Originally posted 2014-03-30 13:02:40.
My biological father and my mother divorced when I was two years old. My father’s side of the family led what seemed to be a privileged life, as least more than the average family. They had those social-lite parties. My grandmother was a RN and my grandfather retired from the Army to work for Goodyear. I of course wasn’t apart of that lifestyle. My bio’s mother insisted no “cheap store type clothing” not even underwear. Which in my opinion is stupid. My mother busted her ass as a single parent to raise my brother and I. He spent a lot of his youth with the bio-father and their family. I spent most of my youth with my mother. I have never understood why a man who says he wants and loves his children isn’t there for them. I have that for my own father and my children’s bio father/sperm donor. I spent a lot of my childhood reaching out to my father, wanting his attention but never got it. He was too busy making money. My parents spent many years in court for child support. My father clearly had the money to help support me and my brother but felt for some reason my mother either didn’t need it or didn’t deserve the money. What absent parents fail to realize is that it isn’t for the parents benefit. Yes in a way it may look as if the parent is somehow benefiting from the child support but it is contributing to the overall care of the child or children. The amount in the court order for my children stayed at $112 for the both of them for years. Somehow I made it to this point but it wasn’t on that amount alone. He sure as hell did me nor the kids any favors. We went without at times but there was always 2 people I could count on no matter what, my mother and my step-father who was the only ”father” I have ever known. I always could call them if I needed something. I remember in 1999. I was helping a friend at the local convenience store and my children were with my ex-boyfriends mother, who has always been like a grandmother to my children. Hell even my kids call her grandma. I remember going to her house to get my kids to go home. I didn’t have a car at the time. We got their stuff together got ready to leave. I went to step off the porch onto the steps and fell. One of the boards on the step wasn’t nailed down. The bottom of my shoe caught the board and it went up under me and my balance was off. I fell to the right of the steps, my right leg went under me and then I hear this repeated cracking sound. I yelled out, “MA!” Then …I was out. Blacked out. For how long I am not sure. I had literally shattered from one side of my ankle to the other up my tibia and fibula. The orthopedic surgeon described it to my mother like this: If you took a potato chip and sat it on the table, then took your hand and smacked the potato chip…that is what my bones did. There was so much swelling they had to leave the temporary cast split. I severely sprained the other ankle. I was wheel chair bound for a few. They had to do surgery in order for my bones to actually heal. They were in so many pieces that there are some pieces still scattered tangled up in my tendons. The scary moment was during surgery when I came to and heard the sound of a drill. I was on the operating table and could barely see what they were doing. I could hear them. I was yelling but no one could hear me. It seemed as if it lasted a few minutes but I am sure it didn’t last that long. All of a sudden it was gone. I guess they realized they needed more meds in my system to knock me back out. My mother and step father have been there for so many events in our lives. I think that will be my next post. Just a portion of the times they have been there for us. So I will close this one with this…
