Hello World
Things I remember are scattered by still stand true in my memory. As early as 1st grade, I feared my mother and wished her death. I find that very hard to read as a mother now myself but it is true. As a little girl, I was the youngest of three with two older brothers and just knew I didn't fit. I never fit in the family. Once my brother told me I was left on the door step by gypsies and I wasn't really a part of the family. I somehow found comfort in that explanation, because it fit. Another time, same brother told me, 'yours is the face only a mother could love, and she doesn't so ha ha ha'.... yes that's what he said.
So let's start with what I do remember. I grew up in a home to two working parents, which was the beginning of that time I guess. Many moms stayed at home during the mid-sixties but not my mom. She was proud of her degree & education and rightly so. I'll give her that, rightly so. She relished in having a job and was empowered by it as well.
Due to her work, we had a live-in maid who was there on Sunday at nine and left Friday about the same time. She washed, cleaned, ironed, cooked & cared for my family. We had a maid from birth to my senior year of high school. I knew no different. I clearly remember our first maid, Mary clearly. She was kind and my only ally. We only had two TVs in my home....one in by parent's room and the other out in the living room. Needless to say my parents watched one and my brothers the other. I spend most nights in Mary's bedroom with her and watch television on a tiny 10inch black/white TV. I watched many entertaining shows and learned a great deal of Spanish along the way. Between Cepillin, El Chavo del Ocho, and Topo Gigio, I was quite versed in Spanish television but that was ok because it was an enjoyable time. Mary was kind to me and loved me & even as a child, I knew I should've been getting that type of love from my mother & wasn't. She left us when I was 9 and I cried & cried. She left to get married and told me she would always remember me as her 'little girl'. It broke my heart for her to go but I knew she wanted to have her own family. I just wished she could've taken me with her. We went through several different maids for about four years, and then got Francesca. She was a sweet girl but at the time I thought she was older. It was my junior year in high school when it dawned on me to ask her age and when I found out she was just two years older than me, it broke my heart. That was the beginning of me being more aware of those around me and understanding the world 'was not about me'.
I tired to run away about age 8 or 9. Looking back & a mother myself now, the idea of a child trying to run away at that young age, would be a big red flag. I remember distinctly taking my baby doll carriage, and filling it with my piggy bank, a blanket, my favorite doll, some canned soup & oreos. How crazy was that? As I walked out my brothers laughed at me wished me well & goodbye. As I walked & cried the sidewalk of our neighborhood, my thoughts were not of my care, my well being or where I was going. It didn't matter.... I was out! Sadly as I turned the corner, my mother's car came into view. She slowed down, rolled down the window and asked where I was going. I told her "I'm running away!". She said, "That's fine but try to be home for dinner" and drove away. I stood there stunned for a bit and wondered what to do. It dawned on me that I had no where to go or no one to go to. I HAD to go back home. I knew it but I didn't HAVE to like it. I promised myself that as soon as I could leave, I would & never turn back. It was shortly after that when my oldest brother came into my bedroom when I was crying....doesn't matter now why I was crying but I remember more importantly his advice that day. I hear those words still each day: "You don't have to love her, just do as she says. Don't look at her as 'mom' but only as the woman who gave birth to you...That's what I do."
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