My Sixteenth Birthday

It all began on my 16th birthday, for most a time of joy and celebration. For me, less so. You see, this was the day my life changed forever. If this was for better or worse I'll let you decide. Looking back on it, I don't know myself.

Dad had left when I was three and mum began her slow decline into alcoholism. She did try to take care of me, I must give her some credit, but as her slide became a freefall, I became the parent, and she the child.

I began taking charge of her social security benefits and paying the bills when I was 14. I learned how to cook and have become damn good at it, although our weekly income ran more to frozen pizzas and Cheerios than anything too fancy.

To supplement our meagre income, I started a part-time waitressing job after school. I worked at a diner and enjoyed it for the most part. I am a little ashamed to say it, but I liked the time away from my mum and I was earning my own money. OK, most of this went back into paying bills, but what could I do?

As with many things in my life, what started as a fun escape turned into a full-time undertaking. As the bills racked up I had to work more and more to keep us afloat. Before I turned 15, I began working full-time and dodging the school truancy officers, which wasn't really hard, to be honest. In my small town, no one cared if you got educated. Most didn't care much about anything at all.

Where was my mum in all of this? Well, most of the time she just drank gin, laying on the sofa with the TV up too loud. She had retreated into herself by this point. No one could say she was a nasty drunk. She was, just drunk. All the damn time! She lay in bed, or on the sofa, sometimes on the floor, either drinking or sleeping.

She always seemed to have enough cash to buy gin though. Don't know where she got it. She would go out now and then and come back with a bottle. The money didn't come from the benefits, which I wouldn't let her touch. Where she got it or what she did to get it just gives me the collywobbles to think of it.

So, on my sixteenth birthday, I went to the diner to get myself a small treat. God knows I'd not been treated much in the last sixteen years and so I was determined to treat myself.

The diner offered a small discount to full-time employees, which eased my conscience a little. I was so excited when I left with the treat in my hand I damn near smiled all the way home, my mouth already watering.

I had just rounded the corner to my street when I saw an ambulance driving down our road and old Mr Kelly drilling at our front door locks. Some birthday this was turning out to be.

"What are you doing to our house" I yelled as I ran across the road.

Of course, this was the time the bottom of my shopping bag chose to give out. Wonderful!

I slid to a stop at our front door, my skirt covered in melting ice cream and the remains of the smooshed-up slice of chocolate cake that I'd been dreaming about all week. For a moment I just stared down at it whimpering. Then Mr Kelly spoke and snapped me out of it.

"You're officially evicted kid", he said without so much as looking at me.

"Is my mum in there?" I shouted and stamped my feet. Very childish I know, but I was only sixteen after all.

Slowly Mr Kelly turned to look at me, and this time he at least had the decency to look a little ashamed of himself,

"She went off in that ambulance lass", he said inclining his head towards the retreating vehicle.

I dropped the remains of my shopping bag and burst out crying then and there, feeling afraid and helpless and just a little sorry for myself.

Despite my initial fears though, my mum turned out to be OK. This time at least. She passed out when she opened the door to find Mr Kelly drilling the lock. The hospital put it down to shock rather than her being too sick. They kept her in for a few days though, just to be sure.

I never saw her after that! Mum was the only relative I had, dad didn’t count, of course, being as he’d runoff.

Although it was me taking care of mum for the past two years, social services decided I couldn't look after myself! This was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, and I told them so. It didn't seem to help my case one bit. Later that same day a car came to pick me up and drop me off at the local kids' home.

Well, it wasn't all bad I suppose. I got to finish school and didn't have to work 24 hours a day to support mum. I feel ashamed to say it but I was much happier in care overall. You know it wasn't all roses, but it was better than working around the clock and living in a gin palace.

A few months off my eighteenth birthday I was told my mum had died of cirrhosis of the liver. I cried and cried so hard, and I missed her so much. Still do, to be honest, she was my mother after all.

She was buried in a paupers grave seeing as I had no money and neither did she. Still, on her anniversary each year, I try to say a few prayers for her and to remember her as fondly as I can.