Mother/Daughter Relationships...

This is something I've tried to post about several times, but just couldn't bring myself to let the world know.  For every little girl, having a relationship with her mother can mean the world to her.  Mothers are there for support, a shoulder to cry on when the world is mean, a best friend, someone to confide in, someone to shop with, someone to do all the girly things with, and so on.  And for some really lucky little girls, that type of relationship can last a lifetime.

The relationship with my mother...well, it was nothing like that.  Those are actually things I've always dreamed of having with my mother.   With my mother, it was always a LOVE/HATE relationship.  I tried to love her and I really wanted to love her, but I deeply hated her.  Before I get to into this, let me give you a little prelude into what kind of person my mother was.  From everything that I've been told by my family growing up, she was a 'wanderer'.  From the time she could walk, she was always pretty much in trouble.  And it only got worse when my aunt was born (she was the baby until then for about 7 or 8 years).  When she was 16 or 17, my grandparents got a call from the state police in Washington state letting them know that they had my mother (don't know the details surrounding that) and asked them to send bus fair to get her back home.  When she got back home, my grandparents let into her.  It wasn't long after that, she was off doing her own thing again.  She was always into some kind of trouble.  

From the time that I was born, I was just another mouth to feed.  I was the 3rd child of 5 to Cheryl Ann (my mother). 

1. The first born she had when she was about 14 or 15.  I don't know him, because she gave him up for adoption a couple months after he was born.  I don't know anything about him.  I just know he exists.
2. The second born was my brother "M" and he is 14 months older than me. Cheryl Ann was 20 when she had "M".
3. The third born was me.  My brother "M" and I have the same father (I'll discuss him in a minute).
4. The fourth born was my sister "L".  She is 4 years younger than me.
5. The fifth born was my sister "H".  She is 8 years younger than me.  "L" and "H" have the same father (my stepfather).

I don't really know what my earliest memory was.  I know that when I was just a couple months old, Cheryl Ann brought me and my brother to my grandparents house.  When my grandfather looked at me and discovered that as a 2 month old, I had a black eye, he was furious with Cheryl Ann!!  She never said exactly how I got it, but my grandfather knew.  My biological father, "W", was an evil man (he and Cheryl Ann were never married).  He had a mean streak in him at least 100 miles long.  But Cheryl Ann was drawn to that 'bad boy' type.  She would go back to him several times throughout my young life.

I don't remember, but I do know that when I was about 2 years old, Cheryl Ann married my stepfather "J". For being a stepfather, my memories of him were 'okay' while I was growing up (he and Cheryl Ann were married for 17 years).   He pretty much was the liaison between me and Cheryl Ann my entire years growing up.  Although, through most of the fights between me and Cheryl Ann, he always took her side.  And I know now that was to keep the peace between the 2 of them whether he agreed with her or not.  And every time he took her side, the more angry and upset I got.  I began to really resent him for that.  And I absolutely hated my mother!!!  I hated her with everything ounce of being I had in me.  I hated her to my core!!!  I can't count the number of times I got beat with a belt, switch (that I would have to pick myself) or whatever was within arm's reach.  And I'm not talking about some little swat to the rear.  I'm talking about a beating.  Whelps, bruises, cuts!!  Those kind of beatings.  And it didn't matter if my hands were in the way or not.  When she had it in her mind to tear my backside up, she was going to do it no matter!! 

