posted on August 15, 2001 07:19:12 PM
I remember...um....well...OH! I got one. I remember stumping my toe on the coffee table. It hurt.
I remember taking a BIG SWIG of milk from the frig, and it was curdled. Nasty.
I remember having to go to the bathroom and no place in sight while driving, so had to squat under the bridge in Arizona and buffalo were roaming nearby snorting and pawing the ground. Scarey.
And you?
edited for spelling. Hard to type when not smiling anymore.
[ edited by hepburn on Aug 15, 2001 07:19 PM ]
posted on August 15, 2001 07:22:19 PM
I remember Mom calling me Stupe as a nickname.
I remember my sister primping in front of the mirror and Mom saying "ah, what happened to your sister? She looks nothing like US". (Payback is a b!tch. Now I ask what happened to my sister...she looks NOTHING like she used to).
posted on August 15, 2001 07:34:53 PM
I remember right after the 1977 flood I was playing in knee high water and I kept walking on what felt like arms and legs.
The next day they pulled 8 bodies out of there.
I didn't even fight my mom when she said we all had to go for tetanus shots!
I also remember touring the morgues looking for one of my cousins.
posted on August 15, 2001 07:35:14 PM
What?? Nobody wants to discuss awful memories? I thought for SURE it would be a big hit. After all, one thread was semi ruined from the good memories for folks to share due to bad memories being posted in it instead of starting a new thread for the bad ones. Like this one. I am so disappointed. Darn.
posted on August 15, 2001 07:38:08 PM
Last week I pulled out of a driveway to turn left. Looked back to the left again after commiting to going and there was a large green Cadillac about two feet away from impact going about 40 miles an hour. Next the window came over and smacked me in the face.
posted on August 15, 2001 07:38:24 PM
Becky, you were posting at the same time I was.
Im sorry. I do not mean to make light of what you or anyone else experienced. Just was really disappointed that the smile I had on my face was wiped off because I was forced, AGAIN, to see bad things that I would like to forget just once. World sucks enough already, ya know? Anyway..my condolences as to your experience. My smithyriddles got bunched and I vented by starting this thread.
posted on August 15, 2001 07:40:25 PM
I remember sitting on a damn bee. I thought I would be cool and JUMP in the wader pool (I was a kid, of course) and I landed SMACK DAB on that bee. Yep...and it stung RIGHT THERE...couldnt sit for a week. Poor Mom had to pull the stinger out. LOL! That was the best moon I could have given her...too bad I was bawling when I did it and couldnt appreciate the irony until grown up
posted on August 15, 2001 08:12:49 PM
I remember being told when I was 6 that because I was a girl I could not have cowboy boots, only ugly red & white cowgirl boots. I didn't want those, and my mother said "it's cowgirl boots or nothing." I said "then it's nothing." But when I was in high school I bought my own damn boots with money I got for my birthday.
I remember being molested by the boy who lived down the street.
I remember going to a house with my mother when I was 8 or 9. When I and the woman's daughter & a friend she already had over were told to go play, they ran down the hall ahead of me to her bedroom and tried to slam the door in my face. My hand was on the edge of the door, though, and they both held their weight against the door pushing with all their might. I did not make a sound and my mother & her friend weren't even aware of it happening even though they were only a little ways away in the living room.
I remember being blamed for breaking a window with a rock & no matter how much I pretested my innocence my mother & sister didn't believe me--until the man who mowed the lawn for the triplex we lived in knocked on the door & said his mower had thrown up a rock & broken our window...
I remember being looked down on by other girls in junior high & high school because I didn't share their interests and, even worse, didn't dress modishly as we were very poor.
I remember walking down the hall in high school between classes & having a black student slam her binder & books over my head for no reason at all as I passed her.
I remember my sister having a nervous breakdown in high school after my dad walked out and going to visit her with my mother while she was undergoing treatment.
I remember when I got to the same high school, counselors trying to get *me* to see a psychiatrist when I came down with bursitis--because of my sister's mental problems.
I remember, at age 17, receiving a call from a hospital saying that my sister had committed suicide.
I remember, at age 22, calling the paramedics when my mother began to cough up her lungs & standing in the hospital after being told she'd died.
There are other bad, nasty memories, but I figure this is enough...
[ edited by bunnicula on Aug 15, 2001 08:13 PM ]
posted on August 15, 2001 08:22:54 PM
Bunnicula, your school memories just slammed home to me.
I remember being picked on by the school bully. I stayed locked in my house and had the next door neighbor boy teach me how to fight. I remember going up to the bully a month later, and punching her lights out.
I remember the black girls in school waiting to way lay any white girl caught by herself and trying to beat them up...me included (until I decked the school bully, then they left me alone).
I remember telling the boy I thought was so neato-keeno visitng me in the back yard, and me saying NO, and he didnt listen.
