overrated.

Maybe that wasn’t it , maybe it was that I was really truly stupid.  My aunt told me so.  I was constantly told that I wasn’t as smart as her kids.  They got A’s and I got B’s – and a letter totally equates intelligence.  I got B’s despite not caring and not doing my homework and always fighting at home, when I went home.  I got B’s after loosing my mom and home, and being sick and homeschooled for 3 years.  Her daughter wore suits on test days, while I was lucky to be awake.  In the end this unintelligent person has a master’s degree, while two of her kids dropped out of college and one never went.  But degree attainment does not equate intelligence, it does prove that I am not the idiot that she said I was.

I let this sit overnight and in the morning I remembered one more.  I have sever TMJ dysfunction, though at the time I didn’t know it.  I’d awaken in the morning to a mouth that wouldn’t open.  I’d simply be able to mumble and despite telling my aunt this she didn’t believe it.  She’d stand in front of me and shout “good morning” while getting very angry when she couldn’t hear my mumbles.  She’d badger me for a bit, then get mad and stomp back to her chair.  It would take several hours for my jaw to limber up enough to effectively communicate with the world.  I have since discovered that I have arthritis that has worn the TMJ to levels that astonish my doctors.  My mouth doesn’t work in the morning and that is just a fact.

Dreams

I grew up believing that I could do anything.  Mom always promoted anything that I wanted to do.  I think it was because my father sold self help materials and strongly believed I the mantra “if in your mind you can conceive and you believe you will achieve.”  So mom didn’t even bat an eye when I said I wanted to make movies.  She was so supportive that she tried to get a job at a college where I could study film.

My aunt and uncle, on the other hand, were not supportive.  They believed that only traditional jobs were successful and dreams were meant to be ignored.  I didn’t care I just ignored them until my uncle turned to me, apparently irritated  about my positive attitude; he held out his right hand and said “this is your dreams” he held out his left hand “ and this is shit, which fills up faster?”  I stopped talking to them about making movies.  I even bought a video camera that I didn’t tell them about; I smuggled it around.  I think that may have been the last instance that I gave them the chance to weigh in on my life.  I kept myself busy in theater and taking pictures for the yearbook and newspaper.

To add to my punishment for dreaming my aunt banned me from watching rated R movies.  I argued that everyone my age watched them; Mom had allowed me to watch them since 3^rd grade when Good Morning Vietnam aired on primetime.  My aunt didn’t care and frankly I don’t think she believed me.  I couldn’t allow this oppression; what kind of film maker was banned from movies?  I started making a list, a big long list of about 100 movies that I had seen with Mom’s permission.  My aunt didn’t care.  These movies were going to corrupt me; they probably already had.  So I just bypassed her, the library didn’t care about my age and neither did Hollywood Video.  So I made sure that they were hidden in my backpack and took them to my room to watch; she didn’t ban Mom’s VCR!  I  Think I went out of my way to find make sure that the movies were rated R.   Sometimes I didn’t even remember them because I fell asleep, but it didn’t matter because I felt that I’d won that battle.

Later I started going to the movies on Fridays with my friends.  She still wouldn’t let me go to the R rated ones.  So I’d just wait on them and rent them to spite her.  I think later I would sneak out and go to the rated R ones and give her a different excuse.  I didn’t care, I needed to consume movies if I ever wanted to make them.

Orphans need to have dreams; they need to cling to those dreams.  There’s no one else in this world to help them, to give them any future hope.  It’s the dreams that make something from an orphan.

Move to a New State

The other day, as I was working, I came across this website about the placement of orphans; how guardianship is handled and such.  I realized that something fishy was up with my case.  It is possible that there were reasons, but no one talked to me; as if I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

So, Mom died and that was it.  I don’t remember social workers or petitions for guardianship.  Nothing happened, no one stepped in; no official ruling that grandma was unfit, nothing.  I was just carted out-of-state like a piece of luggage.  I recall a brief bit of paranoia, by the adults,  about objects being seized from the house.  We loaded stuff into a storage shed and I was ordered not to label boxes out of fear.  The fear was money, they were afraid that people would try to take stuff from the estate to pay bills.  I had to hide precious items with my grandma, things that she ended up loosing.  No one explained anything to me.  I was supposed to pick the lawyer and the funeral home, yet I was incapable of understanding the complexities of being shipped out-of-state without permission.

Between the dislike for my aunt and the lack of support from both her and my uncle I grew suspicious.  I didn’t know what was gong on but I knew something was wrong.  So when they supplied me with legal guardianship papers I didn’t want to sign them.  I started to read, they made fun of me saying I couldn’t possibly understand legal talk – I should just sign them.  I continued to read.  Then they began to harass me about not trusting them – I would just sign if I trusted them.  I continued to read – something felt wrong.  I didn’t know what.  The paperwork looked ok, but there was something going on that I just didn’t trust.  I felt as though I was signing my life away.  They pressured me, I signed.  The next morning I felt horribly sick, they told me I was faking.  In what was supposed to be a cool moviesque moment I grabbed the legal guardianship papers and tried to rip them.  It wasn’t cool, they were too thick and hard to rip; I tugged and wrinkled and wadded, they ripped, but not clean in half.  At least they were destroyed and I felt relieved, but not better – I still had the flu.  My aunt seized control of my Social Security and started to control the money.  I didn’t like it, but I didn’t know that I could have contested.

