Things you never knew

From the start, my life was complicated. My biological father took me away from my birth mother at 8 1/2 weeks old. I was raised by him and my step mother. I never knew about my real mother until I was close to 9 years old. One day I came across a picture in my fathers desk, and I saw a very beautiful woman with a baby. I just knew that the baby was me. So, that meant that she had to be my mother, not the woman I was currently calling mom. My step mother for one....had red hair, I do not. I tried to confront my father about this, he verified she was my mother; took the picture from me and told me to never ask about it again. That was the end of that, never again did I EVER hear anything about my birth mother while I was with him. Before this, instances had happened that changed my life forever. My father molested me at 7 years old. He also consistently did drugs and beat my stepmother. On one such day, the cops came and I was put into my first foster home. She was an older lady, very nice. The courts decided from there to try home visitation, and let me go back to my stepmother and father. At age ten, he decided that he couldn't do it, and signed off his rights on me. I knew even then, a child at that age rarely gets adopted out. Anotherwords, my future was now pretty bleak. I went through 8 foster homes in all, some more than once. My first and second foster homes I was put into on more than one occasion. The first was nice, the second was not. The second home was a HUGE farm with other 3 other foster kids, 2 parents and her own children lived there also. I got treated fine to start, but the foster mothers daughter walked in on me using the bathroom one day, and ran to tell her mother that I was "being inappropriate" in the bathroom. From that point on in the system, I was treated badly and differently. They thought that just because I was molested, that I would mirror things. Totally not the case. I went to school like most kids, tried to find some normalcy there. I joined choir, but never got to go to the concerts. I tried to fit in at the house and often put on little talent shows to get some kind of attention. I was looked at with care only in those times. Me and one other girl were constantly kept busy with chores, made to swim in irrigation ditches where the cows were instead of the big pool they had in the back yard. We were often fed expired food. I was very thankful to leave that place. The next place I went to had one girl leaving, and two little kids coming in shortly after me. We were outside playing on a hot day one day, and a lady came by offering us ice cream. I took it and shared with the little ones. I never heard the end of that one. Because of it, we all had to take epicac and it made us all extremely sick. I was then locked in my bedroom and only let out for baths and to go to the bathroom. My meals were served to me in there and if I didn't eat, I was verbally abused and physically abused. After this place, they put me back at my second home for a while. They went on a vacation to California and I got to stay with a friend of theirs. I wish I could've stayed there forever. They were nice and taught me about Jesus. The lady was very kind and didn't treat me like an outcast. Her and her husband were younger couple without any children. But it was short lived. I went back to my own personal hell for a while longer. After that, they put me in a place with a nurse and a cop. They had a blind daughter, and were extremely nice. Did I get in trouble there? Yes. Was everything always perfect there? No. But they were the first family that ever took me in and showed me love and tried to teach me what it was like to be a part of a real family. I would help them with their blind daughter all the time, we became fast friends. During my time in this house is when they found my mother. I was scared and excited and sad all at the same time. Would she like me? Did she want me? What about the family I was currently with? They said they wanted me and what was going to happen then? Would I ever see them again?

Well, as it turns out, my mother did want me. She had been looking for me for years and years. She underwent everything she had to do, to get me back. She was living in Texas, and soon I went there to be with her and her new husband. I was very shy, and very untrusting of others at this point. I didn't mean to be, but I pushed everyone away and did everything I could to cause problems and misbehave(shy of drugs, drinking and getting pregnant). I purposefully flunked classes, caused issues with my mothers husbands, didn't help do chores, talked back and more. I don't exactly know what was going through my head at that time, but I think a part of me was retaliating for everything bad that had happened to me this far in my life. My mother and her husband eventually divorced, and I met the man I call my "daddy" in the process of all of that. We moved in with him rather quickly, I didn't understand all of the underlying circumstances, and made this poor man cry everyday for three months. Eventually, I stopped and started to realize that he wasn't going anywhere. Eventually he and my mother got married, sadly it only lasted a few months. I still stayed in touch with my daddy even after that. He was the only man who had stuck around even after all I had done to push him away. My mother had boyfriends after that, and moved to Oklahoma. I was about 17 at this time and before she moved, she sent me to Job Corps. I spent 2 1/2 years there studying business clerical. Honestly, I spent 2 1/2 years there flirting and close to the end decided to finally graduate. I made a really good friend there named Jessica. I met her through her sister Deb. Deb and I had initially started out as friends, but when I met her sister....we just clicked. It was like we were long lost sisters or something. She was still in Job corps after I left, so I decided to stay with her parents for a while. Even so, Jessica, myself and one other friend spent a ton of time together. We were the inseparable three. We had been through heartbreak together, graduation, moving, family drama and more. One day in July changed my life forever. We all three went out to a waterfall in Manhattan, Ks. I had a boyfriend at the time, but there were some cute soldiers out there with their friends, so I decided to hook my girls up. We wound up deciding to do a cookout and set off fireworks that night. The guys went to follow us, but forgot their friends back at the waterfall. As we were going back to get their friends, I fishtailed my car and rolled it 4 times. Somehow Jessica was ejected out of the car and killed. Our other friend had a broken back, and all I got away with was some back problems and bruises. The funeral wasn't a walk in the park either. The night before, my boyfriend broke up with me because the fully blamed me for everything. It was an accident! I didn't do anything intentionally. Then when we got back home, found out that him, our other friend, and 2 others all had a orgy. I couldn't cope with all of this at the time and the only person that kept me level and from losing my mind was my mother. If she wouldn't have been there, I don't know if I would have survived all of it. There's been lots of times like that, that I don't think she knows about. My first Marriage/divorce was one. A lot of bad things happened during the course of that marriage, and unfortunately I let it push me away from my mother. My second marriage wasn't much different. After I caught him cheating, I finally decided to move back to Kansas to be near my mother and my daddy who now lived here. Eventually, my daddy got me a place of my own. I lived there for a while, but then I went to Salina and ran into the man I'm happily married to today. I wound up giving up the only home I had ever owned. I moved to Salina with him, we had a baby boy and life transpired after that. My mother was married to a really bad man during this time, and a couple of years ago he decided to break into her house after they split up...and hold a gun to her head. Things escalated quickly and in the end, he shot half of his face off, and still lived through it. They divorced very shortly after all of this, and my mother was obviously never the same. He took something from her that day that he had no right taking, and because of that she will never fully be herself again. Even through all of that though, she still pulled through and found love again. She fell for a close friend of the families and has been with him every since. He is a very genuine, good man. The confession that I have is this: my mother doesn't think she is any good as a mother, that she has failed me. Truth is, life failed me, not her. She showed me the type of woman I want to be. She never gives up, never quits, fights with everything she has for those she loves. She is a CNA with a 6th grade education. She has taught me to stand up for what I believe in, always put God and your family first. That if I put my mind to it, I can accomplish anything that I want. Because of her, I know that I deserve love, that bad things may happen, but don't give up. I only hope I can be half of the woman she is someday. She is my hero. Love you momma, to the moon and back.