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"Life is never fair. Family can be the cruelest people
you know. And a stranger can turn out to be the best friend
you could ever ask for."
- Rhonda L. M. Tipton
Think you have problems? Is it really that bad
in your life? Let me give you the Angela's Ashes of stories.
I haven't read anything like this since I picked
up a hard cover copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales. So, I'm going to
take a back seat to this one and really introduce you to one
of my favorite people on the internet - WITHFEATHERSINMYHAIR,
or as I call her "Feathers".
If I didn't know better, I'd say she was Irish.
Feathers is a wonderful person who has a thick
Kentucky accent you can cut with a knife. She is a very caring
good human being that seems to have gotten the short end of
the stick most times. She and her husband, Ron, are very happy
together and deserve only the best life has to offer them.
Rarely does it ever work out like that, though.
Once again, proving that all it takes in like are a couple of
idiots and some twisted sadistic assholes to make life a mess.
Here's her story. - Vikar
May 27th, 2002
CHAPTER ONE: Misery loves the omega.
Chaos rules.
My parents wanted a son first. They got one. They wanted a daughter
next, and they got one. They had trouble later... the sanctity
of sworn vows became shattered. Forever. They stayed together,
"For the kids." Misery ruled for many, many years.
Purportedly planned, no preference of sex, "just healthy,
if possible", I was born 11 years after the daughter and
grew up haphazardly in the woods like a wild thing. Happy and
alone, I grew wild, free and independent of any major parental
watching. Female, tom-boy. Stubborn and non-traditional in the
extreme, unlike my much-older siblings.
They were at a loss to place where I fit in, so I never did.
My friends wore fur, had hooves or claws. The creatures of the
earth spoke to me, and I to them, with understanding. It didn't
seem unusual to me...just normal. Just part of life as it was
supposed to be. My first pony arrived when I was only 6 months
old, and I cannot even today imagine a life without the serenity
of beasts as an integral part.
I couldn't see well, though. My eyes weren't normal... nearsighted,
and badly. Astigmatism, as well. Severe. This wasn't discovered
until I had been in school for about 3 years. The doctors said
I had very likely gone around for most of my life using sound
as guide. At age five, I was reading the newspaper, alone. I
had managed to get my older siblings to teach me the alphabet
and its sounds, and taught my self more than anyone, to read.
Eyeglasses were a must, for the rest of my life.
This was... upsetting... to my carefully "normal"
family. Once again, I didn't fit in.
Worse, I hated school. It was a punishment, for all of 12 years.
I stuck it out, but barely. "Unhappy" wasn't a strong
enough word. "Anguished" fit better. Finally it was
over, and the last two years I managed to partially escape...
I was never there. Also asked to work as a volunteer in the
office, I gained another measure of freedom. And took it with
both hands.
My parents fought often and long, sometimes violently. Bandages
and tweezers, alcohol and hydrogen peroxide were common tools.
Alone, I had to bear it. My siblings just laughed and said it
had always been that way. Nothing new. Ignore them.
Books became a retreat, from the first time I was able to acquire
a few of my own. It was un uphill battle... I came home one
day to my mother boxing up my cherished books. When I asked
in panic what she was doing, she said she was giving more (more!)
of them to the public library, as I had already read these.
She didn't care... nothing was mine, was private. The war was
on, and I unpacked as quickly as she could pack. I had discovered
stubbornness. A treasure trove of it, inside, waiting.
While I hated school, I loved the books, and the outdoor life
of freedom. I'd take a bag of books up on a ragged pony, and
disappear into the woods for hours on end without a peep being
said as to where I was... I often crossed town to see my grandparents
on the same pie-bald spotted, barebacked pony. He was broken
by me to a single rein, a piece of thin leather string looped
around his lower jaw. We were a common sight on the roads together,
old Charlie and I. He was a good friend.
While I grew, my siblings were off to real lives: college, Air
Force, marriage. They managed 4 years or so of college, and
multiple divorces, before I got out of high school.
The last year of high school, I met Ronnie. I was almost eighteen,
and he was about two years older. We were friends, soul mates,
and almost inseparable from the beginning. We started dating
in May, and were married in November of 1981. The ceremony wasn't
for us; it was for those who didn't understand our choices.
(To this day, neither of us wears wedding bands or any other
jewelry. We don't need them.)
His family was heavily troubled too, and we more or less found
sanctuary in the company of ourselves, with a great deal of
happiness despite our poverty. Finding a local job wasn't easy,
and a good paying one, much harder. After many years, we found
ourselves living and working on the Bluegrass horse farms. Ronnie
was adept with the tractors, and I with horses, so we fit in
fairly well from the start. We were close to our hometown, but
not in it.
