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Take it Back Real Quick

When I first started writing this blog, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to approach my audience, what format I wanted to use, and the writing style I was going to use. Nor did I go back through my memory bank and write out a timeline of these events in proper fashion. Most of the time when I was writing, it was late at night, or early morning some would say.

Furthermore, I went through what I have already done, and I am pretty upset at some of the stupid errors I have found in my posts.

I am proud to say, I have thought out how I want to approach this blog. I am no longer half-cocked in my approach, this is my story, my life, and my loved ones. In which case, my loved ones and I deserve much more respect and gratitude for the good and evil, the rights and the wrongs, the ups and downs, and the lies and all the truths.

There are a few moments I am going back to place it in before I go any further. I appreciate you all for taking the time to read my blog. I will ask you all if there is anything that does not make sense, please ask questions, leave comments; lastly, part two will be following close by. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Many
Thanks and Blessings,

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Click, Click, Click

A story that will having you realizing, maybe your life wasn’t so bad, or was it? When a person is left with the decision to either give up or empower himself to make a difference within.

A story that will have you realizing, maybe your life wasn’t so bad or was it? When a person is left with the decision to either give up or empower himself to make a difference within.

When does someone call it quits? When does someone say they just can’t take it no more? Then on the other hand, when does someone say they will just make the best of the situation? How about that was the hand I was dealt in life so just deal with it? Of course, there are countless ways to ask these questions depending on the scenario and of course the individual.

Each of those questions has an easy, yet not so easy answer and it is entirely up to the individual faced with these questions to answer them. Not only do they have the choice to answer them any way they want, but when do they face the situations or circumstances that had them ask these questions in the first place? To empower oneself not to look down on these circumstances and individuals, whereas being empowered to look at those very things in the face and be humbled?

I am going to share different parts of my life with those who took the time to read this and hopefully someone gets something out of it. Let me start with an overview of myself and my conquest for answers. My name is Christopher, I am from Maryland, I have a younger brother, and our parents are divorced after 20+ years of marriage. It’s almost the end of 2018, so I think it is safe to say this all sounds normal so far, correct? The funny thing is the normality of this family was far from it during the conception of it.

Before I continue I must inform the readers that I searched for years and asked countless questions to people that were family, not family, old friends of relatives that knew them before I was conceived. All this searching to better understand these people that raised me and called me their son, their child and to say they loved me. To only find out things no child should ever know about their mother, father or whoever raised them.

My doubts about my identity started at the age of five due to my mother’s youngest nephew Rob. Rob took it upon himself to start telling me about some other guy being my father and that Patrick was just a guy that my mom convinced he was the father. That moment was followed up by a five-year-old asking his mother if the guy he called dad was really his dad or not. With her just to tell me Rob was out of his fucking mind and not to believe a word that came out his mouth. Jackie’s reaction triggered a memory that raised even my doubt. I recalled a year prior to this, my mother with the assistance of her mother Rose, actually kidnapped me from Patrick while he was holding my little brother outside of an Ames store (similar to K-Mart but back in the early ’90s). I recall them speeding away and us going on a long drive to her mother’s trailer. That in itself became a nightmare leading to the both of them telling me to go outside to play with the other kids on the block, and during a game of hide and seek I was locked in a shed following laughter of the kids. That very moment created my fear of dark tight spaces and the doubt of love coming from my mother.

To Be Continued:

Post 1, 11/28/2018

“You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written behind your silence and your suffering.”     Anne Rice

Image result for empowering quotes

Juices flowing…

Following up from the previous post… I remember the neighborhood of Piston Circle in Reisterstown, Maryland very well. I had some interesting things happen to me while

To name a few of my first experiences ; my first time on a skate board and falling off it, and scraping my hands and knees up pretty badly. The first time i got dropped off the bus from school and no one was home which was unusual so I was locked out the house about two hours. I was only in second grade and that was a terrifying experience.

Then there was the time I was playing by the creek, acting like the Karate Kid and kicked a bee hive completely on accident. That was a horrific experience, I was stung over 100 times. I remember when D Davis kicked me in my nuts so hard I experienced that nausea feeling a male gets when it is almost like your testicles are traveling up through intestines and get stuck in your own throat.

Things start taking a turn, well a few turns and dips. I know things happened to make some interesting reading. So sit back and enjoy the rather disturbing tails of my life.

As The Time Line Goes!

Well since the last post my cousin Rob and I were talking, and from that conversation, I started to remember a few things I forgot to mention. One thing I wanted to touch on.