I remember the teachers telling me to get back in my "cage" if I got up to sharpen a pencil.
I remember the clique the teachers formed and the favoritism they gave to the "popular" students.
I remember my dad being so very disappointed in me when I left the "unpopular" kids and started hanging out with the "hoods", just to belong to a group.
I remember my mom calling me in Iowa, and saying out of the blue "your dad is dead. You killed him with your wicked ways".
I remember at the funeral, my mom and sister ignoring me and when they did decide to speak, it was "I hope youre happy". I remember crying on his bead, smelling his cologne still on the pillow and having nobody to share my pain with.
posted on August 15, 2001 08:44:59 PM
Much as we'd like it to be, life isn't always all sweetness & light. Our society these days does it's best to ignore the fact that life *can* be hard, that bad things *do* happen, that death *is* a part of life. We do our best these days to make sure that our children never, ever, realize that life isn't just one big happy party...and then can't understand why they can't handle bad things when they do happen as they inevitably will.
posted on August 15, 2001 08:50:11 PM
Spaz, I aim to please...or displease.
You and I have alot in common, my friend. My mom did what yours did, but she claimed she was leaving because I was bad. She would also put a pan on her head and bang it with a spatula, and prance around the bed chanting "Youre driving me crazy, youre driving me crazy". Scared the crap outta me, thinking I was really driving her crazy. I think I was about 6. Mental terror was her bag. Daddy would do what he could, but most of the time, he didnt know. When he died, I was left alone to battle sis and mom. I didnt bother. I left again, soon as the funeral was over. I havent spoken to my mom in years, no intend to.
She also packed bags and went for drives, coming back to find us in tears (sis and I). She also claimed she couldnt sing anymore, from yelling at us so much. Once, she took all our clothes off and beat us with a black belt til we had welts. I would rather have had the beating again, than the mental hurt she did me. But daddy told her to never raise a hand to us again..so she did it in more subtle ways....mentally.
[ edited by hepburn on Aug 15, 2001 08:52 PM ]
posted on August 15, 2001 09:10:49 PM
Okay I am down enough to be hanging out with you in this thread tonight.
I remember lying in a hospital with my arms at my sides. There were bright lights above me as I was coming to. I try to focus my eyes and I can see a male nurse and a doctor standing above me. I ask them how my son is. The nurse won't make eye contact. The doctor says that they have to make sure that I am stabilized and then someone will talk to me. Nobody will make eye contact. I can tell that something is very wrong. I pass out.
When I come to again my husband is standing there and he has the strangest look on his face. All he says to me is that "he's gone." When I look at him and he sees that I am not comprehending what he is saying, he tells me that our son is dead. I went numb and stayed that way for a long time. Nothing seemed real.
Later I remember coming to again as my husband and my friends had placed my son in my arms. I remember how blue his skin looked. I wish I could remember what he felt like in my arms, but they had given me drugs that made me disconnected. I remember the shock of black hair and when I saw it I was wondering where on earth that came from-- we are all so light haired. I wish I could remember what his hair felt like against my chin as I know I held him close to me for many hours until a nurse took him away in the early morning.
Good therapy. Hard to remember but I need to talk about it. I am coming up on the 3 year anniversary of his death in a couple of weeks so he has been on my mind every day. Thank you.
posted on August 15, 2001 09:15:53 PM
I remember coming home from mass with my mother, and her going absolutely crazy when dad wouldn't wake up. I remember praying in the neighbors house that everything would be ok. I remember my sister coming in and telling me that my daddy was gone. I remember how barbaric I thought it was that my mother had a "party" after the funeral in a local pub. I remember crying out to my mother that I had killed my father cause I b*itched about not getting a brown bonnet a few days before. I remember thinking daddy was away on a secret mission and every car that came down the alley would be him. I remember the day I realized that he really wasn't coming home.
I remember lots of other stuff like being called "Tiny" in school, intercepting notes written about my "pit stains", the go-go boots I got two years too late which became the hoot of the school...But in the big scheme of my life, losing daddy was by far my nastiest memory.
posted on August 15, 2001 09:18:49 PM
ashlandtrader...I cant say anything without saying the normal response...so I will just say Im glad you felt you could vent it out. And my heart is with yours, even though we dont know each other.
