My Mom The Deceiver (Part 4)

From the Webster Dictionary:: Enabler: One that enables another to achieve an end. ESPECIALLY one who enables another to persist in self destructive behaviour (as in substance abuse or (my addition) abuse towards others) by providing excuses or by making it possible for that person to avoid the consequense of that behaviour".
Ug...My father LOVED using the word. Consequense and the word OBEY. He once told me I should obey, just like our DOG did. He said he kicked the dog when the dog didn't obey. Nice comparison.

My mother was ALWAYS making excuses for my father. She was his enabler.. The night I almost died she told the cops that we both had "The same temperment" (My councilor gave me a copy of the officers report) from what one of my sisters said, when my dad beat me, the cops showed up and dad would end up on the floor, trying to make it look as if I had been the one whaling on him, not the other way around. Honesty wasn't important at my house. Only deceit. You could get away with anything as long as you had a good excuse. I never was very good at deceit. I always said things like I saw them.. But then again, I was never very good at defending myself. I never had the chance to even learn HOW. I wasn't left alone long enough.

After Jr high  into the second year of high school the bullying at school became almost non existant (At least at school cause I finally stood up for myself, If you haven't heard about that  look up  "Bullies SUCK! Or the Ugly Duck That Turned Into A Swan"  in my April blogs) I also had Jennie- The story of me n Jenn is coming up soon) but the bullying continued at home. In my moms journal she talks about "The little wild thing Heidi had become" but what about her husband?? (My dad told Ava once when she asked why he beat me that "She was out of control". What...for EATING?) The only mention of his MANY beatings from  my mother was "Heidi went at it and so did her dad" in ONE place in the journal.  and she couldn't even tell the truth about the order of it!

 My sister Ava said that the only "wild little creature " she saw was the freak she saw sitting on top of me harming me. He was not human at all"

I believe that story more. I LIVED it.

What I am gathering here makes me think of Cinderella. (DAMN! Wheres my GOWN!:p) My mom was like the wicked step mother..All nice to my face when others were around, and at lots of  times to me when we were alone, but a whole different creature behind my back. My sister Lillian is a lot like her, all sweet as honey, one way one minute, another the next, two faced. I suppose thats why Lillian was her favorite. It was Betrugerin (I can't believe I havent' put up a name for her yet- it fits...look up what it means in German...thought it fit since I had to change her name.) in miniature. She is just as deceptive as my mom is. My mom always gave her the best of everything she had, she still does. Lillian got to drive the car, long after she was a teenager. I didn't. When my mom got some really pretty patterned stonewear dishes. Guess who got first pick? Lillian. And she still gets money from my mom, and groceries. I'm sure it helps a lot, but its my moms way of keeping people on her apron strings. She actually did bring me groceries when I was first married, I am guessing she was doing the same thing.

BUT...Not everyone talks to my parents in my family. Theres good reason.

When I got married my mom said "don't come live with me, and I won't take care of your kids, I'm not a babysitter" Honestly, I didn't want her advice on children and NO WAY was I ever going to live with her after I got married! SO...oh daaaaaaaaaarn..I missed that chance! hey, my kids could have ended up messed up too! Thanks for the non offer....NO thanks!

 mom took care of  Lillians kids all their childhood, all day as kids, and through high school. At one point they even lived so close the kids could just go in to the house through my parents back yard. In all honesty, I would never have wanted the same thing. I would be afraid one of my kids would be molested or who knows what by my dad. One of Lillians girls has said she thinks she was molested so thank GOD I got them out of my life.

I have given my husband and daughter permission to go there but supervised. I haven't gone for 10 years. When my daughter visited when she got  older she actually found a HOLE in their bathroom wall that if you stood at the other end you could see into the bathroom. She called me frantic about it. But she stuffed the hole with a rag when she was in the bathroom. Shes 19 now and I have told her what I know about my parents,but she says that she just wants to go to see "Oma".  (Grandma in German)I don't understand it,I have told her how I feel about how deceptive they are, and the hole proves that hes as big a pervert as I thought he was, but she is deturmined to see my mom so what can this mom do?

The hole is really creepy. Years ago I was there, USING THAT SAME BATHROOM.  Did he have his own private little peep show? It makes me shudder to think about it, But since that part of my life is over, I choose to look forward without him getting anwhere near me.

On that happy note...going back to the story ...

I hate to say my sisters were like the wicked step sisters, but they were GROOMED by my father to be the way they were towards me. Not only were they groomed by my father, they were groomed by my mother too. I had NO ally. No one to have my back. I was desperately and utterly ALONE..

There were times Lillian would pick on me and then get my parents. (Lauren and Ava wouldn't always get mom and dad, they tried to AVOID them, though not always.)and Lillian was going to school, being driven by my mom, but NOT driving me. When she was in the house right before mom drove here Lillian told me to turn down the radio, like she was the parent or something. Why would she do that right before she left? She wouldn't be hearing the radio anyway. Just to get me in trouble, thats why. Mom took away the radio and she went out the door with it, Lillian smugly in tow, on the way to the car where LIllain, was getting a ride, but I wasn't.

My parents were so cheap when it came to cars that when I slammed the car door shut because I was mad, the handle actually came off .:p

Too bad I didn't hold the handle for ransom so I could get my radio back.:p

As retribution for her taking the radio I consoled myself by going to Marissas room, got HER radio and bounced it down the stairs as I  dragged it by the cord to my room..:p

If I got to do anything (I was grounded so much! As my sister Ava said...they would ground at their whim) its becasue I disobeyed and ran off. I ran off once to get to my friend Amy's (She was in Jr high) birthday party. My dad threw his wallet  FULL of keys at me. I remember it was a LOT of keys.Why did he have like 50 keys or more in a wallet? (That is a question in itself. What were they to?) I don't get that. He threw it at my head to stop me. I STILL remember the kaCHING sound it made as it hit my head with full force. It was SO painful!  I was stunned, it hurt SO bad. I couldn't even function. I stopped and got dragged back into the house to who knows WHAT punishment.  I never made it to that party.

I do know this. My friends felt sorry for me. One time Amy and Julie (They lived a long ways away but a lot of times I walked there) were off to get pizza and I was grounded, AGAIN. I was at home, really sad, when the doorbell rang. My friends had gone off to get pizza, and had decided to come all that way to bring somepizza  back to ME. That was an act of kindness I'll never forget. I actually have a piece of the pizza box in my old journal.