Until I was in junior/high school, we moved several times.  We lived in MS, TN, TX (those are the states I remember).  When me and my brother "M" were about 5 and 6 years old (my sister "L" was about a year old), we were living in TX in some piece of crap trailer.  My mother decided she would much rather be a topless dancer than a mother.  My stepfather was the one taking care of us.  I can remember my stepfather packing everything we owned and could take with us into the back of his Tiffany blue, rusted out, barely working 'work van' to move us back to Memphis.  On the way out of town in TX, we made a stop by the club where Cheryl Ann was a topless dancer.  "J" went in to get her to tell her that she could come with us or stay.  She came out with pants on and holding a rag over her chest.  We were sitting in the van and we could see "J" and Cheryl Ann arguing with each other and were about 15 feet from the van.  We heard "J" tell her to at least say goodbye to us kids.  She stood right where she was and just waived to us, turned around and walked back into the club.  All 3 of us kids were screaming and crying for her.  From there "J" got in the van and tried to calm us kids down.  We made the long drive from TX to Memphis.  My sister "L" slept on the makeshift bed "J" had set up on top of the dresser that was pushed up right behind the only 2 seats in the van.  "M" slept in the passenger seat and I slept in the floorboard on the passenger side.  I cried most of the way back to Memphis.  I couldn't believe Cheryl Ann didn't care about her kids.  I couldn't believe she chose the club over her family. 

Over the years, and as memories come back to me, I have discovered that Cheryl Ann put me and "M" in foster care at the very least 4 to 5 times.  And to be honest, we never knew if she would ever come back for us.  We always felt as though she just threw us in foster care the same way she threw trash out.  When we were really a bother and she had no place else to drop us off at, we would end up in the juvenile hall/foster care system.  Ultimately, when I was 10 and "M" was 11, she threw "M" into foster care for good.  She said it was because she and "J" just couldn't handle him any longer and that he was better off in foster care.  But I don't think that was the real reason.  I do know that when she did that, it was like she took my heart and completely shredded it.  "M" and I were always so close!!!  We went through so much together.  We were each others' strength.  We always leaned on each other!  After that, I pretty much lost touch with "M" for about 17 some odd years (I'll discuss more on that in a later post). 

From that moment on, the hate I had for Cheryl Ann was like non-other!!  I just couldn't believe she took my brother away from me.  In retrospect, I think she was jealous of our relationship.  I can't say for sure, but that is what I believe.  I never had a close relationship with either of my sisters.  I just didn't feel that connection with them no matter how hard I tried.  Besides the fact that I got in trouble for every little thing that they did.  I was the one that got blamed.  I was always grounded, I was always in trouble, I was always the bad child. 

And only a year after "M" was thrown into foster care, Cheryl Ann would have me make a decision that no child my age should have to make.  Cheryl Ann was out doing "her thing" as usual leaving "J" to take care of us kids.  Come to find out, Cheryl Ann was having an affair on "J" with my biological father, of all people.  And as I grew older, I became aware of just how often she would meet up with him when he was in town (as he was a truck driver).  Anyway, after throwing "J" out of the trailer we lived in (out in the middle of absolutely nowhere), she brought "W" in and expected us kids to take to him like it was nothing.  He was an evil man and he reeked of evil.  After a few weeks of us kids always crying and living in pure misery, Cheryl Ann told me to make the decision of whether I wanted "W" to stay and be a dad to us kids, or "J" to come back.  The choice was obvious.  I chose "J".  By that afternoon, "W" was gone and "J" was back at home.  Although, my mother was never really around and we all knew what she was doing...err, rather, who she was doing. 

Eventually, Cheryl Ann become a truck driver as well, and I think that was mostly so that she could keep in touch with "W".  A few months after Cheryl Ann took to driving a truck, "J" decided to join her as a "team".  For any normal person, the first question that should be raised is: where are the kids?  Well, funny you should ask.  They left us to live with a complete and total stranger. This person, her husband and child agreed to take us into their home and care for us....at a price, of course.  I have no clue how they found this person or if they even knew her before hand.  All I know is one day we are at home and the next day, we are thrown into this stranger's home.  We were there for about a year until after many, many crying phone calls from the kids and bitching phone calls from the lady we were staying with, did they decide to come get us and move into a house in North MS.  I knew it made them unhappy that they had to come get us!!  I could feel it in my heart!!  But that didn't stop Cheryl Ann from being a truck driver.  She kept doing the OTR driving and "J" did local trucker jobs.  Over the next few years, Cheryl Ann would quit her job and stay home for months at a time and then go back on the road quite a few times.  And the whole time she was home, she made sure my life was absolute HELL!!!  And I mean that!!! 