So vivid memories can be, and that is the case with these memories, and there are questions. Some questions I expect, I think we all hope to have some normal/typical responses. But what about those questions you ask and people give you the “that shit isn’t normal” response? Well, I have a couple of those questions, followed by events from my childhood I want to share with you all.

When you were a child, did you ever wake up with your parents having sex in the same bed you are waking up on? When was the first time you had sex?

It was around the ages four to five when I was living at Piston Circle (name of the neighborhood) when I woke up in a daze. It was like a lucid dream, I thought I was in a bounce house, jumping around as a kid should. Then, BLAM!!! A hard hit across the head of reality to what a child should not witness. I woke up bouncing, but not jumping up and down as I was in the bounce house, it was me laying belly down being bounced from my parents having sex in the very bed I was resting in.

That isn’t a smile of a child waking up to a nightmare. Here is a kid that is still innocent for the time being. Then a year or so later I remember my parents asking me to stay in the kitchen to watch my little brother Josh, who was still in the high chair at the time.
Keep in mind when I was growing up, my parents didn’t have a lot of money, so we only had one television downstairs in the living room. Not like today where most families have 3+ TVs throughout the house and in every bedroom.

As it goes, my parents more so told me to stay in the kitchen with Josh. Me being a kid, I wanted to know what was going on, so I poked my head around the corner to see my parents watching (to find out late on it was porn) but also seeing my parents having sex. I am sure some of you are thinking, “well it’s only sex,” but as a child, it can be a weird yet exciting thing to see at such an early age.

And now life starts to get the juices flowing…

Death Looks Peaceful, or Does it? Part 1

When I really started to know my aunty, and the torture she when through. To watch someone fight the fight, to say no to giving up time and time again.

Part 1!

After the incident with my dad and Jess (Rachel), things were calm for the most part. Things started to return to normal, well at least what I thought was normal anyways. I can’t recall the exact time and date, but it wasn’t too long after Jess left, Jackie’s family was hit with a blow that would last for a few years.

I mentioned before how the Whitcomb’s weren’t loving, and there was an emotional distance between all of them. It was around the year 1992 – 1993 that Jackie received a phone call from her sister Gayle. This phone call wasn’t like anything I have ever witnessed at this early stage of my life.

I remember Jackie picking up the phone and answering the call like any other phone call, then it took an abrupt turn for the worse. Jackie went into this panic mood that put her in autopilot, and I remember her telling me to grab a coat and to get out to the car. The ride was intense, with Jackie cutting in and out of traffic trying to get to Gayle’s house, about 45 minutes away.

I don’t recall exactly what happened, but I remember us showing up and finding Gayle laying on the floor in agonizing pain. Jackie rushed over to her to help her up, but Gayle couldn’t stand, she couldn’t even move her toes, feet, and legs were all limp. From what I remember of the story given to Jackie from Gayle, was that Gayle was putting laundry away, and when Gayle bent over and started to lift the cloth basket, she lost her balance and fell backward. Gayle hit the metal cross track with such force, she broke her back paralyzing her.  Jackie managed to get Gayle to the hospital, where they spent a couple days.

Later, that week Jackie received another phone call from Gayle, asking her to come over because she needed her too. I didn’t go that trip, but I remember her being gone for a while, maybe 5 or 6 hours. When Jackie arrived back home, she was pissed, swearing all kinds of words disgusted with Gordon.

Gordon of all people, who I really didn’t know anything about other than he owned the DnD’s that my cousin and my aunty worked. Well, Jackie proceeds to tell us what happened, Gordon broke her arm. That bastard broke her arm because she called Jackie and not him when she fell and broke her back.

This is the beginning of getting to know my aunty, Gayle.

Breaking Old News…

I just want to update everyone on a recent conversation I had with my dad (Patrick) over the weekend when he called me on my 33rd. We were chatting about life and events going on in our life’s when he gave me the best present, the best insight and correction I could have only imagined. Patrick informed me that he has been reading my blog, this blog. I must reiterate why I even started this process, which I explained to him in detail, but I am going to elaborate on the critical point of why.       Since, a lot of my memories and witnessing of lies on top of lies, cover-up on top of concealment, and just non-stop sweeping shit under the rug, I feel that since the family/individuals have grown (I can only hope), that they and myself can let the past be the past. I am hoping that with me airing out a lot of information, that maybe the truth will bring this family together. Please everyone, no judgment of anyone for something they have done so long ago.
There we were, talking on the phone catching up when Patrick asks me how I remembered that, and I asked him what? Patrick informed me that he has been reading my entries and he felt he needed to correct something. The confession was amusing, and it went along the lines, “Christopher, her name wasn’t Rachal, her name was Jesse, and furthermore, my dick didn’t owe her money.”  This right here is what I have been asking and hoping for, the truth to come out of someone’s mouth.