 Every once in a while,just when I thought I was drowning,.God threw me a life line. I think he wanted me to know that I WASN'T ALONE. Now I understand.

The Miracle Worker

I am absolutely floored to find out what a GOOD counselor can do.

That the healing it involves can change you, mentally AND physically. I had NO idea how much.

When I moved from my old stomping grounds in the Seattle area to our new house, I knew that my house here had been one of those "God" things. Where you know, the minute you see it, that it’s destined to be your house and you look up at the sky saying, "REALLY"? This beautiful house?? THIS is for me?

God is too kind. He always has been.

Even when I didn’t see it.

I had no idea that God was leading me, mercifully, thankfully, to this amazing, gentle soul of a woman who has already, in this short time, completely changed my life.

What a glaring difference from the woman who was my "mother" (So called) who told us (Taken from my sister Ava’s book "Other People's Messes- This amazing book is on Amazon, by the way) http://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Messes-riches-ebook/product-reviews/B004P1J268/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btmie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending ) That we should "Never go into counseling. They're all crazy and they never make any money".

I had thought that there was no way I could go get counseling. Not with the new house, all the expenses and everything else that comes with being a new home owner. BUT I had counseling a while back, and I thought I had some money coming back from insurance, so I called the insurance company to try to get the money. It was around $200 or so, I had paid out of my own pocket and they STILL hadn’t paid me back.

The woman I talked to told me that unless I called the counselor and got proof that she faxed all the info was there from payment, I wouldn’t get anything. So I called my old counselors office, and they got the ball rolling.

Just as I was about to hang up, I had a thought.

I said

“Do you have the names of the EMDR counselors in the area”? (If you don't know what it is, look it up...amazing therapy)

She said she’d get back to me, and I got a message, giving me the good counselors in the area.

Sooooo…I called the insurance company, AGAIN, said everything was going to them. And then I asked about the counselors, saying I probably couldn’t go because we were still paying for the house and couldn’t afford it. She looked them up and then said “You know, one of these counselors is paid by your insurance 80 percent”. I had heard at most, 60% was paid for. This could be do-able!  After all the nightmares, all the, “I wonder why’s”, all the questions that seemingly had no answers over the years I had the chance to go to counseling. But I was apprehensive.  Scared even. And yet something told me I would be ok.

The day I walked up to her office door by her home, I was terrified. Would she believe me? Would it just be another person who had no clue and discounted everything that I felt?

As the weeks went by, Things started to come together, like the answers that I had been waiting for were falling into place. I can’t say I wasn’t still scared, I was TERRIFIED.

There was a time when I first started going to her that she asked me about my sister Lauren, who had been the second most violent to me while I was growing up, and she asked me if it had been the regular kind of tussles that siblings go through.

I froze, and suddenly, I felt like that scared little kid at home that  had tripped all over her words;  like I was outside myself banging on the door to my brain, but no one was there…:p It was paralyzing.

That day when I went home, I had an idea;  to bring my blogs, and the part of my sisters book that talked about my father stalking her, and the court case that ensued, and tell her, through my blogs, and my sister’s court case what kind of monster my father really was. Suddenly, as I was reading, I could focus.

I wasn’t scared anymore. I let the words do the work for me.

My sister’s words were easier for me to read than my own.  Which got me to the point where I finally COULD read my “Unbreakable”  book that I’m working on to her without falling apart.

As I was reading my sisters account on the court case with my father, it seemed something started to click. With her and with me.  It felt that she was really starting to understand how mentally ill my father is. The one thing she had to say about my father and the crazy things he was saying in the court case with my sister was. ... with a fire in her eyes she said;

“Your father has NO idea how sick he really is”.

Finally, VALIDATION!

This is a woman, who listened to my blogs and even listened to my blog about spiders.:p (Some of you have read that blog http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-do-spiders-like-me.html) This is what my counselor calls my "Random Abstract" personality moment...more like moments ha)  comes in:p) on the very same day that I saw her take a spider (that had decided to crawl right towards me, of course ) on a piece of paper and in her gentle way, gingerly, kindly, took it outside like it was a china doll (Ok, an 8 legged china doll…lol)) and let it go. Then she taught me some techniques that really work for fear. So any time I see a spider, I do these techniques and the fear goes away. (Here is the book for the techniques if your curious...it really works. Shes been doing this with people for years. http://www.amazon.com/Tapping-Healer-Within-Thought-Field-Instantly/dp/0809298805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354920239&sr=8-1&keywords=tapping+the+healer+within#_ )

Hey, maybe someday I’ll be able to do what SHE did with a spider.

One session  I told her that pretty much every night, I woke up gasping for air because my airways kept closing up during the night. I literally could not breathe, and waking up that way thinking I might die was horrifying. It would happen even when I was laying on my side. Sometimes 2 or 3 times a night. It was so bad that I would stay awake afterwords for hours, scared that it would happen again. I couldn't go back to sleep. My counselor told me that I probably had sleep apnea and that someday that would not happen anymore. That it happened because I had been choked by my father, that’s WHY it was happening. From THAT day, it started to happen less and less, until now I hardly ever have it happen.

I had an epiphany today. It was so monumental to me that I sat up in bed at 6:30 in the morning and had to go here right away and put the date, time and year. Holy CRAP. It is amazing to me how things come together when your mind is in the right place. (Asleep? lol...hah:p) Today (6:30 December 5th 2012) I realized something that I think is monumental. I think the reason I felt that way when its happened, even though my airways really did close up, is that when my father WAS choking me, I WAS literally dying. When it happened, it was that old "invisible" hands around my throat, that SAME familiar, mind blowing, freeezing in place,terrifying, there's nothing I can do about it feeling, that I'm dying and theres NOTHING I can do. It goes further for me BECAUSE I stopped breathing when my father choked me. (If you haven't read about when that happened, this is one of the first blogs I wrote...THIS is what happened http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-do-you-do-when-u-stop-breathing.html) When it does happen now I do what she told me to do…shake my head a few times, and now if it happens, my airways instantly clear up. Isn't that how life is anyway? Sometimes you have to shake yourself to wake yourself up, no matter what is going on in your life. The difference for me is now, that 16 year old  that gave my father the power he didn't deserve, has taken that power AWAY. It is GONE. That sick bastard has no power over me anymore.

I told my counselor that day waking up gasping for air hardly happens anymore. She said  that the REASON it doesn’t happen anymore, is because FINALLY someone is listening to me.

