A Family in Turmoil

my sister susan

when I was about eleven I remember one of my mothers larger episodes.I don't recall everything about what happened but I do remember a few things. My older sister Susan was about fifteen at the time and was told by our parents that she needed to quite school. I think this came from mom mostly, dad I think was told that it was Susan's choice. She was to quite school so she could take care of Christine and David who were very little at the time. Some times mom would talk in tongues or a babbling that no one understood, and we would sit at the bar in the kitchen and listen to her. She would tell some interesting stories. I don't recall many of them. But none the less she had our attention. We had no clue as to what was going on, and no understanding of anything. Susan held a lot of anger for mom because she had to quite school. She later decided to get her GED and go to beauty school. She could tell more about what all happened here then I could. Mom was almost completely unresponsive before dad put her in the hospital. She couldn't walk, or talk. My sister was so angry at her, she didn't know what to do. We had a picture of jesus, we were fairly churchy at the time. Well any way, she shoved the picture in moms face and I don't know exactly what happened except that she deffinately got her attention. This is the only thing that mom says she remembers from this whole break down. Ever since she believed that susan was trying to kill her. She always felt threatened by her kids in one way or another.
This reminds me of a time when I was five. I was daddies little girl, I was still the youngest, christy wasn't born yet. When dad came home every evening I would just get so extatic. I would run to the door and jump in his arms. I craved this attention and waited for it every day. One day right as dad drove into the yard mom explained to me that I needed to stop greeting dad at the door. I was a big girl now and that kind of attention was strictly for a man and wife. I was crushed. I never hugged or kissed him again. For that matter I don't remember getting much affection from mom after that. Dad never knew what mom told me, he said that he thought I had gotten to the point where I didn't need affection from him anymore, and he never pushed the issue. We were all taught that any affection was strictly for man and wife. We even stopped telling people that we loved them. So this made trips to grandmas house kindof uncomfortable because they hugged and kissed. We always got hugs and kisses on the mouth when we showed up and when we left. Even though the whole mouth thing was weird at the time, I will always cherish those memories, because I know they were good ones.

I remember getting up in the morning and trying to sneek change out of the junk droor for lunch money and getting caught. Mom was permaneantly on the couch at this time. I swear I was so quiet, but she still heard me and told me to get out of the droor. Nothing seemed to get by her. Growing up we didn't eat school lunches. We weren't allowed to. We qualified for free lunches but mom and dad refused to let us. We had to take our own. This would have been fine except for what we had to bring. I remember feeling ashamed and embarrased becuase I always had something that was wierd and not really filling. Mom had this thing about eating healthy. Healthy doesn't bother me, I know its good. but there can be a line that if crossed it can do more damage than good. Food was always an issue at home. I remember trying to make a honey and peanut butter sandwich out of this bread stuff that mom had made. It was heavy flat and crumbly. I would carefully put it in a sandwich bag and that was my lunch. When I was eight it was hard to explain what my lunch was so I wouldn't eat it, or try to hide it while I ate. We weren't allowed to eat sugar, cafiene, additives, preservatives, white floor, milk, beef or pork, soda, juices and just about anything that seemed normal. There were times when I would steel food or lunch tickets at school. I just wanted to be like everyone else. Well one day I got caught steeling a lunch ticket. My teacher sent me to the principal and I just cried. I was so ashamed. I couldn't tell him why I had done it. But the end result was my parents ended up getting me free lunches. It came to a point that my mom was disgusted with buying groceries for her six children that she had dad install a lock on the refrigerator. She felt she was spening too much money on food. by this time I was thirteen. Most of our meals consisted of a piece of baked chicken, half a tomato and a green onion; this was our dinner. there would be some lite variation. but not much. Our diet was very strict. At breakfast time we would measure out one cup of granola that mom had made for us. Lunch was left-overs or two eggs, or whatever we scrounged up. Dinner varied some with maybe half an avacado, or raw asparagus (absalutely disgusting), or raw brussel sprouts, or raw spinach. We never went hungry I can say that, but we ate very basic foods.
I love my sisters very much. Susan was always there for us untill she moved away, which is another stor in itself. I just wish I could be there more for her now. She is doing fine, but still fighting her own battles.