Patrick did say he couldn’t remember that exact moment, but he does remember the metro Geo, Jesse/Rachal, and her blowing him. I have to say that makes this a success already….. The next entry will be following shortly….. Thank you to everyone, Please remember to like, share and comment on anything. Share how this might be having an impact on your thought process, your parenting, self-reflection, ect..

Starts as a Seed, Grows to a…….

Throughout my life, there wasn’t much of a connection with my mom’s side of the family, just bits and pieces. The few things I would ever be informed of about anyone was always a half-assed story, which I will explain more about each person as the story is told, just as I found out. Oh, and as the story is told this seedling grows.
During my early years, I would say between the ages of birth to thirteen, I saw my mother’s side of the family rarely enough to remember. Jackie’s father passed away when I was just around three years old, and her mother Rose just terrified me. Rose was just a mean person in general, but I will save that stuff for later.
Jackie’s siblings were her two older brother’s, Frank and Joe, than her older sister Gayle. Frank and Joe didn’t have any kids, well at least that we knew of, but Gayle had two sons, James and Robert. James is the oldest being 12 years older and his brother Robert who was five years older than me. These two will be talked more about throughout the story and so will their mother. May she rest in peace. But that is it for my mother’s side and now onto my dad’s side.
Patrick was the youngest of five siblings, raised by their mother Sharon, who will be referred to by her nickname and the only name I knew her as is Moonie. Patrick has three sisters, Cheri, Gail and Dawn with the other brother Earl. To briefly describe everyone so this story can go on, and I will go more into detail about each person as life/this story goes on so please forgive me.
Cheri had three sons, Grayson, Nick and Alex, then Gail didn’t have kid’s nor, do I think she ever wanted kids plus she is proud to be only interested in women. Dawn had a son Jarrett and Earl never had any since he walked his own line being a homosexual. Then there is Patrick with my brother Josh and Myself. Now that the rundown of the families is there as a reference and the individuals who have played any significant role will be mentioned throughout.
Cliff hanger, stay tuned as this seedling endures some storms as it is growing….

Witnessing Infidelity…..Like Woe..

It was the summer of 1993, and my parents were back together, mom moved into the apartment. The first thing was to get on me about the stickers I placed on her face in every single picture in the apartment, then unleashed on my dad for allowing it.

Within seconds my dad lashed back for the first time and put her in her place and gladly pointed at the door. Jackie’s bark ended abruptly and the day moved onwards to some family function, I don’t remember exactly what it was for, but it was my dad’s side of the family.
Everyone acted like everything was normal like Rose never walked out on my dad. Aunts, uncle, grandmother, cousins, and friends smiled and hugged her like absolutely nothing happened. I was confused about what was going on with everyone and wondering if they were okay. I witnessed being “fake” in a way that would leave a lasting impression on how I would look at these people for the rest of my life.
After a few weeks of my mother being back, I noticed how she was more involved in everything around the house. It was noticeably uncomfortable, and I was correct in my assumption. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my brother, mother, and dad and they bring up for discussion about maybe moving another person in the apartment, and if that were the case, they would be putting a twin bed in our room.

My brother and I had bunk beds, but to move another person in this two bedroom, two baths was ridiculous. What can two kids say to their parents? To answer that question, it’s nothing, not a damn word would make a difference, so we nodded in agreeance.

Two days later this familiar face walks through the front door, it’s Rachel from that guy Dave’s house. She walks in with my mom laughing and giggling like little school girls. I recall Rachel looking right at me with a smile, all I could do was shake my head in disapproval. I looked back at my dad, “really, are you serious.” All he could do was just smile and laugh under his breath.

Throughout my entire childhood and onward, I can recall spending every other weekend at my grandmother’s house. That great woman was Sharon Gray, but all the grandkids called her Moonie. I will tell more about her, and the impact she had/has on my life till this very day, but for now, I will keep in sequence and on topic.

Whereabout was I… Oh yea, so this one weekend during summer break a few friends, and I went on a bike ride. It was to the very same shopping center I mentioned back in the first post, the Ames shopping center.

One of the entrances to the shopping center was on the back side of the stores and wrapped around but along the back was a parking area that wasn’t used to much. The only time parking was used there was during the Hannamore sport fields were being used during any season.
I am going to take a guess on around what time it was when I actually was in that parking lot, but I know it was after 6pm because I knew my parents work schedule.