FINALLY Somebody who GETS it.

Someone who has my back.

 I think I’ll call her “The miracle worker”.:)

I am publishing a childrens book...

Just so you know,I have not stopped writing that "Unbreakable" book. I am working on it and am seeing an EMDR counselor to crack that hard nut that is my brain :p and get all of my memories out. Now, for the FUN news! In a couple of months, HOPEFULLY, I will have a picture book done that I am REALLY excited about. The illustrator on this is AMAZING! I will post more on this later. Stay tuned!:)

I LOVE Betty White

  I love Betty White. I really do. When that woman speaks, people sit up and listen. The reason they listen? She says things like no one else does.

Even when you don’t want to admit that you know what she means (The little pervert) it makes you laugh anyway. I hope I have the energy she does when I’m her age. I wonder if in the future people will say “She pulled a Betty White” ;p

So her latest quest? “Bucks for balls”. Are you listening? I bet you are.

 Does anyone know what Betty’s main cause is through “Bucks For Balls”? (I can’t say it without grinning:p)  Animals.  She’s asking people to donate a buck to her cause, helping people who can't afford it to spay and neuter their pets. Go look it up…you can donate a buck.:)

Are you laughing now? I was (Ok, and maybe shaking my head a little too). Only Betty can say it with that naughty little grin of hers and get away with it.

I wish she would have been talking about this program when I lived in Idaho.

 I’ll tell you why.

We lived in a little house by a big hill. On top of that big hill was a beautiful Grecian house and a lil old guy lived there. He kept up the place and it was beautiful.

Then he passed away and his daughter moved in temporarily, just until the place sold.

When it sold, I noticed a lot of screaming, angry children there. Not only were they mad most of the time, they swore like sailors. They would go running across the cement walkway that had a iron railway, hands pounding the iron, little pudgy legs pummeling the cement right up above our bedroom window screaming bloody murder. The way they screamed, You’d think there was one.:p

In the windows where there used to be beautiful curtains, sheets went up, and along with the sheets, came  about 10 or so skinny howling cats that looked like they hadn’t been fed in a millennium.

I took pity on the poor things, the way they would come screeching down the hill, most of the females being chased by the “good ol boys”, (Tomcats) who would corner each lil girl kitty, and before I knew it, the poor creatures would be having ANOTHER batch of kittens.

What a life.

One time I happened to ask “The Beverly Hillbillies” (That’s the name my husband gave them) daughter how they fed all those cats, and she said “we go like this”! “(Showing me a big bag” with her hands) and said they dumped a little food on the ground. I couldn’t believe people could do such a thing, starving the poor things like that.

So I went and bought food for the cats and from then on, the poor creatures were always at my house eating on my front porch like it was their last meal. 

There was one pretty little Siamese black and white cat in particular who was always at my house, hiding from the boys…but the minute she wasn’t pregnant with kittens, they would chase her and round and round and that vicious cycle would start all over again, poor thing.

There was one funny thing about that Siamese.

Her meow. Her meow sounded like what a woman would sound like who’d been drinking too much  and needed a cigarette after WAY too much, you know…man handlin. She even had that low cigeretty growl of a voice people get after smoking too long. “Reow”  was more like what she said, it was like she couldn’t pronounce the- m  anymore… Or maybe she was just saying ow. I would;p

I think there were at least 30 cats at that house after a while. It didn’t take long.

In the morning I would hear many, MANY times the kids crying saying “Not again, another one died”. I would see a ton of runny nosed kittens for a few weeks,, then they would disappear.

That beautiful hill next to our house started to smell, BAD. Man… the wind would kick up and all I could smell was cat. Male cat, dead cat, I don’t know what was cookin under there but the smell was something you just can’t describe.

Ew.

I had a vet that came right to my house and fixed my lil kitty, Jezabel, right on the washing machine. (That’s another story I’ll tell later)

“And that there’s how we do it in Idaho”, I could hear her say. Ya’ll hear?;p

 I thought I would sic her on em about fixing a bunch of them for dirt cheap. Man, how that vet of mine loved cats.

She came back from their house shaking her head. Might as well been talkin to a brick wall.

We had been living there for many  years, but  my huz finally got a transfer. I decided that a day or 2 before we moved, I was going to bring bunch of those poor cats to a no kill facility I knew of so they could have a good home. By then there more than 30 in that cramped space.

After all, who would feed those poor babies when I was gone? I thought I would leave them a few cats even though I had misgivings, and I called the animal control place and told them about my plans, and one person said they would come and help round up the cats.

What I didn’t know is that he would just stand there while I rounded up the cats.

After the ordeal  was over I was pretty scratched up, but glad they were going somewhere that they would be taken care of. The place they went to got them their shots, spayed and neutered them, and found them homes.

 I found out when I called to check on them that the poor snotty  nosed critters were so sick that for the rest of their lives, they would have to be given medicine every day to survive.  

That’s what the inhumanity of man can do to an animal.

I have to wonder if God judges our character by how we treat the creatures that are under our care. 

I hope I pass.  

30 cats neutered. Not bad:p

Betty would be proud:p

Lauren the Ross Dresser ,The Seriously Screwed Up Idaho Trip and getting drugged by family…(Might as well visit the Bobbit’s;p)

I left my old home state years ago and moved to another more diverse place. (Thank God, REALLY.). I have to admit, I was glad to live so many states away from my family. There was always some drama going on in my family that someone just HAD to inform me about to get my blood boiling, and I had told myself I had moved beyond that. To say that I was relieved to be living so far away is an understatement.  

But years later my sister who is the "fixer" in the family invited all of the sisters to her home. I lived a LONG ways away. But, I bought a plane ticket, feeling VERY apprehensive (I should have followed my gut that was SCREAMING "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? YOU REALLY WANT TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS AGAIN???")  but...I went.

I met Ava at the airport and went to her house. I was talking to her but felt my old self bubbling to the surface. That scared me to death. To my old self, talking to my family felt like sticking a finger into a light socket hoping not to get electrocuted.

Here I go...AGAIN!  Jumping into the shark tank!

A day or 2 into the trip I asked Lauren if we could go to Ross

I had wanted to go to Ross, and since I was stuck without a car (Another GLARING mistake on my part) she brought me. Talking a mile a minute and walking even faster she actually came into the dressing room to DRESS me. I was Laurens personal little DOLL. She would put my clothes on over my head, then actually take them off, like I couldn't do it myself, or wasn’t capable of doing it fast enough for HER. SO bossy.

