As a very young child, I went to live with my grandmother. I always longed to be with my mother and father all my friends had mother and fathers. Why didn’t I? Every time I would make a new friend that was the first question they asked.
My grandmother was a wonderful woman. My brother, Joe and I both lived with her. We never lacked for love, unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind I thought I needed.
I can remember a couple of times when my mother would come and get me and we would go to Texarkana. My half-sister Carolyn, lived there with a woman we knew as Aunt Grace. It was years before we found out she was no kin at all.
Mom was a waitress. I can remember being so embarrassed to tell anyone. Back then, they weren’t too highly thought of. She would leave me with Aunt Grace and go to work, always at night. When she came home, it was always late and usually she drunk. Sometimes she would bring someone with her.
I’m not sure how old I was, but I must have been very young. I remember I wanted a drink of water. I went into the kitchen, I could hardly see over the counter, and saw a small glass on the counter. I picked up the glass, thinking it was water and drank it down. My throat was on fire. I had drank a shot of vodka not water. I can remember Mom laughing she thought it was so funny.
She would take us for a couple of weeks, her big attempt at raising us. We always ended up back with Grandma. I was always relieved to be home with Grandma, there I felt safe and secure.
It was the summer of 1957. I had just finished the first grade. By this time Mom had been married three times. She had decided to try and make the marriage work with her first husband, Loy a second time. They were moving to California, and wanted Joe and me to go. We were to pick up my sister Carolyn and drive out.
My father came down from Arkadelphia to see us off. I remember taking pictures of us all together. I look at the pictures now and see how sad he was.
Well this little trip only lasted a couple of months. Mom tried hard to try and make us happy. She would try and take us different places, it didn’t cover up all the fighting. They would sit around and drink beer for hours. My mother had the worse temper I have ever seen. When she got mad, she got real mad.
One night, I was sitting in the floor playing with my toys, when they started fighting. Mom picked up one of the kitchen chairs and through it at Loy. Then she went into the bedroom and got the shotgun. I guess she would have killed him, but she couldn’t find the shells.
One day the three of us were out in the yard. Being kids, we started arguing over something. I remember Mom coming to the door and shouting at us, “If you three don’t stop fighting, I’ll send you to places where you won’t see each other again." I remember thinking how little she must love us to do such a thing. A couple of weeks later, she called my grandma again and asked if we could come home. She put a six and seven year old on an airplane, by their selves and let them fly to Dallas. Grandma and Daddy meet us at the airport and drove us back to Arkadelphia.
A few years later, she married a man named Tommy. She called and wanted me to come down and visit, and I went. They drank every night and would start fighting and cussing. My visit got cut short, she blamed it all on Tommy of course, and I was sent back home.
It was 1961, my uncle bought my grandmother a house and we moved from Gurdon to Arkadelphia. I thought how wonderful it was going to be to live in a big town. Right, besides how in the world was I ever going to learn to spell Arkadelphia.
One night Grandma was talking on the phone, I could tell the news wasn’t good. She told Joe and me that mom had been in an accident and they didn’t know if she was going to live.
We found out later, that she had had a fight with Tommy and went out to get drunk. She left the bar with some man, no one knows who he was. They hit the butt end of a bridge. The man died.
The doctors said that if she lived, they expected her to be paralyzed, and have major brain damage. They didn’t realize whom they were talking about and just how stubborn a woman she was. She lost a small piece of her brain, which did caused loss of memory, and smell which was a blessing sometimes.
Mom couldn’t remember anything. This should have been a great opportunity to start over, but I think some people like to wailer in misery. I asked Tommy once, why he started her drinking again after the accident. His excuse was, that all there was on television was elections, and she didn’t want to watch them. There wasn’t anything else to do, so they went to the bar.
In 1967, I got into a really big fight with my father. He told me I was going to be just like my mother. So, I said, “Fine, I’ll just go live with her." It turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.
I started Cosmetology school, attending after school and on Saturdays. I hadn’t been home long, when a man knocked on the door. When Tommy answered it, there was a stranger standing there. He introduced himself, and apologized for disturbing us. He then asked if there was a woman who lived with us that might have gone to a nearby club. I was never so embarrassed. He had found my mother lying on the side of the road, passed out. The stranger had picked her up and put her in his car, and then he went to every house along the road, trying to find out where she lived.
Sometimes mother would call me at school at night, she would be so drunk, and saying she couldn’t drive home. She always wanted me to come and join her at the bar. I hated it so much, because she always made a fool of herself, and embarrassed me.
I felt so trapped. I had left my home in Arkansas and gone to live with her. I didn’t dare call my father and tell him I had made a mistake.
That same year, Mother and Tommy had sat up and got drunk as usual and I had gone to bed. The next morning was a school day, and hated it when they would fight. Later mom finally went to bed and left Tommy up watching television.
Sometime during the night I woke to find Tommy standing over me. I jumped
and he hurried back to the living room. I thought I was dreaming and went back to sleep. It wasn’t long until I woke up again. This time Tommy had put his hand under the sheets and was touching me. When I opened my eyes he ran off. I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to tell mom.
The next day, I went to talk to Chuck, one of the cooks that worked with Tommy. I told him about what happened, and that I may have been dreaming because I really didn’t want it to be true. I told him bye and went on to school.
When I arrived home that night, Tommy and mother were both there, and boy was Tommy mad. Chuck had gone to him and told him that if he ever laid another hand on me, he would kill him. Of course by that time, they were both drunk and everyone was yelling. Mother told me to get my things, that we were leaving.
A few days later, Tommy came over to talk to mother while I was gone. When I got home, she told me she wanted me to forgive him and let him move home. I just shook my head and said “What ever." I knew she wanted him to move back. I couldn’t believe she could so easily forgive him.
As soon as he moved back, the fighting started. I would come home from school and they would be drunk. Tommy would start dwelling on my getting him in trouble and cuss me out, hitting me in the head with a belt. Mom would get mad and we would leave.
For my 18th birthday, the neighbor upstairs wanted to give me a birthday party. It was supposed to be for young people, some of my friends from school. After the party started, Tommy decided I was a really terrible person because I hadn’t invited my parents to the party. So they both came upstairs and made fools of themselves. I was so embarrassed, I didn’t even go home that night. A couple of weeks later, I called my father and asked him I could come home.
My mom is one of those types of people, that if she has a man in her life, she doesn’t care about anyone even her children. I guess she hasn’t seen her grandchildren more than two, maybe three times, and doesn’t want to.
I didn’t see my mother again until Tommy died in 1975. I really didn’t want to go then except Aunt Grace told Carolyn and me that she was our mother and she need family with her.
Not long after, she started seeing another man named Jim. Jim was already married so they never married. When he became sick and needed oxygen to live, she stopped smoking and drinking. She stayed with him until he died.
After Jim’s death, Mom moved to Malvern where she married a man named Mac. They were marred for a couple of years. Next she married another man named Charles Ward. In case you’re trying to keep count, that’s six husbands.
Now that Charles is dead, she lives alone in Hot Springs. I don’t go to see her, I do call sometimes. Even though she is seventy-four, she is still attracting men.
Joe is civil when he sees mom, but won’t call or go out of his way to see or talk to her. Carolyn started calling Aunt Grace “Mother". She will hardly even talk to mom when she is in the room. Mom told me that everyone in her life had forsaken her, and when she died, she was to be cremated and none was to know.
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