Thank You: Part 1

I never saw myself telling the story of my life. I mean, everyone goes through stuff, right? Why is my story special enough for the world to hear it? Well, my girlfriend feels otherwise. It feels good to have someone proud of me, and she’s motivated me to share my bullshit with the world. So, if you’re reading this, welcome to the shit show.

It all began when in 1991 in the good ole’ state of Massachusetts when my dad (let’s call him Jim) went to a wedding. He met a girl there (let’s call her Linda) and they hit it off pretty good; so good that they hooked up in the back of his car. What should’ve been a one-night stand ended up turning into a 9-month ordeal that resulted in the birth of my twin brother and I. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, except for the fact that my mom was addicted to crack, and we were both born with crack in our systems. We were admitted to the NICU, and our mom wasn’t allowed to take us home. It’s bad to give birth to two babies and make them addicts before they even had a chance. Like come on lady, what’s wrong with you?

Eventually my mom had enough of my brother, and I stuck in the emergency room and made the decision to kidnap us out of the NICU. Things were different back then because she got away with it easily. If the same instance happened today, she would’ve been caught and thrown in jail before she left the parking lot. At least she brought us to my dad. God, I loved that guy. He was the coolest motherfucker on the planet; he was wild, tough, and a free spirit. He fit right in with the motorcycle gang he was a member of. He took good care of us though and loved us like nothing else on the planet.

My mom on the other hand didn’t really give a shit. She would come and go and come and go again. She had two other sons with a different man that she would just drop off to my dad’s house. We all got along great and even though I was just a baby, I still remember how much fun my half-brothers had with my dad, brother, and me.

One day, everything changed. I must’ve been two or three when my mom showed up out of nowhere and asked to spend time with us for the day. My dad let us go because he knew we needed a mom and wanted her to be in our lives. If only he knew what her true intentions were. You see, she didn’t pick us up to go to the park or get ice cream. She kidnapped my twin brother and I and moved us down to Florida. Why did she do it? No one could say for sure, but if I had my best guess, I’d say she wanted to collect the tax benefits from us.

We moved down there and found a trailer park with an available a trailer. We moved in, and that was that. She did nothing for us. The house was always a mess, it was filled with cockroaches and mice, there was barely any food, and we were always starving. At 4 years old, I learned how to cook meals for my brother and I; blue box mac and cheese. We didn’t know how to read or write and usually slept outside. We never took bathes or had clean clothes; my brother and I were completely neglected. That sounds bad right? Well, it got worse.

Soon enough she found Dick who became my stepdad. He seemed nice at first but soon revealed his true colors. He was a crack addict like my mom and was extremely abusive. My twin brother and I were beaten every single day, for no reason at all. Our mother did nothing to stop it; she even joined in sometimes. That’s why my brother and I found solace sleeping under the stars even though we were just 4 years old. We also had fun with our neighbor which we called Georgie, who was an angel sent from God. She would make sure we would go inside at night, give us food when we were hungry, and just made us feel loved and cared about in a way we hadn’t experienced since we last saw our dad.

God, my mom and stepdad were the farthest thing from good parents. All they cared about was crack, getting crack, and not letting anyone get in the way of them having a good time. When my brother was 6, he was ran over by a car and his legs were crushed. You know what my mother did? She picked him up and dropped him on his crushed legs to see if he could still stand. I’ll never forget the sound they made when they crumbled to the ground.

My brother was in a wheelchair and couldn’t walk for two years, and our stepdad still beat him. I did what I could to get that bastard away from my brother, even if it meant I got beat twice as bad. The beatings went on and on to the point where I taught myself not to cry; if I cried, he beat me harder. Shutting my brain off to the pain was the only defense I knew I could do as a 6-year-old child.

My mom and stepdad also never taught us the importance of stranger danger and failed to protect us. Both my brother and I were lured by an old man that my mom knew through drugs into the house. I won’t go into detail of what he did to us, but I’m sure you can guess. For once, my mom did something motherly and took us to the police station. The freak was arrested and was sent to jail for a long time. Damn, that was a hard thing to go through as a 5-year-old kid.

You must be asking how in the world did no one know what was going on? No one saw the bruises or suspected anything? You’ve be pleased to hear that someone did, and my brother and I were taken away from our abusive parents. Our neighbor Georgie informally adopted us and took care of us. She gave us shelter, food, education, and taught us all about manners because boy we didn’t have any.

We loved our time with Georgie; she was truly the mother I never had. We stayed with her until we were about 8 years old when the most exciting news in the world came in; our father was found, and he was coming to get us!

We learned that he had been looking for us for years and years. He hired a private investigator and spent every single penny he had to find us. It broke him, and he thought he was never going to see us again. So, when we saw him standing in the airport with tears in his eyes, we ran to him with open arms. We knew were going to be okay.

We said goodbye to o beloved Georgie and boarded the plan back to Massachusetts; a territory that had once been so familiar but was now foreign. If only I knew then what was going to be in store when we arrived.