I decided then and there she was never taking me shopping again.

(On a funny side note...she’s taken my daughter and bought her all kinds of stuff, including a beautiful dress. When I asked my daughter if she tried to dress her she said no, so I guess she’s graduated to outside the door:P) lol

The more I talked to to my sisters, the more apprehensive I became. I would tentatively stick my foot in the water, (How cold was THAT water?)  Saying something very quietly, starting a sentence but never being able to finish it because they both would start talking. They would run me over like a train whenever I started. They talked and talked in the front seat, and as usual, I was the invisible man. (ER…woman)

Their kids were a whole different story. I had a really good time with them. They were the only thing that made the trip feel like it wasn’t a total loss. I had a feeling I came out as the cool aunt, (One of them actually said that to me) but I kept getting strange looks from my sisters whos only acknowledgement of me was one of disgust.

The first night as I got ready for bed my sisters were dancing around to some song or something, at least I remember some such thing. I was in my pajamas and with typical Heidi zeal decided to throw myself into the malay with total abandon, ripping my pants:p .

With any of my good friends, we would have been hysterical by then…after all, I was the life of their (party:p

I bent over and did a little curtsy, showing off the new hole, and all I got was blank stares.

I was completely out of my element. Shot down.  Butt naked. lol…Ok, not really BUT I may as well have been with the looks I got.

And it brought me back to a memory. All of us in the back yard, my sisters in a dog pile , one right on top of the other.  I stood off a ways, trying to get the guts up to join in, but the minute I jumped on, they all walked away in disgust.

WHY oh WHY did I ever go?

That old familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach was back. The one where it felt like there was a giant, LONELY hole there any time I was around my old family. I had a NEW family and I wanted to go home to my husband where I didn’t HAVE to prove anything, where he could give me a hug and tell me everything was ok. The place where I KNEW that I REALLY had a family.

But for at least a few days, I was STUCK there.

I just wanted to just curl up in a ball and disappear.

The next day, we were talking (All of us were together) and one of my sisters sons asked me “Why did you break Aunt Laurens finger?”  I was shocked when he said that, in front of everyone.

WHY would he do that? We hadn’t been talking about it or anything else like that. I had talked to him a lot, had a good time with him (Even teased him the way Aunts do) and his cousins and the only thing that I could deduce about that is that, we had a good time together, if I was such a cool Aunt it made no sense that I would do something like that so he brought it up. I started to tell him what happened (Lauren had her hands around my throat at the time and I had to PRY her hands from around my throat. If her finger really was broken it wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t have her hands around my throat!)  I tried to respond to that question and Ava (His mother) shut me down and wouldn’t let me answer his question.

After that it only got worse.

I was staying in her home and had no way of going anywhere else.  I went for a walk  around her neighborhood hoping I wouldn’t get lost but trying to think of ways I could find a way to get to the plane that would bring me home and just STAY in the airport until it was time, but there was no way to get there.

Late that night, ( I waited till everyone was asleep. I hoped he was still awake, and he was) I went into her son’s room and told him the truth. I thought he deserved at least that much.  I didn’t know how much they had poisoned him against me over the years, I hadn’t been visiting. And after this, I promised myself I would NEVER go there again.

 The next day I was to go home. I can’t even say how excited I was to get out of that place. I went about my business that day and later Ava offered me something to drink in a tea cup.

Suddenly I was very, VERY tired. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open I was so tired. I went to lay down, and almost MISSED MY PLANE!  Ava had to wake me up and drag me, sleepy eyed and drowsy, to the airport I barely made the plane but thankfully, gratefully, I was on my way home.

The more I thought about it, the more furious I was. I was not a wallflower. I was not to be stepped on.  I would NEVER be swept under the rug again and I was going to speak up! Burning bridges? Damn the consequences… I was going to bomb one.

I wrote a LONG scathing letter. (My husband had some things to say too- And he helped to temper the message) I laid it out point blank. I let her know I would not contact her and that any contact we had was OVER. As far as I was concerned, a new chapter had begun in my life and they (The entire family) were not a part of it.

Then the emails began. Over the YEARS, many, MANY  emails from Ava.  So many times I wanted to just block her, but I didn’t. The emails came, many sounding phony and not from the heart to me, many times I just rolled my eyes, deleted them and went on with my life. Then an email or two started to sound more sincere and I didn’t delete them. Many emails later I emailed her.

Then she came to visit, and ended up calling my home her sactuary. Well, that was good.

When things were hard sometimes she would call me, and we would talk for a long, long time. But there were times that I would be interrupted and started to feel that old bubble from hell  come up from the pitt of my stomach again. That “What you’re saying isn’t important enough for me to hear you “ feeling. I shrugged it off again and again until I finally told her about it. I think she tries hard now to listen a little more.

One day she called me just literally sobbing. What in the  hell?? What was wrong now?

I’m trying to remember the way she put this, I was so shocked when she told me.

“I drugged you”.

“You What”?

“I drugged you”.

I started laughing. I didn’t know what else to do. It was so absurd.

My own sister, doing that.

(There was a story I was told a while back about my mother doing something like that to her, interesting parallel, I thought.)

Then she hastened to tell me that when she had given me that herb tea that it had actually been something that was meant to calm a person down because she thought I needed it. My thought was, “What gives YOU the right, a person who really doesn’t know me, to give me something like that, especially when I think I’m just fine the way I am and don’t need any kind of drug” ( I avoid drugs like the plague. ) She said it was herbal, but I have read up on herbs and they can be just as lethal and just as dangerous as any drug.) All I remember is I was absolutely out like a light, stone cold out. And it was lucky that she could wake me up so I didn’t miss the plane.

After she told me, my thought was , when people dehumanize someone over the years, you stop looking at them as a person, you start looking at them as a thing you can do anything to, even without their consent. (And I think of Hitler, and the Jews,or the people at Abu grey where we tortured people on a strange parallel)

One of my sister’s friends said to not tell me, but I am glad she did. In my OLD family it was more important to look good than be honest.

She could have left the lie, but to her credit, she didn’t. I haven’t seen that kind of honesty and true remorse from ANYONE in my family.
I love her for that.

I’ll tell you one thing though. I am NEVER going back to Idaho. :p

The Great Maxi Caper

When you live in a small town where there’s nothing to do, you get pretty creative trying to FIND things to do.