My brother and sister were living their own troubled lives.
Romances, alcoholism, drugs. I never have had smoked a cigarette,
being prone to pneumonia and similar problems. (My parents both
smoked.) My parents weren't happy with the way their kids lived,
but it never changed. I thought it was just normal. I'd never
seen anything else. Verbal and physical violence was normal?
Well, it just was, it seemed.
I was struck and/or injured for various reasons over the years:
- I refused to take sides in an agreement between
my parents. My mother struck me in the face, nose and eyeglasses
more than once. (Once I hit back, but pulled the blow early,
realizing mid-swing that it wasn't a solution to the problem.
I have never hit a person in violence since with the sole
exception being for self-defense. That, I have done. You learn.)
- My father beat me badly once. He was drunk.
I had refused to get into the bed with my older sister, who
was wearing some horribly powerful, cheap, and smelly gardenia
perfume. That was the whole cause of the beating. A local
doctor saw the healing bruises; my mother told him that I
had fallen down the stairs at my grandmother's home. A lie.
- My brother picked me up by the throat once,
many years later. I was an adult, and he wasn't much larger
than me... and very, very drunk. He shook me like a dog shaking
a rat. No one either said or did anything about it. It was
totally forgotten on the spot. I had done nothing to him or
anyone.
- My sister was fond of playing the family "head
games" and getting me into trouble, then standing in
the shadows laughing. She knew I didn't like the gardenia
perfume that night I was beaten.
- There were other times...too many.
Shit happens. Deal with it.
Alone, I had anger, had learned that violence wouldn't change
anything. Alone, I managed to hold on, to just survive.
My husband was the best person I could ever have found to share
my life with, I know. He understood it all; he'd been there. I
was afraid to go into a restaurant to eat for about the first
10 years of our marriage, paranoid about people watching me eat.
This was thanks to my mother, who would whisper in my ear during
the entire meal where we went out to eat. "People are watching
you, stop that. You lazy, nasty child. Look, they're laughing
at you... see them? They're watching you eat, and they're laughing
at you!"
Only years later did I manage to overcome this, and only with
Ronnie's help. He also helped me learn other ways to manage the
anger I'd learned to use to survive... to use it in a positive
manner, not just lash out.
Dad was... just there. He made very few decisions, refused to
discuss the ones he did make, and never once in all my life can
I remember his apologizing for anything. He did, however, stop
drinking before the others did, after he had a heart-attack. He
also stopped smoking.
Nothing else changed, except my brother had a daughter along the
way (loving mother of three small sons at this writing) and my
sister had two sons, each by a different husband. The nephews
became another story... another sad story, to be told another
time.
The Runt (myself) was always a thorn to them. If I wanted riding
lessons like my sister got, or to go to horse shows like both
siblings had... always, I wound up doing it myself. About 10 miles
to the fairground, the horse (or pony) and I on foot, alone. At
2:00 am, hitching a ride home with a cousin who had a slot open
on her horse trailer, trophy or ribbons in hand. Happy, although
vaguely upset still...and very, very tired. I guess everyone thought
I'd just give up...but I didn't. The irony of this escaped the
whole situation.
Although I've never been an alcoholic, never been in jail, never
had a single divorce... I am still judged by my sibling's and
parent's mistakes.
Since the older two had college, I thought I would too. Always
it was said by my parents that they "treated all their children
equally". I was gullible.
Dad paid for 3/4 of a semester, then told me that "the well
[had] gone dry". My siblings had failed; he planned for me
to do the same. Once again, judged by someone else's failure and
refused the chance to try. His experience said it was a losing
proposition.
Shit happens. Deal with it.
No problem. I'd been out of high-school for 12 years, by this
time, hadn't asked for much, as money never meant that much to
me. OK. Fine.
I had health problems. So. What.
Veterinary medicine, at the time, equine specialist, started out
at about $200K per year... after 7 years of study... and I had
dreamed of becoming a vet since I was three, and someone finally
told me that there was indeed such a thing as an "animal
doctor". (I'd never heard of this and was not easy to convince.
Dad kept Beagles, and they frequently needed care. Either Dad
did a home remedy, or they died or disappeared. So what? Dogs
die. People go to the doctor.)
One dream, shot to hell in a single phrase.
Shit happens.
Yes, I could have gotten financial aid... after 3 years. Non-traditional
students aren't asked why they were never in class in high school,
and so came up with a border-line passing grade. The nine hours
I have now averaged out to a 3.667... on classes requiring pre-requisites
like chemistry, that I had no formal training on. None of this
mattered, because I wasn't going to go.