Furthermore, I knew because of who I have seen in that parking lot and to make sure I rode up a little closer. Then a little closer, slowly drifting up to the car and to mention back then my parents owned a GEO Metro. For those that don’t remember or even know what it looks like, well just imagine a bathtub flipped upside down with wheels (if I can find a picture of that model, I will pass it). So I finally got to the driver’s side window and stopped. It was one of those things you happen to see that leaves an lasting impression and scared for life.

It was my dad, lying back with one hand behind his head and the other on top of Rachel’s head. It was a solid minute or two before he opened his eyes to see me just standing there, in complete shock but at the same time I was like, ” hell yea dad.” Trust when I say that chick was sucking his **** like she owed it money. Let me just say this one thing about it, I understood why he was doing this, and I wasn’t mad or harnessed any ill feelings towards him. When he noticed me standing there, the look in his eyes definitely matched mine but with a calmness and I can only imagine he didn’t want to startle her and then what, she bites his **** off.
That would have been funny but that wasn’t the case, the matter at hand was how my dad was going to respond to this. As he was putting down the window and she was wiping the spit off her lips, I was like “dad I understand, and you don’t have to worry about a thing from me.” Of course he didn’t think that was the case, but I told him not to freak out and to just let her get back to work on that and that I would see him at home tomorrow.
His and my calmness was shocking for Rachel and to my satisfaction,  I rode off into the sunset… Sike, I had to ride back east so into the darkness… That is just as corny, but I like it…
I was like WOOOOOHHHH.. Stay tuned people, the events are going to get pretty intense, but for me to tell the rest, I have to take the next post and explain who’s who.
Thank you so much for the few readers so far, please share and comment on my posts. I know this much, my story is going to touch someone as they will relate and they will know they were and are not alone.

And It Continues……

Meeting the first guy my mom left my dad for. Then experiencing the first time my mother spoke badly about my dad to me.

While I was helping my dad unpack our belongings at the apartment, I remember taking out each photo and placing a sticker over my mother’s face. Each and every picture got a, and my dad asked me what I was doing. My reply was short and direct, “dad, I hate her, and I am glad she is gone.” All my dad could do was shake his head, he knew what she had already done regarding another man and that I was a smart kid.

After a couple of months with going back and forth, I had my first “light bulb moment” as some would say. My mother wasn’t really that giggly type, so when she was acting like a little school girl with laughter, I asked her if she was happy without a dad. She proceeded to ask me how I felt about them not being together, and without a pulse, I said I was not pleased about it. She then asked me how I felt about having a stepdad.

Right there at that very moment I knew how I had been feeling was correct, she left my dad for another man. I told her that I would be happy if she would just tell me why. Jackie said to me that she met this man at her job (when she was a cashier at some department store call Luskins) and that he made her feel beautiful and that all my dad ever did was trash talk her and mistreats her.

Now at that point in my life, my parents did an excellent job keeping whatever issues they had behind closed doors. The only fight I ever saw them have in my life was from my mom starting it as soon as he walked in from work. Either way, I wanted to meet this guy who is apparently worth leaving dad for and only seeing her children part-time.

That weekend my mother picked me up and said today was the day I would meet this guy, and if I recall correctly his name was Dave.

We pulled up at this house in Glen Bernie, Maryland, it was about 35-45 minutes from where my mom lived. I remember going into the house and being amazed at what I was saw. This guy had aquariums full of fish, turtles, lizards (iguanas, bearded dragons, etc.), an assortment of sneaks, in his walls.

Literally, when you walked into any room, the aquariums were on tables pressed against the cutout. This guy Dave had a place strictly for breeding mice and crickets for feeding. Then I met Dave himself, and this guy was an arrogant asshole who lived there with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. All I remember of those two is the girlfriend, and that is because she was a hottie.

This visit ended up being a few hours due to my mom and Dave getting into this huge fight over her bringing me there. I recall him saying to Jackie is that she had to choose him or the kids.
Well, yet again she surprised me with how she did stand up for my brother and me.

Things are about to spice up, stay tuned…

The Crying Out Begins!

    I remember those kids outside of the shed, all of them older than me by 3-5 years easily. They were belting out these laughs that just left me so enraged, I ran into that door and it came off the hinges. My scrawny little body hit the ground and rolled with momentum where I stood up and kept running. I ran so fast to my grandmothers’ trailer home, running up to my mother and grabbing her legs.

