The Beginning Part One

I am not sure where to start with this. I guess I will just go with the flow. This story is from my own life and experiences.

Where I came from wasn't the best of places. I remember when I was a little girl, my brother Matt and I would be caring for our younger three sisters. For their protection I will call them Sadie, Rene and Mandy. Back then I did not have tattoos or any experience with the world except for that inside the small apartments that my family bounced around a lot. During this time, I was not even three years old yet. I am not sure how old I was with my earliest memory in life, but I do remember Matt being 2 years older than me at the time, would leave the apartment before the first light of dawn showed through the broken windows. When he got up, so did I. We did not have a father in the home, and our mother, well, she was not being a mother.

While Matt was gone, someone had to take care of the babies. I remember changing their diapers. No one taught me, and I could not tell you the number of diapers that I put on my little sisters backwards. I was young, and short, and I did not know how to cook, I could not reach the stove and can still hear the girls crying because they were hungry. What was a sister only a little older supposed to feed the little ones?

Sometimes I had to improvise, I would find Top Raman and crush it up, or dry beans. Once in a while, there would be a box of oats, cereal and even on rarer occasions, milk. Milk in those days was a luxury for us when it was there. Sometimes, men who I never knew would come inside the apartment and hide in the room that was our mothers. They would stay for a while then leave. To me, this was normal. I do remember one man in particular, he would bring chicken wings with barbeque sauce on them and give them to my sisters and me. I would always save a portion for Matt because we awaited his return. I did not know then what he did while he was gone, but when he returned, he sometimes had bread, juice, extra diapers, wipes and my favorite, macaroni and cheese. Awe, those days were special. Matt learned early on how to cook, so when he was home, my sisters and I were able to enjoy a nice warm meal, especially on the cold days. The majority of the time, he would bake some beans, and we would eat beans and cornbread three times a day. Whenever he made this, he made extra so that all I had to do was get it from the lower shelves of the fridge. To this day, I cannot eat beans of any kind with cornbread in the same meal. Back then, no matter how tired we got of the same meal, we ate it because it was what we had. Those few days that were far spaced when we had cereal, mac and cheese or something else, we learned to appreciate those small things. We learned early not to complain about what we did not have. I remember on a couple occasions, Matt came home with chocolate cake! Oh, the deliciousness of that.

My siblings and I only had three toys to share. One was a smurfette doll, the other two were toy cars that had a broken wheel, a red one and a yellow one. Matt never played with the toys, he made sure my sisters and I got to play with them instead. Matt and I both had to be an adult at such an early age, and those rare days when Matt was home, he sacrificed being a kid just so I could be one.

Life then was unhappy, but we stuck our heads up high, and hid the resentment of our mother from our younger sisters. After a while, Sadie, the middle child, began to understand the challenges Matt and I faced. She began to help me with Rene and Mandy. She, like me, put diapers on backwards, but I was there to help her learn the right way. The first time Sadie got it right on her own, she was so proud and her whole face was lit up that her freckles disappeared and her face was as red as her hair. She was still learning to use the toilet when she started helping me with our younger two sisters. The more she helped, the more I worked to teach her how to use the toilet.

One day, Sadie did not need to use diapers on herself and she took the task to start teaching Rene to potty-train. Her point of view at that time was the more of us that did not need diapers, the less our brother had to worry about when he was gone. So Sadie and I took shifts teaching Rene. Our mother was oblivious to all this. She did not realize Sadie was potty-trained, or that I was learning to use the gas stove to cook. She did not even know Matt was gone during the day most of the time. At least, not until the day Matt came home with nicely dressed people.

This was new, and when Matt came in, I was cooking the last two cans of chicken soup we had to share amongst my little sisters. We had only two pieces of bread to go with, and Sadie and I gave them to Rene and Mandy until the soup was warm enough. Sadie was in the living room changing Mandy's diaper and Rene was watching a cartoon. Our mother was closed in her room with a man as she usually was. One of the ladies, she wore a skirt, and a white shirt tucked in. She had a badge Clipped on her color and she had notebooks in her hand. The other two people with her were police officers, and they had Matt next to them. The first thing the lady did when she came in was scoop me up, and turn off the stove saying that was dangerous for me to handle. I remember her putting me down and she looked at Sadie, still in the middle of changing Mandy. She told her to move over and then she finished the diaper change.