Later, I found a way, but the pain from my health problems was
too much. I've dropped classes twice since then due to the untreated
illness. (Multiple degenerative joint disorder... a common form
of osteoarthritis. Mostly from old injuries received doing farm-work,
and left untreated.) The doctor I saw once said that it was only
going to get worse and that my plans were "unrealistic",
which I have accepted as truth more and more as time proves him
right.
A lot of time has passed since then, and little has changed...certainly
not for the better.
Some years ago, I took up painting, with Ronnie's support. And
writing... non-fiction animal stories and poetry. Later, I added
a small amount of photography, with an old manual camera my husband
traded his treasure hunting rifle for, as a gift to me. Trying
to find another focus, looking for a dream to replace the old
one, not expecting to get rich, but only to find a little happiness.
I learned basic use of a computer, which, like driving a car,
I can do on a regular basis, and still not particularly enjoy.
These things have helped... a little. I have little passion for
any one thing, though. It seems like I just keep plugging along
stubbornly, getting fragmented glimpses of old beauty as I go,
and trying to find a way to share them with the world.
Over the last 10 years we've lost two homes. *We lived on a big
Lexington horse-farm in a nice little house with new vinyl siding,
new storm windows, etc. ... a nearly completely renovated house.
On day, the farm owner took a walk (not an American, mind you)
around the farm, and then ordered our home and our next-door neighbor's
to be torn down. After we moved out, they did just that. They
took a bulldozer, pushed the houses over, walked them into kindling-size
fragments, then loaded them into dumpsters and hauled them away.
* The next house we lived in was my grandmother's, here in town.
Her daughters were supposed to give us materials, and we'd fix
it up while living in it. No materials ever were supplied, and
we were in misery, harassed by my mother, the whole 4 years we
lived there. The plumbing was shot... it was being eaten by insects;
the floor and one supporting wall were already drooping alarmingly.
But it was a familiar place, a quiet place, and we could grow
a garden, have flowers and pets. It was a huge old house... 5
bedrooms. (Two were once dining room and formal parlor.) We loved
it there, despite certain telephone harassment, and tales being
passed by some who are known but shall remain unnamed at this
point. One neighbor offered to help us try to buy the place. (Never
would this happen...yet another tale to be told at a later date.)
Then a tornado dropped the giant maple tree into the roof one
night.
Homeless. Again.
The Red Cross and FEMA were practically useless. They were set
to handle mostly the flooding that was happening in other places,
but that wasn't being done well either. Our town's local tornados
were an after-thought, to them. Donations were made to each victim
household: mops, drinking water, chlorine cleaners, soap, etc.
The trouble was, we'd lost a roof, not gotten our floors wet.
What a waste of time. We had more help from local volunteers than
from professional assistance paid for via tax dollars.
The house was totaled. They offered us rent money...the biggest
joke of all. It was supposed to pay for two months' rent, and
would hardly pay for one... the numbers FEMA was using were so
ancient, that the cost of living had doubled in our area since
they were gathered. We were a long way from the only people living
more than one family to a household.
Having no place to go, we moved into the upstairs of my parents
home, into one tiny loft room, putting our goods and my grandmother's
goods into rental storage bins, which FEMA did pay for, for a
while.
We moved straight into hell. Obsessive-compulsive, set in her
ways, whatever you want to use... my mother hated having us there.
It upset her precious rituals. No matter what we did, including
almost all of the cooking, it wasn't right. Never, never.
We managed after eighteen months to get moved into an old mobile
home, a small one, that we bought from a kindly, also family-troubled
cousin (another story, yet again) for $500. We spent a lot of
money... borrowed from the bank... to re-do the whole thing, and
it surely needed it. Peace, at least. Not much, but our own home...
finally.
I remember clearly the first call I got the morning after we started
sleeping here. My dear mother called and told me in a wondering
voice, "I had to make coffee this morning!"
"No shit, Sherlock...most of us do. Heh!", I thought.
But I said nothing, not a peep. Not until I'd gotten safely off
the telephone, anyway. Then I lost the will not to laugh, and
uproariously, I did. I laughed until I lost my breath, wildly,
with tears running down my cheeks... it was the fumiest thing
I felt I'd ever heard.
Laughter is the best medicine: let the healing begin.
For a long, long time, we continued to just sort out our problems.
We got our bills back under control, since I wasn't able to work
at my old job anymore, and revamped a strict budget.
Now we're nearly out of the bad zone. Nearly paid off, that is.
Another eighteen months to two years. Soon.