Before the school quarter was over I was taken from school for a week to go get my stuff from the storage shed.  Grandma had forgotten that I’d asked her to take care of Dad’s pocket watch – the ONLY family heirloom that I had from him.  Supposedly it was a gift from his mom to his dad on their wedding day.  My Grandma lost it, but what did I expect from people that hated the man?  My stuff was taken and put in a pig barn so that it could smell wonderful for all eternity.  Then I got the bill, yep – they billed me for the trip.  That’s when I hit my most angry and frustrated time in my internment.  NO ONE asked, no one said “do you want this?”  no one said beforehand that I’d be paying.  They even had limited the time that I had to clean out a three bedroom house.  I didn’t even get all of my stuff.  My aunt had started giving my sports equipment to the neighbor – my father’s basketball, my father’s soccer ball, my father’s tennis rackets – without asking.  Then they had the audacity to bill me.  If I’m paying for stuff I want my money’s worth, not a timed packing spree while someone’s taking stuff back out of the box and giving it away.

The fight about money led to many lonely night walks asking God what to do.  I didn’t know and I felt alone and confused.  The house turned into a constant battlefield and I was finally given a list.  This list dictated a weekly allowance and monthly clothing allowance (that couldn’t even buy a pair of jeans)  in addition to penalties for mistakes.  I forgot to turn a light off – $.25, I missed the bus $4.00 plus an apology to the bus driver and $.40/mile to my aunt for driving me.  I could never win, because nothing I did was good enough for her.  So I took my list to school and the principle brought in child services.  We each went through counseling and they repealed the list after several months.

I never did sign over legal guardianship, but she continued to keep my money until I turned 18 and I felt she controlled it beyond that.  In the end there was money missing that I suspected she’d pocketed until I received that exact amount as a wedding gift.  She said that Mom asked her to save up and give me some money for my wedding.  Good, I’m glad she listened to something, too bad that money was supposed to be spent on raising me.  Instead I worked for food and clothes and was banished from eating with them.  They figured that since I never ate with them I had to be eating out and therefore I must have too much money.  In reality I worked so often that I didn’t have time to eat at home.  My boss usually gave me free food, so I didn’t spend a lot money eating out.  They wouldn’t listen.

When I turned 18 I received a settlement letter awarding me a small portion of Mom’s estate.  I don’t know why they waited that long, but I think it had something to do with my out-of-state status.  Maybe they had a good reason for shipping me out there, but no one told me.  It did keep me from contesting the will or objecting to the management of the estate.  But, it also meant that I didn’t have my own representation and no one tapped the greatest asset by renting the house.  It sat for three years depreciating in value, but no one would listen and no one would explain why they wouldn’t.  Maybe I was just a stupid kid, but I  don’t know because no one even tried to talk to me.

On a good note, I did find Dad’s pocket watch.  Grandma had placed it in a desk drawer, it froze and thawed in a pig barn for years until I found it.  Needless to say I was upset, but glad to have it.

The Troubles of What I Remember

Memories, they can be hard and they can be great and they can get you into trouble; even if they aren’t real.

One major argument with my aunt was my ability to remember stuff from when I was one or two.  Specifically a trip with Mom and my grandparents to visit my aunt and uncle.  I was two and I’m pretty sure this is the only time that all of us went together.  The only other time we visited them was when I was five and Mom and I did that alone.  The trip that is in question, of course, is the two-year-old family trip.  It was highlighted by grandpa saying “Red Roof Inn Sleep Cheap” every time we saw a Red Roof Inn.  My aunt claims that no one can remember before the age of five.  That can’t be true, I remember being on a Naval ship for my uncle’s graduation as an infant.  I’m not sure why I remember this and it’s just a snippet of a memory.  Even if that is a false memory, I do remember being lifted up into Mom’s new house at the age of two.  It wasn’t even finished yet and they lifted me into what was going to be my room.  I remember just standing in the room amazed, but I couldn’t see the rest of the house because the floors weren’t ready yet.

On the other side of this, her side, I supposedly nursed until I was five.  She would say this in tones dripping with disdain and then turn around and say the same thing about other nieces and nephews that she didn’t like.  I know that this was just her pinning all things that she thought evil and wrong on me.  Mom had recorded a tape just before she died talking about taking me off of breast milk early because she didn’t think I was getting nutrition from it.  (On a side note this tape magically disappeared in the care of my relatives)  My aunt’s version of this was always paired with my being such a spoiled brat that I would, at the age of five, walk up to Mom and grab her breast until she’d let me nurse.  I had been going to pre-school for two years prior to this, which should mean that I had to be 1. on solid food and 2. potty trained.  We argued round and round about what I was able to remember, mostly because her excuse was used to demonize me, while I had proof otherwise.

