Chapter Two

Chapter Two
Ages 4-51

I can’t quite remember the order of events after that but I do remember that before my fourth birthday we moved to St. Paul with my mom’s boyfriend, Mike. He wasn’t very nice to my mom and I, but for some unknown reason she stayed with him. I think my mom just hated to be alone. If I remember right we lived in his parent’s house and his sister might even of lived there. Mom claimed that that house was haunted. We would hear pots and pans rattling upstairs and when we went upstairs to see who was home, there would be no one but us. Someone standing in one of the rooms downstairs claimed that the bookcases randomly fell on them. My mom’s favorite story about that house was that the little book shelf right above our bed started to fall on us and some unseen force stopped it and put it back on the wall. I remember having my fourth birthday in that house, I got an easy bake oven. They had, I believe they were, pigeons in a cage in the living room and mom and mike killed a few batches of them by getting them drunk. You can’t hold it against them because they were drunk at the time. 2

Things quickly turned bad in that house, Mike’s mom would paddle me for just doing silly things that any four year old would do. My mom didn’t like the way everyone was treating me and really there was nothing she could do about it because she was pretty sick and on a lot of medication that made her sleep a lot. Sometimes she would sleep for days on end. She thought that if she was gone they would treat me better. I was jumping on the trampoline next door at the daycare and I saw an ambulance, when I went to the house to see what was wrong and my mom was being brought out on a stretcher unconscious. She had tried to overdose thinking that I would be treated better in her absence. It was horrible that she did this to herself and she really hurt me and our family a lot. However, some good did come out of what she did. Her and Mike broke up and we got out of that awful house and area.3

The next thing I remember is staying at Aunt Brenda’s house in St. Cloud. Mom was in a coma for 3 days and Aunt Brenda stayed there the entire time. I only saw her at the hospital once. They didn’t bring me with more, because once I was in that room I didn’t want to leave. We’d sneak mom cigarettes and I remember talking to her while she laid in bed. I couldn’t lay in bed with her like a used to because I moved around too much and she had lots of wire hooked up to her, so it took everything in her to not have me lay with her. She was there for a little over two weeks. When she got out we moved in with Aunt Brenda and her family. It was Aunt Brenda, her husband Scrap, their son Eric, his girlfriend Kari, and soon after their granddaughter Marissa. We had a full house, where mom and I slept in the attic. Since her depression and led her to want to commit suicide, they upped the number of meds she was on and she slept even more often. That attic became almost a prison for me since I was stuck in it all day while mom slept and Brenda was at work. To pass the time and so that mom could rest, she’d have me read her the phone book since I didn’t yet have any children’s books because I started learning how to read in that attic. I’m not sure when, but before August of 1999 we moved into a trailer not too far from Brenda’s in Waite Park. I was enrolled in Head Start Pre-School for the ‘97-’98 school year.4

Towards the beginning of the school year, around mid September, my mom had to have a hysterectomy and since my aunt Brenda had to work I stayed with our neighbor, Lois, which owned our trailer. I don’t remember much about staying at her house. What I do remember is dry cereal and stock market before school and more news after school. She did let me play Solitare on her computer every once in a while, but other than that it was rather boring. 5

My mom was by no means a ‘tramp’ but she did have a few boyfriends when we lived in that trailer. Lois and mom would have parties pretty often and lots of guys from the bar would come over. I remember coming out and mom and her would be in the background putting ‘dibs’ on certain guys. I didn’t understand it at the time but now it is kinda gross. I also remember that my mom loved anything to do with Coca~Cola, especially the soda. So I was used to sneaking drinks out of cans that she had abandoned. One peticular time it was early morning after one of her ‘parties’ and I took a drink of her Coke. It was horrible! There was tequila in it. After that I never snuck drinks, I always asked first. 6

Around the middle of pre-school, mom was having one of her normal parties, but this one was different. I fell asleep in her room because I had a really bad fever the night before and I liked her room more than mine, actually I rarely slept in my bed. When I woke up the next morning, it was Saturday so I did not have school, mom wasn’t next to me and that rather frightened me. I got up and looked around our little trailer and she was no where to be found, no t in the kitchen, bathroom, or laundry room. So I looked in my room and she was sleeping with this man that looked a bit older. I woke her up and I could tell she was embarrassed even though she never said so. She introduced me to the man, John (Name changed for privacy reasons). That night he and I walked over to the mall and went to the toy store and he told me I could pick any one toy. Oh man was I in heaven! Mom and I didn’t have much money so I only got small treats like candy bars. After much pondering I got a bead set with like over 1,000 beads! I was so excited to make mommy some necklaces! Then we went to the liquor store and he got some beer and stuff and we went home. When we got to the trailer I showed mom my beads and she half smiled half glared at John, she knew it would make a big mess. I sat on the floor and opened the wonderful box immediately while they went outside for a cigarette and a drink. Somewhere around an hour later they came in and told me that they John was going to come live with us. Mom asked me what I thought and I answered something I would later regret. I told her that I was excited and I ran and hugged them both.7

I don’t remember much else significant about my pre-school year. What I do remember is fragmented. Like when Lois’s dog, Chip, bit me in the face and mom and John brought me to the pediatrician to get checked for Rabies and stuff. I didn’t get any illness but I did acquire distaste for any dog, large or small. Christmas that year I got some clothes, Barbie stuff and most importantly I got my first bicycle. It was purple with tassels on the handle bars. Even though it had training wheels, it made me feel like a big kid. I also remember when I was star student, everyone got one week, we brought home a canvas bag and we could put pictures and small things that meant a lot to us in it to share. Mom and I didn’t realize that the bag was for everyone and that you didn’t get to keep it so she let me color on it. My teachers weren’t too happy. Another thing I remember is making a t-shirt and pink bag with my name on them and sponge paint pictures. I almost briefly remember my brother, Chad, visiting us for a short amount of time. The main thing about pre-school was that since mom was sleeping a lot and John was working I had to get myself up every morning. I feel as though I raised myself through most of my childhood, beings my mom was steadily getting sicker and sleeping more and more.8

Towards the end of the school year my mom’s relationship with Lois became sour because she wanted John and my mommy got him. She ended up kicking us out of the trailer that we had paid for in full more than once. We moved to an upstairs apartment on the outskirts of town in Saint Joseph. That summer I had a lot of fun playing on the dirt hill in our back yard. Mom and I would go on nature walks in the woods that were on top of that hill and we’d look at the eagles’ nests in the trees with her binoculars. That summer passed quickly and I was enrolled in Kennedy Elementary for Kindergarten (’99-’98 school year).9