   Being terrified after watching my dad just stand there with my baby brother in his arms, as my mother’s mother drove off like a bat out of hell. Then listening to my mother bash my dad and his family for her own reasons, me being too young to really realize what was going on. Then in the twenty-four hour period, getting locked in a shed,  being laughed at, sobbing as any child would, my mother tells me to stop acting like a baby.

    At such an early age I remember that feeling of disappointment, not coming from my mother but coming from me towards her. Who starts shutting down and withdrawing at the age of 4? I was already awkward, I had a speech problem, reading was out of the question and that wasn’t resolved until fourth grade. Now my mother is shunning me for reasons I did not know at the time, but later in life, everything comes to light.

    Since I am aware of everything and by digging into my mother’s past I can safely say that my mother was torn between her new lover and deciding on abandoning me as she did to my dad and baby brother the day before. Nevertheless, Jackie starts to feel like shit after I started to beg her to take me home to my dad. Begging her to take me home to my baby brother and dad, then telling her mother she was just as evil for driving away. At that moment, her mother (I feel sick calling her my grandmother) raised her hand to me.

    Jackie shocked me when she stepped up to her mother with them, “I dare you to lay a hand on my child.” I found out that the only person allowed to beat me, was Jackie herself. Fast-forwarding a bit, to give the reader a visual depiction of the folks in my family and dynamics up until I was thirteen. Actually, I have to say eleven because of the most influential person in my life until the day she passed, what my dad’s mother Sharon.

   From the time I could speak the only name I ever called her by was Moonie. The rundown begins with my mom’s side of the family, she was the youngest of four siblings. Jackie had two older brothers and a sister, Jack, Joe, and Gayle, her mother and father (pop pop). Poppop drunk himself to death when I was only 3 years old, so I didn’t know him that well. But from what I can remember he was one hell of a landscaper but his downside was his wife, Rose.

   She was a crazy bigot who tormented everyone and even Pops until he died. Joe and Jack were involved with whatever (I don’t know a whole lot about them other than they drank and partied hard) and Gayle, God bless her soul, was kinda a loose woman which my mother idolized her. Gayle had two son’s, James and Robbert. I will tell you about my relations with them throughout this blog. Robbert was the only one from Jackie’s side of the family that I was close with.For my dad’s side and he is the youngest of five, his three oldest sisters were Cheri, Gail, and Dawn, his brother’s name was Earl (God bless his soul).

    Moonie was a single mother who raised 5 kids, worked multiple jobs, and took no shit from anyone. Cheri still to this day is the biggest pill dealer in her area of Maryland, then Gail who is the powerhouse successful lesbian and Dawn who pushed tons and tons of marijuana for the Jamaicans/business owner and then Earl who was an extremely well put together homosexual. Cheri has three boys, Grayson the oldest, Nick the middle child and then Alex being much younger than his two brothers. Dawn has her son Jarrett, both Gail and Earl never had nor wanted children.

    This was the size of the family as I grow up from childhood, which I will tell you the growth of the family as this blog goes on. Growing up and watching all the arguments and watching my mother leave my dad for other men than when he would take her back. The next thing she would do is slander my dads family name, telling anyone who would listen about how they mistreated her and blah blah blah. Being that mom and dad were high school dropouts, they really didn’t have anything to offer the world.

    Thank the Lord for Gail and her success because, without her, neither of them would have had a decent job or career.Since that briefing of my family is out of the way, I am going to rewind a bit and share the molding and shaping of this man who lives to tell the story of overcoming so shit in life. Never once will I say my life was harder than everyone else’s or that I went hungry. That wasn’t the case for me and after the incident with Rose and her mother driving off with me, life got real, fast and my childhood was out the window.

   Soon after the above incident, I was in third grade and my brother was in pre-k. Both of us get called out of school early. Excited as kids could be, we load up into our parents’ car and go for a drive. I remember today as it were that very day, Beautiful weather, windows down, fast food ready for us, and the drive went on. We all pull up to this newly built townhome, and we walked inside. My brother and I were running around guessing which room was ours. Sadly mistaken we were, to find out our parents were separating again, but the good news was my dad got an apartment right up to the road across from our new school.

    When I asked where we’re staying, my mom promptly said we were staying with our dad. Do you remember that feeling I said I got at the trailer home? I got it again and this time I was one pissed off little kid.A week into the move, I am helping my dad unpack the apartment and as I took every family photo out of the box, I would slap stickers on my mother face.

THE STORY WILL GO ON…TO BE CONTINUED!!!