Like I said..sometimes, bad nasty things need to be lanced. Lance away, to those who need to. You can always edit it out.
posted on August 15, 2001 09:21:30 PM
Rancher, my dad died when I was 17 years old. I am now 48, and I still have dreams that he isnt dead. That he just got fed up and lives in another town and never came to see me because he couldnt because mama would find out. Silly, but in a way, I think I dream it because I still miss him so damn much. Do you ever dream your dad is still alive? Just curious. You dont have to answer if you dont want. I will understand.
posted on August 15, 2001 09:37:32 PM
Hepburn, I was 10 years old & it took me almost a year of running to the window everytime a car stopped in the alley (we lived in attached townhouses with an alleyway & our garages in the back) before I realized that he really wasn't coming back. I'm 43 now and I strongly believe that although he HAS left this world, he is still very close to me. I KNOW he guided my husband to me (my soulmate) and protected my 1st born son (who was born with a heart disease) and I KNOW that he can hear me when I call out to him, which I do often. In a way, I suppose that is similar to your dreams. We miss them so much, we have to find a way to have them in our lives today. I do find comfort in "talking" to him (sometimes out loud - of course, not usually when people are around) and when I have a problem and call out to him, I do seem to find solutions.
I don't know if you believe in spirits or souls or energies, but if you could for just one minute, you might find that he IS with you...&...I sincerely hope that you can find that peace. Try it, it's not as nutty as you might think!
victoria...I hope the rest of the days of your life are filled with nothing buy joy & happiness!!!...
posted on August 15, 2001 09:47:35 PM
I dont do what you do rancher...but sometimes I do think of him deeply and know he is around. My life is not a bed of roses even now, but it is not even close to what it was when I was 17 and up to 32. I dont know if I believe in spirits or not. But I do believe that there is a greater power, and I am only being given things that they (the higher powers) know I can handle. And yes, Daddy is there too.
I want to say that I started this thread in a light way..as you all can tell from my first posts. It progressed to what is being said now and I want to assure everyone I will NOT have it locked at my request, no matter what, in case anyone needs to get back in to edit if they feel they want to. Validation is very important, and even though I feel so sad for many of your pains, I am so very proud of you all for surviving it.
That didnt sound right, and I dont mean to get all fluffy on ya.
posted on August 15, 2001 10:06:15 PM
I remember the time in junior high when somebody played a mean "joke" on me, and wrote a nasty letter (very sexually explicit) and dropped the note anonymously into my locker. I found the note, read it, and immediately threw it away. Well, either I somehow didn't throw it away after all, or someone got it back out the the trash, because that evening, my parents had the note. I tried to tell them that I didn't have anything to do with it, that I didn't even know who wrote it, and that it certainly wasn't true, but they didn't believe me. I had to wear a long sleeved shirt and long pants to school the next few days to cover up the bruises.
I remember being about 10 years old and holding my great-grandmother's hand in the nursing home, when she didn't even recognize me (Alzheimer's).
I remember being at the emergency room for a relatively minor injury, and overhearing the doctor across the hall talking to a teenage girl who had AIDS and had tried to commit suicide. I remember the mixed feelings it gave me -- I've always been very pro-life, but I couldn't help but feel that, under the circumstances, she ought to have the right to make that decision. I saw her on my way out. It was obvious that she was very, very sick. I felt awful for her.
I remember my mother inviting me over for supper (I was 24), waiting on my dad to get there, and her announcing out of the blue that he wasn't coming -- and that they were getting a divorce after 25+ years of what I thought was a happy marriage.
I remember my sister going in for her first ultrasound, and the doctor not being able to find the baby's heartbeat.
I remember having to have one of my yorkie puppies put to sleep when he was only 4 weeks old. He had a brain problem which prevented him from being able to walk and play like a normal puppy, but he was perfectly content to lay snuggled up in my hand. I had planned to keep him -- he was my choice of the litter.
posted on August 15, 2001 10:16:20 PM
I remember having to put PeggySue (my pug) down, because she caught parvo. I didnt have the money to save her. The vet wouldnt let me be with her when they injected her and I was too young to insist or demand and let them bully me to believe I couldnt be in the back room. I remember holding her, after they brought her out, in a bag and all wrapped up in cellophane and me tearing it off her still warm body because she wouldnt be able to breathe. I took her home and held her, petting her, until she grew stiff. After a few hours, I finally put her to sleep, in her blankey, and buried her in the back yard.
I dont think I would have survived my own horrors if it wasnt for my pets. They loved me, they were there for me, and they kept me sane. I have had pets before PeggySue, and pets after. I love/loved them all because they didnt judge, or turn their back, or beat me, or hurt me.
Heres to PeggySue and all the others like her, from before, and to now.
posted on August 15, 2001 10:21:16 PM
Oh man..I just depressed myself worse with the rememberance of PeggySue. Funny, that thinking of her makes me cry in front of my monitor, when the other things I mentioned, didnt.
I am empty for the moment..so Im heading for my bed.
posted on August 15, 2001 10:33:18 PM
I remember walking home from a friend's house in our middle-class, integrated neighborhood. A car full of white male teens roared past me. As the car drove by, one of the occupants hollered "N-----" out the window at me.
Call it a drive-by slurring. It was the first time in my young life that I ever experienced being addressed by a racial slur. I was 11. It hurt then.