I will admit that I do have fictionalized memories.  Everyone does.  Mine is of the day Dad died.  I remember being in the living room and seeing the emergency squad pull up, red lights flashing.  Mom had told me otherwise.  I was with Dad, on the bed watching Sunday football when his heart exploded.  He braced himself so that he wouldn’t crush me.  In doing so he made it impossible for Mom to roll him over and administer CPR.  She placed me in my crib, which was in the bedroom, away from the windows that could see the squad.  In addition to Mom’s recollection, I recently read that infants do not get color sight until months old.  Although red is the first color, it is unlikely that I could see red at three-weeks-old.  So what I recall is a memory that I made up to fulfill the need for a memory of that time and I really can’t expect much more – I was three-weeks-old.

Grieving

Friday, September 25, 2009, was three months since the death of Michael Jackson.  The grieving period is over, that is the proper grieving period of a king, but can you really put a time limit on grief?  I didn’t want to write about the King of Pop again, but I thought it would be a good introduction into a post on grieving.

I have to admit I had to look up the stages, I didn’t know them and I didn’t go through counseling.  The resources I found gave varying numbers of stages ranging from three to ten.  I’m not a counselor, nor have I been through counseling for grief so I’m not the authority on which is correct.  I’m not even going to list them.  I think it could do more harm than good.  I guess I will discuss my grieving process.

I remember the phone call that came at 3 AM and standing there feeling numb and alone.  Not long after that I felt disoriented because my world was turning upside down.  I moved out of state without really knowing what was happening.  I vaguely remember my birthday and barely Thanksgiving, but nothing much until we went home to get my stuff.  I can’t even say I really even remember Christmas too well.  I do know that there was fighting.  I used to think that the angry stage meant that I was supposed to be angry with Mom for my situation.  Now I think the anger could be towards my aunt.  Mine was my aunt, not that I can say there wasn’t anger before Mom died.  Now I kind of think that my anger wasn’t all me – my aunt was grieving too and she seemed to be a very bitter and angry person anyway.  Then I skipped the sentimental phase because I’d lost everything to be sentimental about.  That would come when I went back home.  I simply started to live my life in my new state and around that time my aunt swore that I was depressed.  She begged me to take anti-depressants, she had the doctor beg me to take anti-depressants.  I finally caved and took one.  That day at school I had to ask my friends if I was really walking on the ground because I had the euphoric feeling, as if I were floating.  I never took another one, which made her very angry.  Then she insisted on taking me to a therapist.  I, again, finally gave in. We went an they said I was fine for someone that had just lost everything; not depressed just grieving.  They didn’t offer anything they just let me go home.

What screwed me up the most was the loss of my home, it interrupted my ability to properly grieve.  I lost the chance to look at stuff that reminded me of Mom.  In fact the stuff that was moved to my new home was packed into a barn.  Years later I opened the boxes to find many things ruined from the stench of pigs and cats.  The furniture that wasn’t ruined from moisture and heat would need refinished.  Nothing was ever the same.  Wehn I looked through my things I wasn’t reminded of Mom so much as how angry Mom would be and how angry I am.

The first year after Mom’s death I realized that I could remember if it was the 12th or the 13th or was it the 11th?  I had to look it up and that made me sad, it made me feel like I didn’t even care enough to remember the date.  I don’t remember what I did that year, but I think I cried alone.  The second year I totally forgot again.  I realized at  the end of the 13th that I’d missed the day, whatever day it was.  That made me very sad and my friends told me that it would be good when I could remember the day and not be sad.  Four years after her death and I still had to look up the date.  Then, at some point, I started remembering and not having to look up the date.  Soon the date became a dinner date for my husband and I.  We started commemorating the life of my mom on her birthday and the day she died.  The we started to do the same for my dad.  It has never stopped being a sad time, it just became a time to embrace the mix of feelings.

I have been known to say that Mom’s death did not bother me.  By that I was simplifying.  Her death made me sad, yes, but it is not what crippled me emotionally; that was my aunt.  Because of her I never grieved to my fullest and that is what bothers me to this day about Mom’s death.  I believe it is why my grieving period has not ended after 14 years.  Or maybe grief never truly has an ending.

Plane crash leaves 10-year-old an orphan |West Palm Beach News, South Florida Breaking News, Forecast, Video from WPTV

Plane crash leaves 10-year-old an orphan |West Palm Beach News, South Florida Breaking News, Forecast, Video from WPTV

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Good News: Her photo lessons are inspiring Ugandan orphans | Jacksonville.com

Good News: Her photo lessons are inspiring Ugandan orphans | Jacksonville.com

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