We wanted to help my parents and siblings remember to not lose
money and or land in the inheritance tax and law changes that
are coming up... and the "fecal matter struck the rotational
air circulation device" shortly thereafter.
They decided that since the other siblings would need to pay off
debts right away (not us, we'd taken care of our debts, carefully),
they'd just sell the home place, and split it "fairly".
Five ways. Mother, father, brother, sister...and me. Only the
splitting would have to take several years... in small parts.
I tried to explain we had/have a different situation, and this
would ruin us. No reply, since no one was listening.
We needed security. Not money.
My brother is 14 years older than me, and made many mistakes that
these parents had simply paid for and written off. He was often
gone for years at a time, making high wages and drinking them
away. My sister, 11 years older, had done the same. They had the
added advantage of formal education, which I do not. I have no
idea how to count up the number of "lost loans" and
co-signed debts they have to thank my parents for... and I have
caused no trouble other than standing up for myself. Apparently
this is wrong, according to their concept of "fair".
They told the realtor that our trailer was part of the package...
we hold the title, in our name. They tried to order us to clean
it up inside and out. Ronnie said, "OK. We can pitch out
the computer, the desks, the kitchen table, the couch, the TV,
and the bedroom suit. Rhonda's books and paintings can burn. Hmmmm...
where will we sleep?" They just looked at him stupidly...never
once had they a clue. They still don't.
A few days ago, we got a call (we have an unlisted number) from
a stranger, that Ronnie had a great deal of trouble getting rid
of... the man was "coming to get the dogs"...? Mystified,
Ronnie sorted it out. Someone at my parent's had told the man
that we were giving away our purebred dogs. And this person had
given away our unlisted telephone number without our permission,
to an insistent stranger who had the wrong story from some one
who had no right to deal with anything of ours, let alone our
precious animal friends.
They (the animals) are our responsibility, not for someone else
to "get rid of". (We did find a home for one, that will
be having a better life than we can give her. She... an Australian
Cattle Dog... is leaving soon, and was promised to the new home
weeks before.) This was the term the man used..."I was told
you were getting rid of your dogs." Sounds like a nice home
for us to give them to, don't you think? (Not ever, thank you
very much!)
He was told the right breeds, but had no other clue. For one thing,
our Norwegian elkhound was abused by children as a pup, before
we got her... she fears them and is a danger to children as such.
(We don't have any children, for which I am grateful we made such
a decision early on in our relationship. And more so now.) This
isn't a problem for us, but we could not give her to a home with
children if we ever wanted to, anyway. This man wanted them for
his children to play with, he said. I personally doubt this claim.
So. I called up my mother, and very gently explained that, as
we had told them repeatedly, we did not "...want our telephone
number given out, as we pay a small sum extra to keep it private.
Also, please don't try to give away our animals. They are our
responsibility, and we will deal with them. We are not giving
away any more animals at the moment." And so on. Extremely
gently... not yelling. Then I bid her a formal good day, and hung
up. Temper hanging by a sheer thread, but under control. It did
not occur to me that these were in any way unreasonable requests
to make of anyone, as we'd have understood and complied, if asked
the same thing.
We went outside for a bit... just minutes. When we came back in,
there was a message on the answering machine to the effect of,
"Rhonda, I hope you see a shrink soon. You're really sick!",
from my loving mother. I said nothing. Again. Ronnie was steaming,
but also silent, waiting to see what I'd do.
I placed a telephone call, was hung up on, and tried a second
time with the same result.
For many, many years, I took may father to the Veterans' Administration
Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Every single appointment, every
emergency call. I always have set out his pills for him, etc.
(My mother was also taken to appointments, whenever she needed
to go. She just was/is not as chronic in needing care.) My siblings
lived their lives right on without seeming to notice much, although
I carefully kept them posted.
For the last year or so, my sister has taken Dad to the appointments...
her request, not mine. She didn't tell me about any appointments,
but as she also has health concerns, etc., I left it alone.
But I still prepared the medicines for my father. He has nine
varieties, plus two kinds of insulin, and I had arranged a simple
system to make refills of his daily boxes easy. (This has always
proved to complicated for anyone else to do... and it's only a
two-number system. Sheesh... and I'm the sick, stupid one!!!)
I tried to tell her that we had limited time to get the empty
box refilled as I had promised him, despite disagreements, and
quietly. We had somewhere to be, very soon. She'd hung up, so
I decided to get on with it anyway. When we got there, she (my
mother) had locked the door on us, deliberately. Ronnie had a
key given to him for emergencies, which I had personally refused,
knowing the way the family was about such things. (Yet another
story!) So, we entered via the front door with a key, and I arranged
the pills, without ever seeing her. (She hides in the rear bathroom,
routinely, whenever she starts a conflict she can't handle. Very
childish, and a life-long habit of hers, at least for the part
of my 39 years that I can remember, and according to others who
have experienced her outbursts and similar controlling behaviors.)