I am ashamed to say that one time just for fun,  I stole maxi pads from the college. (Jennie just stood there looking surprised, after all she had been in the bathroom doing her thing and I was after all, bored.)

After I did it I suddenly felt VERY guilty and tried to put the first one I got back in the vending machine, but failed miserably, because when I tried to put it back in the vending machine, another popped out.  So seeing I had it in my hot little hand, I changed my mind, and got another, and another till I had like10 or 15 of them.

 So where to put them??

 I walked all over campus with my concealed weapons until I hit the racquetball courts. My "undeveloped teenage brain" spouted a plan.

I would put them all over the walls of the racquetball court.

After all, who didn’t need a little padding? I had seen the crazed looks on the player’s faces as they crashed against the wall, faces smashing up against the glass…  Seemed fitting somehow, and glaringly funny:p

That a religious college had maxi pads stuck all over the racquetball courts made me laugh even harder as we sped off campus.  

THAT is MESSED up.:p

Learning to Walk

Been a little while since I’ve written a full blog to you.

That’s just me, ambling along, taking my time.

I was like that as a child too.

My mom must have gotten SO frustrated when as a very young child, I didn’t walk very early. Imagine her surprise when suddenly, I took off walking across a room that didn’t have any chairs around it. I must have known for months how to do it, I just didn’t FEEL like it and wasn’t going to until I was good n ready. That’s just how my personality works. I have to be in the right mood to do certain things in MY time table, not anyone else’s.

That also how I am when it comes to life, when it comes to singing, and when it comes to writing.

The abuse I went through was so painful then, it’s painful now (I keep looking over at my mother’s "Journal thinking I'll write more on it, but I am going to be gentle and be patient with myself as I'm doing it.) "(If your lost, here’s more on her so called "Journal" that she gave to my counselor to try to make me look bad- My counselor saw right through that as her trying to stab me in the back and gave it to me ) 

http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-mom-deceiver-part-1.html

I will take my time. 

I’ve been writing a little bit every day, just enjoying the process, and sometimes bemoaning it. It HURTS. (Sometimes realizing things about myself that as a child, I was never allowed to stop long enough and think about.)

I was just looking outside and seeing the flower bulbs I've planted. It seems every spring that they take forever to bloom. What they go through in the dark to get to the point that they end up in the light is a miracle to me.

That I was in such a dark and lonely place, no one to confide in, being ignored and mercilessly tormented by my sisters, egged on by my father, being beaten down almost weekly,   I just realized not long ago reading something. They were feeling lonely too. Even though my sisters had each other and I didn't have anyone to confide in that family, my parents made sure that we wouldn't confide in each other.  If we did, their cover would have been blown and the truth which was SO conveniently put away would have come out.

It’s nothing to have a voice if you can't use it.

So now, I write.

And now, I think of those flowers. Ignored, neglected, beat on by the wind and rain. and still, They bloom.

Jennie

Jennie

Life has a way of sending you someone just when you need them.

To be honest I’m not really sure that its life, it’s just Karma, or in my mind, God.

I think God knew I couldn’t make it any longer without someone to be my confidant. I was growing smaller and smaller and he knew without someone to finally have my back, I would just disappear.

I had taken a leap of faith and left my old “friends”.

The  “friends” that called me ugly, that mercilessly harassed each other, the rejects of sorts (and their queen..haha)  with our frizzy hair, downcast eyes and defeated look which said “kick me, I’m down anyway” kind of look.

Betcha every one of us was abused in some way.

The minute the “Queen bee” of the group (  The rhpsm as she came to be known-  red haired pear shaped monstrosity) decided to annihilate you…you  were toast . I was sick of being scared all the time.  The fact that this girl tortured all of us and nobody did ANYTHING about it was taking what little self-esteem I had left, which wasn’t much. (If your lost, check around for my old blog on it below) http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/04/better-to-be-alone-then-in-bad.html )

The truth is, in life, or in school, sooner or later the tortured either give up, or finally (thank God) stand up for themselves.  It’s a dog eat dog world out there.  (Anybody see Carrie?, Or Cujo?lol)

In high school If you’re not one of the “chosen” In that unforgiving world of Jocks and princesses it’s that proverbial "LAST STRAW" that FINALLY makes you stand up and say "HEY! You can't make me EVER back down again!" I AM somebody. YOU can't tell me who I am.

If you are one of the tortured, I DARE you to FIGHT. Stand up for yourself. Later on you’ll be surprised how strong you really were. It’s a beautiful thing, the human spirit. How resiliant it is.

There is nothing deadlier to a teenage girl’s self-esteem than bad friends. You hear online about it all the time. The kids that act like a girls “friend” and then plot against her online, offline and terrorize her until there’s nothing left but an empty shell.  Sometimes those girls are the ones that just quietly disappear into the shadows, sometimes they commit suicide, sometimes, thank God, they move on and their lives change.

I was about to move on.

I remember the day I actually finally got the guts up to tell them I wouldn’t be hanging around them anymore. I took a deep breath, just told them quickly, and as they laughed at me, determined I set off on my own.

I walked around the school by myself for months, dejected because I couldn’t find a place where I felt I really fit in.

Life for me was pretty hard.

 Having a bad family on top of it made me feel all the more timid around people who were made of the same cloth. 

High school is so much scarier when you’re completely and utterly by yourself.

Everything you do takes on new meaning. You’re scared that everyone is watching your every move. In reality, I think that everyone IS scared and the person they really watch is themselves. Teenagers are SO afraid of looking stupid. They may make fun of each other and bully each other, but deep down they’re all afraid. I know I was.

So there I was, all alone walking the halls of the high school.

I did have moments of stupidity, (I did have a way of tripping over my own feet) but through no fault of my own. (Sorta:p)

Sooner rather than later I found  solace in the fact that I was good at being  a “floater” of sorts, going from table to table but never really going  anywhere I felt that I really belonged, though the people I hung around at lunchtime were gracious enough.

Then Jennie moved in kiddy corner from my house.

 I saw this girl twirling a flag team flag on her front lawn. I thought “how odd”. But I was curious and went over to say hi and the rest is a blur.

She went to my high school and hung around one of the girls that I kind of thought was one of the rowdier girls, so I didn’t know what to make of her at first.

I had prayed for a good friend for years...and here’s this girl twirling a flag that’s just moved in kitty corner from my house. I felt a tiny seed of hope start growing where there was none before.

