Chapter 17

I just turned seventeen and still worked at McDonald's after school. Being a junior in high school was better than being a freshman and it had its perks. I got to drive everywhere along with CO-OP which meant that I got to leave school after half a day. We had just switched to college block classes, so we only had four classes a day. I wasn't having the time of my life, but things were good.

My parents taught me early on the value of a dollar. At age three, I worked in the family business making bed pillows. At age thirteen, I had my own bills that I had to pay on my own, like my children's land line.

During the week, I was daddy's girl. I helped him tend our three gardens, mowed an acre of land, and learned the basics of working on vehicles. My dad didn't want me to need a man for anything. On Saturday's, my mom and I would go shopping. I was the person who picked out everything I wanted but just before getting to the register, I had put ninety percent of the items back. I had the money to buy it all but realized I had no need for a majority of it.

My best friend at the time was John. He and I meet our sophomore year and just clicked. We also worked at McDonald's together. That is where I met Aiden. We couldn't stand him and vice versa.

One night at work, Aiden asked me out to watch a movie. I figured, what the heck so I said, yes. I knew he was in a gang at the time, but I was a sheltered child and didn't know what all that entailed. I didn't even know what drugs were at the time. Anyway, he and I went to see the movie, 'Gansta's Paradise'. Before the movie, he took me to Golden Corral for dinner. I had a glass of iced tea while he ate a T-bone steak. I just wasn't hungry. The looks that he got were almost unforgivable because I wasn't eating.

After the movie, we rode the strip in Asheboro just cruisin. He gave me his class ring although he was four years older than me. We had a good time that night. He introduced me to things I had never experienced before.

After a couple weeks, I finally brought him home to meet my parents. Aiden was everything they disliked. He drank alcohol, had tattoos, and raced in Nascar sanctioned tracks with Mike Skinner. Although I met him at McDonald's, he worked full-time at Klaussner Furniture. He wore a long sleeve button-up shirt to cover his tattoos for my parents but was respectful and had manners.

The next day, I skipped school to take my dad to the doctor. This is when I found out the family secret. He had cancer with only six months left to live. It was only September. My parents kept it from me but knew I would eventually find out. He was already in a wheelchair and was on oxygen, so I knew something was wrong. I didn't know how to react so after we went home, I went to work to occupy my mind. Crying was not an option. I wasn't raised that way. I did, however, inform my manager of the situation in case I had to ever call in in the future.

At school, the next day, my principal called me to the office and asked if I needed anything. My mom had told him and my teachers. Everyone felt sorry for me and were sympathetic. I already made decent grades, so this gave me an excuse if I needed one.

I used John to lean on. He was supportive and understanding. When I finally told Aiden, I relieved some emotional stress and cried. Aiden got me my first Nokia flip-phone, cellphone. I rarely used it because the bill was so high. It did make it easier for my dad to keep in touch during school hours. Of course, I was the only one in school who had one at the time. Each time it would ring, all my classmates would stare at me.

A month after I started dating Aiden, we began looking at engagement rings and he proposed. This was not what my parents wanted for me. They didn't think we would go this far this quick. I was emotionally broken and didn't know how to deal with my home life. That's when I asked my parents if we could move in together. Deep down I knew I was running away from my problems. They disapproved and said we had to get married.

Two days before our three-month anniversary, we had our wedding rehearsal. My parents couldn't make it because my dad didn't feel good. When I came home that night, I was wearing a flannel shirt, with a cigarette pack coming out of the pocket that I had forgotten about. I had smoked for about a year but was too afraid to tell my parents. I figured if I left a carton of cigarettes on my couch in the living room, that I wouldn't have to tell them.

My dad looked at me and asked, "do you smoke?"

I looked down at my shirt pocket then I looked him in the eye. "Yes, sir I do." I knew I was in trouble but nothing else was ever said.

The next day, before I said, 'I do', my dad wheeled down the aisle next to me. I wore an egg-white dress because I wasn't a virgin. The preacher, Darryl, asked, "who shall give this woman away?" My dad said, "I do" as he began to cry. He tried to wheel back to the pew that my mom was sitting in. I told him, "This is my wedding and it's going to go my way. You stay right beside of me", I demanded. He almost had everyone in that little church at Badin Lake crying.

To join both families together, I gave Aiden's mom and stepmom a red rose each while he gave my mom one. After the ceremony, we all went back to Aiden's mom's house on the lake to eat.

Aiden and I left for Cape Hatteras Island the next day along with his best friend and his wife. Although it was early December, we had fun at a beautiful beach. Our honeymoon was short because I had to get back for school. I had already skipped school on Friday to get married.