When we got ready to leave, I gathered up a handful of personal
belongings, including a painting that needed varnishing, they'd
been hanging for me due to our limited space here. There were
also a few tiny ornaments from the china cabinet. Little animal
figurines and the like. I forgot the blown-glass ornament from
our wedding cake, and some others. But no matter. She's probably
smashed them by now. Another habit.
About this time, she showed up, accusing us of breaking in and
saying she'd call 911. Another habit. Very predictable. I said
nothing, didn't look at her or raise my voice. Just told her to
go on and do it, if she felt the need. We took the stuff out,
got in the truck and left.
Simple. Non-violent. Quiet. Locked the door on the way out. Civilized...
a foreign concept for some folks.
Later, I was paid a visit by a social worker. Apparently, some
kind family member filed a Mental Health Warrant on me.
Before I had a chance to explain, the young woman asked me if
I'd "ever thought to get help for my anger issues."
Whoa!! If I were going to blow my top, that would have been the
time...trust me. Have you ever been called crazy, by someone who
sincerely meant it? A person who gave you no chance to explain,
even once? Fortunately, I was used to this, letting it slide off
of me like water off a duck's back.
I replied quietly, "Why would I want to do that, when we
only need to move away again?"
The social worker's eyebrows rose... and I took the chance to
spill the beans, 100%. The whole story, good and bad, even my
own good and bad... on the spot. Whoever reported this had said
that I had hit my mother, now waged about 75 years old. Worse
for them, they claimed it was unprovoked and had occurred in the
last two years.
Not only was the time-frame impossible, but so was the injury.
I explained all of this in detail.
I explained it all, adding that I had eye problems from an assault
by a nephew that my mother had not only instigated, but also condoned,
against not only me, but my husband. In my parent's home... and
resulting in permanent eye damage to me, and a facial scar for
Ronnie. (Once again, we were only there for me to care for my
post-operative father at the time.) We got an Emergency Protective
Order against the nephew, wanting only to be left peacefully alone.
We had not done more than protest ourselves against the young
man, who is now deceased.
Alcohol has always been a factor for violence in this family.
It was claimed not to be that night.
In short... the social worker apologized for upsetting me when
she left. And she left loaded with telephone numbers, etc. No
one in our home has any secrets to hide. I explained that. Told
the nice young lady to come back any time. I'd give her any help
I could, but what worried me was my father's medicines...could
she see that that was taken care of? I'd already stopped going
to the house of my parents, next door, and on whose land we have
our trailer sitting... because I knew some of them would manage
to raise some sort of stink. I had no idea they'd sink to using
social services as a revenge tool, and I am sickened by that use.
It isn't right.
What hurt the worst was that my father, knowing better, had talked
to the social worker before she came to the house. He let it happen.
He chose to let me be accused of a thing he personally witnessed
not to be true. He was there... and didn't even care enough to
stop it.
Our choice before the social worker showed up, was to find a place
to move to... with or without our mobile home. Now, that is a
flat-out necessity. We have to move. This will never end, not
now. Maybe they don't realize that, but I do. When we leave, we
won't be coming back for any reason. I have no immediate family
except for Ronnie, and we will soon be making a will to cover
the distribution of our meager possessions. Carefully leaving
out the larger part of the families.
They forgot that I have answering machine tapes for all the harassing
calls they've made, and/or that other people... mostly on the
paternal side of my family... know the whole stinking mess, inside
and out. They forgot me.
I think it's a blessing at this stage. I'm free, nearly, to be
who and what I feel is right, with Ronnie. I am angry, yes. Disappointed
and hurt, yes. But this is an end to abuse that's lasted a life
time. I'll trade having a real home on land I grew up loving,
for pure and simple peace with out legal, physical or emotional
threat and/or attacks from people I should be able to trust. Any
day!
Their land, their money, their anything...I don't want it. None
of it. I've been accused of being greedy, but I'm afraid I don't
remember it that way. There exists copies of a four-page letter
that I wrote to them telling them to proceed with my blessings,
but knowing what they were doing. I wouldn't take anything from
them now, feeling like this. My siblings will take my place seamlessly,
as they originally wanted, and I hope they do.
I only wish them happiness.
The final funny: The day after the social worker visited, I got
a copy of my personal credit statement from the mailbox.
THEY SAY I'M DEAD!
Another laugh, another day.
Shit happens...deal with it!
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