I can’t remember how we ended up at a school dance, but suddenly I found myself there, feeling decidedly out of place.

I just remember at first I was bored out of my skull till Jennie  did some kind of hypnotism/fall backward/truuuuuuuuuuuuuuust me kinda thing. There we were, Jenn and me and a guy I knew, the one who was mercilessly teased because they  thought he was gay. And though I lived in a school that was the most closed minded on the planet.  I didn’t care. I thought he was just fine the way he was.

Most everyone else was out on the floor, dancing around like they were attached at the hip. (Most of the adult chaperones would have had to use a cattle prod to get them apart, though a flashlight and a word or two would have to do)

Jennie was like a get out of jail free card. That’s what Jennie was. It’s like my whole life had been monopoly and Jennie was the jackpot where after landing on all the bad spots, I finally caught a break.

 I didn’t care that we weren’t dancing with the world’s snobbiest crowd. We were having a good time.

And that’s how it all started. In our little world, being different didn’t matter. Being yourself was just fine, despite that everything I saw going on around me said exactly the opposite.

It’s when you stop caring (Frankly my  school, I don’t give a damn;p) about what the world thinks and stop looking behind you and being terrified to see who’s watching that you really begin to live.

Being a round peg stuffed into a square hole just didn’t cut it anymore. (There’s no way I’m gonna call myself a square.:p)  I was going to be whoever I felt like being, and they couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

Ceramics Class, The Pervert And The Red Leather Pants

Any of you know God’s gift to women?

 I have known several.

 Every high school has at least one. Mine had PLENTY. One I remember was the student body president who would swagger down the halls waving hello to his loyal subjects, cheerleader on his arm.

The other was a jock.  A football player with flaming red hair.

When he walked down the hall EVERYONE cowered. (Ok, well maybe that was just me.)

The sad thing is, seemed he almost sensed it in people, at least that’s what it felt like.

But then again, I’ve never had much luck with football players. Thank God (really!:P)

Maybe it’s all the testosterone. HAHA.

When THIS guy would walk the halls it was like watching a tank. Muscles rippling, grunting  hello’s to his teammates by bashing them up against the wall, smacking people left and right with his gigantic claw of a hand. The man could have been wearing an animal skin and it would have fit. He looked and talked just like…a caveman.

But what did he wear?

Bright red leather pants.

Now on a rock star that might have been cool. You know the type.  Long lanky legs, Steven Tyler scream. (hence the pants:P)

The way the pants hung on THIS guy, it looked like stuffing a hamster, albeit a well-built hamster, into some serious leather. (Ok now the image in my head is making me laugh)

And still he was proud of his “package”.

I’ll tell you how I know…later.:P (Ok, Ok, I’ll tell you in a few paragraphs:P)

I never did understand this world of men where smacking someone meant hello and football players and baseball players alike swat each other’s butts to congratulate each other.

You ever see women do that?:P Me either.

 In the small little world that circled around my high school it was the cowboys and jocks that were out to prove that men are men and scrawny little freshman boys (Sometimes they weren’t freshmen :p) were to be shoved into lockers, after all…they HAD to show them their place. 

I was stuck with this red haired monstrosity of a guy in my ceramics class. The same class where Chuck gave me the firefighter with the um…ehem… “hose”. (In another blog)  He might have even given me that fireman on the day, not to be outdone by the jock.

I was completely naïve on the day that the pervert…hey wait…Chuck and C.J… C.J(That’s what I’ll call him)  were both perverts, so not only was I in class with 1 pervert, I was in class with 2.:P

But only one pervert wore red leather pants.

C.J came over when the teacher was gone, plopped his big bad self-down  on the chair  next to me, (I was surprised he didn’t rip his leather pants) and told me he was “hot”. I didn’t have a clue what was going on so I said. “So… Get a glass of water or something.” Then he told me to look at his pants.

By then all the guys in the class were laughing.

Since his first comment got the guys laughing, being such a stud, he thought he’d throw in another one. “Can’t you tell? My pants are bulging!”   Bulging what? I thought. All I knew was that the only way this guy must have gotten that abomination to the leather world on is (In my husband’s words) a trampoline and Vaseline…haha.(These days I would have thought he looked JUST like Johnny Bravo, (Cmon MAMA!!) with Red hair. :p look him up if you don’t know who he is. Isn’t the internet wonderful?:p)  All I saw was a guy in tacky red leather pants so I said “SO” again.

 I was completely clueless.:p

That’s what happens when you have 4 sisters, no brothers, a throw em to the wolves mom which leads to…I don’t know anything about men.:p

Well, mercifully the beast left because couldn’t get a reaction out of me. That or one of the girls in class told him to leave me alone. Yeah, he was talking to the most naïve person on the planet.  Me.

All I knew was as he left I heard roaring behind me. All the girls but 1 (The one who told him to stop) were slouching in their chairs and all the guys were laughing again.

And I was still trying to figure out what THAT was about.

Years later I actually confronted him in a store I worked at how much he had embarrassed me in class with his red leather pants.

He actually remembered and apologized saying “I’m not like that anymore” Yeah sure…(if any of you follow me on facebook, you would know that lately I’ve been posting about how  “Scientific studies actually show that the teenage brain isn’t developed yet” :P  Ok, heres proof:p lol...HA! )

Now after all that I don’t know if I made that big of an impression on C.J, but those pants sure did NOT!

This was also was also where Randy, a friend of the family taught me how to swear.

 It was just that kind of class.:P

Frakin laptop shootin dad

I am posting this all over  the place because I think the father went WAY over the top.(Link down below)

http://www.scoopsandiego.com/news/national/dad-shoots-laptop-to-teach-daughter-a-lesson/article_85ff5db0-540d-11e1-b1cb-0019bb30f31a.html
The video is of a red faced swearing dad reading what his daughter posted on facebook about him, and being the ultimate tough guy, he shoots her computer. Well YAY for HE MAN!

Yeah, the kids acting entitled...but where did she learn to swear? It’s pretty obvious. Like father like daughter...Does he really expect that if he swears like a sailor that she won’t? With everything that happened (That I know of)  if it were me I would take the laptop away and keep it for a while to use for my own as a reminder to her of what she lost till... she stopped acting childish.