She then looked at Matt and asked where was our mother. He stayed silent and looked away. I never saw my brother scared up until that day. I picked up on it and when she asked me where our mother was, I too, looked away. She then asked Sadie, but she ran with tears in her eyes to my brothers arms. Rene and Mandy did not know how to speak yet, so the lady did not ask. She sent the officers to search the apartment and see if there was a mother around. They looked in the first room, it was the room the five of us used to share. They motioned for the woman to come take a look. She did, and started to write notes.

I had no clue at the time what she was writing, but something in my stomach told me it was not good. They looked in the bathroom, and she took pictures. They approached the last room, our mothers room, the door was closed as it always was, and the officers knocked. Our mother could be heard saying something. She had assumed it was one of us. They knocked harder and called her by her name. There was a loud crash from her room, running and after a few minutes, she opened the door. The nicely dressed lady was talking to her, and I had no clue what they were talking about. I do know it involved that Matt had been found without a parent asking people for money and that there were reports made.

The lady then pointed at me then the stove, I assumed she was telling our mother that I was cooking. She pointed to Sadie and then Mandy which means she was telling our mother that Sadie was changing a diaper. She pointed to the bathroom. For a long time they talked, and our mother started to cry. What was going through my mind was the lady was being mean to our mother. We may not see her much, she does not have much to do with any of us, but we got along just fine. I assumed they did not like the mess in the bathroom. Sadie and I changed so many diapers, we ran out of room to put them in the bedroom so we started to put them in the bathtub and sink. So what? We never used the bedroom anyway. Then she led our mother to the bedroom. Broken window, diapers stacked high around the floor, there was no where to walk, and no furniture could be seen.

My siblings and I did not use the room, we just slept in the living room, it was the only place with a television and close to the kitchen. Our mother cried and cried, she screamed and was hysterical. Her man friend that was there that day came out of her room. The lady asked him questions, and he shook his head no and then left. After some time, our mother became calm. She walked the officers to the door and the lady, who gave her a card. I remember the last words she said to our mother, "I will be back tomorrow, bright and early, and I better see a change in this place or they are gone. I should not even leave them right now, but I will give you a chance to clean up."

After that, my mother got on the phone, she made a lot of calls. Soon, people started to come. I recognized a couple of the men that came. One man came with lots, and lots of food and snacks. Another came with diapers and wipes. The next man I did not recognize came with boxes of trash bags and cleaning supplies. Next I knew, Matt, Sadie and I were given jobs to do to help clean up. Our mother put Rene and Mandy in a playpen, and she started cleaning. By the time the moon was high in the sky, the entire apartment was clean, and smelt good. One of the men was cooking in the kitchen. While he cooked, our mother had me and my sisters take a bath, then my brother.

I started to think, maybe the lady and police officers made our mother want to be around us more. Maybe she would start taking care of us, and then Matt would not have to leave every morning to find money for things we needed. Of course, Matt was smart. He would tell me, "moms just making a show so they wont come back after tomorrow morning. After she knows they won't be back, everything will be back to how it was before." Maybe he was right, but me being young, hoped for better.

The next day came, and our mother called Matt and I to her room. Our sisters were still asleep and she wanted them to stay asleep. She said she was sorry for the day before, and that she was scared. She asked Matt and I if we would do a favor for her so that we did not get taken away and so she would not got to jail. While our mother was not a good one, and we had to fend for ourselves, she was our mother. At that time, we loved her, so we both said yes. She told us questions CPS, that is when we found out what that lady was from and for, and told us what to say. Even though we knew it was not true, we agreed. She then asked us to hide some things on us for her. She said if CPS found it, that they would take us away forever, and what she was doing was not wrong. CPS just did not like it, and used it as a way to remove children from their homes and families. She told us they would separate all of us and we would not see each other.

Of course this scared us so we agreed to be her "pincushions." My inner thighs hurt so bad from being a pin cushion, and I am sure Matts did too. We dealt with it, and hid the pain with smiles and laughter just so we could stay together with our sisters. She then asked us to change into some warmer clothes because it was a cold day, and asked if we would wake up the rest and get them dressed properly. While we did that, our mother got dressed in some day clothes and brushed her hair. She then brushed mine, and all my sisters.

Shortly after everyone was dressed and groomed, our mother made and served breakfast. For the first time in our lives, we had bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese melted on top, sliced peaches and golden toast with butter, for a drink, we got a glass of cold milk! Oh it was heaven to us and we enjoyed every bite of it. I had never tasted such a wonderful breakfast. Even our mother sat at the little table with us and ate. We were still eating when there was a knock on the door. She rose up, and answered the door.

There stood the lady from CPS that had arrived the day before, and with her, she had two police officers. But they were not the same ones. Our mother greeted them and showed them in.

What happens next will be in the next story....to be continued