I do remember telling my mother when I was about 16 years old, after she had been home for months and causing nine kinds of hell, 'to take her fat, lazy ass back out on the road because not a damn person wanted her in the house anymore'.  That ticked off "J", but by that evening, she was gone again.  And life at home was somewhat peaceful!  About 3 years later, I moved out of my parent's house and I had never been so happy.  About that same time, she and "J" had filed for divorce.  "J" remarried literally within just a couple months of being divorced to a woman that was the devil reincarnated.  Cheryl Ann would "hook up" with a guy named "E" that she met while driving a truck.  About 6 years later, when I was 26, my youngest sister, "H", had called me out of the blue advising that Cheryl Ann wanted me to let "H" live with me.  I told her that I would not do that because "H" was an irresponsible person and I knew she wouldn't listen to a thing I advise (b/c I tried this once already).  Well, it wasn't long after that phone call that I heard my phone ring again and I had this gut feeling as to who it was.  I hadn't spoke to Cheryl Ann in several months and she decides to call me up then.  When I picked up the phone, her first words were: Do you know who this is?  I played dumb and said no.  She then said: it's the person that gave birth to you.  I told her: That's the only thing you ever did for me.  Then she let into me, cussing me and telling me that I needed to take "H" in and that I had no right to tell her that I couldn't when she knew that I could.  I stopped her right there and said: I am 26 years old (it was 2002).  I do not live under your roof, I am an adult and I make my own decisions about me and my life.  I no longer have to do what you want me to do.  You need to bring your fat ass back to Memphis and be the mother you should be.  You need to be the mother you never were!!  And if you don't like what I have to say, you can kiss my white ass!!.  Needless to say, she hung up on me.  We never spoke again. 

Cheryl Ann died January 2, 2008.  My daughter was 18 months old at the time and she never laid eyes on her.  In fact, when Cheryl Ann died, for several days I literally thought it was a joke.  "L" called me all upset saying that she got a call from "E" saying that she had died that morning in Miami.  These are the exact words I told "L":  that bitch will never die b/c she will be around to haunt the hell out of me until the day I die!!  A couple days later, "L" called me again to explain what had happened (as it was told to her by "E").  To make a long story short, Cheryl Ann died of a blood clot.  It broke loose from her leg and went straight to her heart.  And the last words out of her mouth was "I love you" to "E".  When I heard that, I knew she really didn't give a rat's you know what about her kids.  She could have said "tell my kids I'm so sorry for everything and that I really do love them", but no.  We didn't matter.  I would say that I was shocked by that, but to be honest, I wasn't.  Actually, I would be lying if I said that I hadn't expected her to say that.  She didn't care for her kids and this just proved it.  About a week later at her funeral (and I only went b/c it meant a lot to my grandmother), as I sit in one of the back pews at the funeral home and halfway listen to the speech given by "L's" godfather, I begin to rack my brain for any good memories of her.  And for all of the thoughts I had that night, none of them were of good times.  Not a single one.  And I realized that was really, really sad. 

I know this is a dreadful post to many, but for those that knew me growing up, now have a better understanding of what I went through as a child.  This isn't everything that happened, but to write that, it would probably be a book...and one that no publishing company would ever want to pick up. 

So, I say, if you are one of the lucky ones to have a fantastic mother, be thankful...be so very thankful!!  I am a mother now and I cannot imagine ever being like that to my daughter.  It literally breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes to even think of ever seeing a look from my daughter like the ones I gave my mother.  Because for years, I did the 'what if'.  What if she spent a little more time with me?  What if she actually wanted to be a mother?  What if she really cared for me?  What if I had just been a better daughter?  What if I tried to love her more?  Would things have turned out differently??  I now know that nothing...and no one was going to change her.  And even though I get frustrated with my daughter at times, she is my world and I still love her to my core.  I WOULD DIE FOR HER!!!  I don't ever want my daughter to resent me, to hate me, to not want to be a part of my life.  I tell her everyday that I love her and I mean it with everything that I am!! 

God bless!!!