I actually did something like that with my daughter (Who is 19 now and off at college) where I took her iPod away for something snotty she did and I used it for a while till she stopped the attitude. Think I had it for a few weeks to a month or more.  It worked a lot better than wasting my money because my pride had been injured...by shooting it, or something ridiculous like that.

 I keep seeing this video everywhere, I don't like it at ALL, he has a few good points but I n my mind he acted just as childish as she did. And if this dad is abusive, as I suspect he may be, this is DAMN scary.

If he points a gun at a computer, being the "tough guy" that he is, has he ever pointed it at something else, if you know what I mean?

I NEVER spanked my daughter, or hit her, it doesn't make them respect you, it makes them TERRIFIED of you. That is WRONG on ALL LEVELS. That's where the deception starts.

 MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT!

I am SOOOOO fraking (Oh…my Battlestar Galactica roots are showing…lol…the dictionary is trying to correct me by changing fraking to franking…its making me giggle:p) sick of seeing this stupid video EVERYWHERE!

He is an immature parent and this this video was NOT funny, or cool. If he's doing what he did in public, what is he doing in private? I don't care if his daughter did, he is an ADULT and should act like one...Listen, my daughter did things JUST as bad as his daughter did, OVER and OVER again. It was incredibly frustrating and we had to think of different punishments. But he was just shooting himself in the foot in the long run.

 You HAVE to give yourself leeway with a teenager, and doing something childish like shooting a laptop that he bought is just plain immature. It takes the leeway away with the teenager. What's he going to do when she crashes the car? (Most teens crash at least once, it’s almost a rite of passage, sadly:p) Shoot it too?

Her phone? Bang it up while he's at it is when she acts up? (Yeah, I saw the post later where she suggests it...if you ask me, now she’s just pandering...there will be even more things now where she tries to be sneaky, mark my words.)What he did was a childish act, and on top of it, he’s talking about all the money he wasted? Well, HE'S the one who shot up the laptop, and if it were me, c’mon!  I'm not going to waste money and do that. I would just use the laptop for a while and she’ll be sorry sooner she did what she did EVERY time she sees me use it. I am the parent, and not a child, I just took the different things away over and over. It worked EVERY time, even though my daughter was VERY mouthy, she came around. They can't come around if they have nothing to come back to.

I can spot an abusive parent a mile away, (I almost DIED in the house I grew up in) and guaranteed, if this guy does things like this on video, on a public forum, he does more than that off. If he points a gun at a computer, who's to say he doesn’t point a gun on HER? If Health and Welfare saw that video, they would be at his door.

As an afterthought…I just realized why in the aftermath of this why I've been so bothered. After this whole thing came out and the girl was joking about the whole thing, it hit me as off (again, I could be wrong.) It hit me right now why.

On the day that I almost died, (that’s in another blog and I will elaborate later) when the neighbors called the cops on my dad and I went to the police station for them to file a report on abuse, I made a BIG joke out of it. I was TERRIFIED of the unknown.

What would happen to me? Would I end up in foster care? Would I go from one abusive home, to another?

Another thought...When that whole situation happened, I found out from my sister MANY years later that after my dad had beaten me, he would lay out on the floor after beating me and act like I had been the one WHALING ON HIM, like I was the problem, when in reality, it was completely the opposite.

When... the cops came, he did the same thing, making it look like I was the problem, not him.

Years later I saw the police report on that day I almost died. The report actually said that I had the same temperament as my father!! I couldn't believe it! My parents were the ultimate deceptive parents to the entire town. They would make light of what actually happened, make my begging for help look like a lie when the reality was, THEY would outright lie about it. And the police BELIEVED them. Maybe the cops just didn't want to deal with it.

When talking about this video someone posted on a forum and said “Sounds like the daughter is of the same temperament as the dad and is a spoiled brat.”

I can't help but see a parallel with this kid.

Again, I could be wrong but something just doesn't seem right.

On top of this HE is speaking FOR her. My parents did that all the time. So WHERE is she?

I Tripped.

Toys R Us is a nightmare any time of year.

(On the journey back to getting into writing about my abusive home life, heres another nice detour:p lol)

I used to be a vendor for American greetings a million years ago and Toys R Us was a place we had to service for cards. I dreaded that place but the people were great there.

The first day I was there being trained I was with 2 women who were training me and some associate had left a bike ramp right in the walkway which I DIDN'T SEE.

 I tripped over it, fell down, hit my head,. passed out, and convulsed (Which I've never done)

Next thing I know I wake up and all the employees are standing there staring at me, there’s some ambulance guy standing by me asking me questions trying to keep my attention on him. I turned my head just in time to see another guy coming at me with a needle. I said

"PLEASE! TAKE MY BLOOD! I want my boss to know I'm not a drug addict!”

Next thing I knew, they brought a gurney.  

I was paraded through the store, customers and employees alike staring at the half conscious moron who had tripped and knocked herself out.:p ( Hey…I blame the bike ramp:p)  

They brought me to the hospital, attached these electrodes to my head to monitor my brain, and I met the big boss of the area in the emergency room in a dressing gown. NICE. Ya  gotta wonder what was going through his head. Insane woman? Scammer? Brain damaged moron…I mean, there WERE wires all over my head.

As I’m meeting with him, trying to keep my backside covered some other woman partitioned off on the other side of the room started screaming in this guttural hysterical voice "I WANT AN ENIMA! GIVE ME A ENIMA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!  Later she was screaming that she wanted her cigarettes, I'm thinking they must have sedated her later so she was finally quiet. My boss must have been thinking uh…”all in a days work”? (I worked with them for another 2 years, so guess I wasn’t crazy after all…Or was I?;p)

I wrote a silly song about it. I’ve sung it with my guitar at open mics just for a laugh…(Not one of my better songs, but it got a laugh out of it) Some of you on facebook who know me from my old open mic days might remember it. One time I even forgot some of the words and I kept repeating “because I tripped” until the crowd joined in and it was one of the most memorable open mics I ever went to, I was laughing so hard.

As I went off to my new job I was feeling pretty hip.

Going to my new job which would teach me not to trip.

I learned about the business, it all was going well.

Little did I know that it would all soon go to hell.

Because I tripped. I tripped.

Went into the toys r us and fell there on my hip.

I could kill the damn associate if I only had the will. Something long thin in the isle I knew then when I tripped.

As I fell I heard the women scream, no one could break my fall.

The anguish the embarrassment, the craziness of it all.

The women tried to help my there I tried hard to get up. But everything went black at once because I'm such a klutz

because I tripped, I tripped.