They say, the first year is the toughest, well, that is an understatement. On New Years's Eve, we invited about ten people, but a quarter of Carolina University showed up, each person brought alcohol. You couldn't walk in our yard let alone down our whole street that was a dead-end because of so many vehicles packed in together. I had about 3 cups of PJ (Everclear and fruit) and I don't know how many margaritas. The next day, everyone cleaned up their own mess before getting their keys back to leave. I on the other hand, laid on the couch for two days with dry heaves.

A couple months after moving in with Aiden, we both moved in with my parents to help my mom take care of dad. Running away from my problems didn't work.

It wasn't long before Mom got sick too. Over the period of one weekend, she looked nine months pregnant. That's when we found out that she had Ovarian Cancer. A few days later, while I was at school, my dad called my cell phone to say his good-byes. I grabbed my things and rushed the thirty-minute drive home in ten minutes only to find my dad in the bedroom with a shotgun under his chin. I lost it. I begged him to put it away which he did because I was there. I don't think he expected me there so quick. I was scared to lose my dad and then this.

The following week which was two weeks after finding out about my mom, we rushed my dad to the hospital. I sat with him all day and night. The next morning his sister ran me off to go home and rest. She would let me know if anything changed. I barely made it home when my brother called to speak to Aiden. I knew something was wrong because he didn't like Aiden either. We rushed back to the hospital. Everyone stood outside his room crying as I went in. Three nurses came in to take him downstairs. I fought with them because I had just got there. The only thing he could donate was his eyes and someone downstairs was waiting on them. The police were called on me and I was escorted out.

I went to work after I left the hospital. I explained the story and clocked-in to work. My manager threatened to fire me for coming in, but she understood.

The day of the funeral, I don't remember much. What I do remember is walking in behind my brother at the funeral home and collapsing three pews from the back. Aiden carried me to the front. My heart broke in two that day. That's when I began a downward spiral.

Drinking became my downfall. I started drinking alcohol everyday after school and during work. A whole fifth of Vodka or Everclear each day with one Icehouse bottle. This became my routine for months hence why I don't remember much during that time of my life. What little I do remember is partying, throwing darts at night, and sleeping through class my senior year. Somehow, I still managed to make A's and B's in my classes.

Aiden and I bought a small house for Sixteen thousand dollars. We paid it off within a year. Mom didn't want us taking care of her. When we would visit, I would have to hide money in the bottom of her candy dish. She turned my old bedrom into a pantry. She would go shopping at Winn-Dixie when they would have buy one get two free deals and send us home with a truck load of groceries, literally.

Aiden and a friend from school finally done an intervention. They basically told me I was out of control and needed to quit drinking. That was the last time I drank for the next eight months. When I quit drinking, it wasn't long before mom got really sick.

She had been in and out of the hospital for a few months. She went to Roanoke, Virginia to see her sister Lisa. It wasn't long after she arrived that she was back in the hospital again. This time I got a call from my cousin telling me that I needed to tell her good-bye. I spoke to mom on the phone as I was packing my bags to go see her. I made the drive quicker than I should have. Once I arrived, I pretty much stayed at the hospital for the whole week. I got there Sunday night; I tried calling my brother Roger but he kept telling me she had been worse than this that things would be alright.

Wednesday night, my mom called me over to her bed at 9:45P.M. She told me that she loved me and wouldn't go unless I let her go. I told her how I felt also and said that it was alright for her to go, that I would be okay. Fifteen minutes later, the nurse came in and checked her vitals. She had slipped into a coma. I stayed at my aunt's house that night. The next day we all went to the funeral home to make arrangements. We got the call that she had passed away. Twenty minutes later, my brother Roger called and said he had just made it to the hospital, that there was a bad snowstorm in North Carolina and couldn't make it up sooner.

The day we buried my mother, I got into a disagreement with her family. So After we buried her, I rushed back to the house and sat in the car. Once people started showing up, Aiden and I left and went back to the cemetery. I played Sarah McLachlan's song, 'In the Arms of an Angel' loudly so my mom could hear it in heaven while I bawled my eyes out on her grave.

That whole week after making it home to Seagrove, I stayed up all week thanks to cocaine. I finally fell asleep when I was driving home with cruise control set and woke up facing the median on the interstate. I turned the car correctly and made it to the side of the interstate between two polls that I shouldn't have made it through without cutting the car in half. A state trooper stopped and asked me what happened. I told him most of it and he waited with me until, AAA came to pull the car out.

If it wasn't for my husband Aiden at the time, I would have had it much harder I think. He was all I had after the funeral. My brother went his way, and I went mine. We didn't speak again for twenty-five years. I truly went off the deep end. For the next year I was strung out on cocaine until, Aiden got me away from North Carolina and we moved to Georgia.