Paramedics asked If I'm on drugs I told them what the %$^& ??

Because I tripped, I tripped.

So now I'm in the hospital they monitor my brain, they ask me lots of questions

taking blood from every vein

because I tripped. I tripped.

I'm wondering if they just think that I'm really insane. The first day at my new job they should really check my brain.

Because I tripped.

Well, hey…at least I got a song out of it.

IIIII AM A CHILD OOOOOF GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!

That last blog brought back a memory that makes me giggle.

Just to give you some history…I lived in a small town in Idaho, it’s at sea level, and has completely different weather than the rest of Idaho. There was another town half an hour away, and you had to go up this GIANT hill to get there, driving carefully (Especially during winter, it was quite a curve AND up a gigantic hill, then back down a VERY big descent to get back home.) The weather at the top is quite different from the weather at the bottom. It would be raining down below, and then up above  at the top of this giant hill, it would be snowing. I was glad to be living at the bottom of the hill in the valley. I LOVED the weather. It would get up to 110 for at least a week in the summer, and you hardly EVER saw any snow. I grew all kinds of vegetables, the best tomatoes I ever had on half an acre. My daughter Whitney used to read her children’s books under the cornstalks.

We even grew pumpkins. PERFECT weather for crops.

Washington, I’m afraid, just doesn’t have the weather that Idaho does and I just can’t grow tomatoes like I did there.

And yet I would never go back.

Idaho, when the paper mill REALLY got going in the summer was TORTURE.  

It’s a shame that town has a paper mill. When that thing blew off smoke, it smelled like cooked cabbage, or dog poop, depending on who you talked to.:p

People told me that it was better than years past.

One woman who used to work at the plant there told me that no matter what shoes you wore, as you walked across the room at the plant, your shoes would actually stick to the floor and start to melt as you walked across it. The houses in that town would get covered in sticky, black goo years back. I can’t imagine that could be good for anyone. One person told me that that town had the highest Asthma rate in the country. I never checked on that so I don’t know if it’s true or not, but my husband and I both ended up with Asthma after living there so that’s saying something.

Anyway, every once in a when  you would be minding your own business in the summertime, white stuff would start drifting on by, like it had somewhere to go. It DIDN’T have anywhere to go, so we were stuck  with it getting all over our yards, our trees, the roads, and if you were unlucky to be out in it, your hair, skin, clothes, or anywhere else it decided to go. (WOO WOO!) There was a “Pond” where the stuff would come up and just float away , cover the roads, the town and everything in between. We used to call it P________ snow… fill in the blanks…I can’t, I don’t want to get in trouble for naming the plant.:p

We lived there a long time, and went to a church with some really good people. I worked with the teenagers a lot. I loved how they weren’t “cliquish”. They would stand in a giant circle and everyone was included. My class was no different. I loved it. Years later that changed. It’s amazing how one or two people can change everything and make life better for people, or worse. Teens need acceptance worse than anyone does so it’s a shame when the adults add to the problem.

The really young kids were a precocious bunch. They made me giggle all the time.

Our church would have periodic times in church where the kids would be singing for the main meeting.

They would have memorized parts that they would go up to the mic and say what they memorized.

 As they sang their songs and did their parts everything was going as planned. Then one especially precocious little guy got up, wiggled  around and swung his arms back and forth saying into the mic  at the podium“IIIIII am a CHIIIIILDD  OOOF God”. The next kid got up, not to be outdone saying a little louder “I AM A CHILD OF GOD”. The next ten kids or so got up, getting louder and louder, until the last kid got up, (By then it had been worked up into a fever pitch and was sooooo loud that if anyone would have gotten in the way it would have been like being in the path of the tornado.) the last kid SCREAMED ‘IIIIIIIIII AMMMMMM  AAAAA CHIIIILD OFFF GOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!! “  Their  teacher, thoroughly embarrassed and bright red (Though the rest of us were laughing SO hard that tears were coming to our eyes) somehow got the screaming, jumping,  kids to actually sit down and suddenly,  it was over.

Amen:P

Can't you just SAY it?? ? Singing Disaster

Its amazing what embarrassments parents can bring on a child.

As a teenager, singing was what I loved to do, and I felt that I was pretty good at it. When everything else was falling apart around me, no matter what happened, no matter how many times my sisters would make fun of me singing, (I almost quit singing because of the enormous amount of teasing my sisters did, making fun of my voice.  To my mother’s credit, she encouraged me there when no one else did; so I sang, despite my sisters teasing.) I felt good when I was singing, even when everything else was hard, and life seemed unfair, I could sing. I remember singing Billy Joel’s “My Life” over and over whenever I got punished and I was grounded to my room, or after I got beaten up. They might take what little freedom I had, but they couldn’t take my VOICE!

  I would sing in church frequently, not much as a teenager, but a lot as a young adult.                    

 When I would perform in front of people I would always pray before that and say, “Ok God, do whatever you want with my voice, take it and make it the way YOU want it to be- not the way I want it to be”, that way I wouldn’t be afraid and I knew my voice would be ok, no matter what my voice did it felt like that whatever happened, it was supposed to be that way.. It kinda took the pressure off of me, and gave it to the ultimate do gooder, if you know what I mean.

One year I had decided to do a song that had a speaking part in it, one for a woman, and one for a man. One was a woman talking about an experience with Christ; the other was of a “blind” man who had been healed by Christ.

I thought since my parents were right there, that I would ask them to do that part . ( I wasn’t living at home anymore, but went home when my dad wasn’t there to do laundry)  so I asked my mom if she would do the woman’s  part, and if she would ask my dad if he could do the man’s part.

I went through the song over and over, getting it ready. It’s a beautiful, peaceful song, talking about all the miracles that Jesus did.

The day came to sing the song in Church and I said the prayer I always did, asking him to take my voice and do with it what he wanted to do with it. And I felt calm. I got up and started singing.

My mom got up for her part, she did fine.

Then my dad got up by the podium. He didn’t stand at the microphone, like I had asked him to.

He stood way off to the side of me. He literally SCREAMED at the audience  “I WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE!” AND WITH MORE THAN JUST MY EYES…I THANK GOD HE CAME!!!!!!”

He might as well of  just punched the front row parishioners right in the face the way they were leaning WAAAAY back in their seats looking like they’d just been assaulted.:p

 I was SO embarrassed.

And THAT was the last time I ever asked for his help with a song.