How it began...

I was born the first part of January in 1978. My mother was diabetic and most likely going through a high risk pregnancy, though I was never told this.

She went into labor earlier than expected and because of complications, I was born cesarean in a matter of minutes. My grandmother was the first person to hold me besides the doctor who literally saved my life.

I grew up largely without my father around. He had his own problems to deal with and I guess me and my mother weren't enough to make him change his ways or stick around. I was almost a year old when he wandered back into our lives. The first time I saw him (I'm told, of course) I hid behind a chair. I was told he said I should know him because he was my father. My mother asked him how I was supposed to know that when I'd never seen him.

For a while, my mother let my father stay with us. Though, they were divorced, he lived with us and I have no clear time frame of how long that was. I gather it was on and off for a year. Also, I guess, things went well part of that time. I know from what I was told that my father would get drunk and hit my mom. I don't know the details. Nor do I want to.

He disappeared from our lives for a time. I don't know much about this part except that on August 4th, my mother was informed that my father had been killed. I was 2 1/2. Obviously, I don't remember anything and I don't remember him.

After his death, my mom decided to move us into my grandparents' home. This is where memories become fuzzy. They lived out in the middle of pretty much nowhere. Farmland pretty much. We lived there for over a year. That was when my grandparents got divorced.

I was almost 5 when we moved into the first place I remember as home. Ironically, it's the apartment complex I would move into almost 30 years later as an adult.

As I recall, I liked it there. Not many kids to play with, but I made a few friends. We had a great back patio where my cousins and I would play cowboys and indians and whatever game was the thing then. My great-grandmother used to come over a few times a week to watch me while my mother worked and would tend to the garden.

Grandma and I became closer too. She would take me garage saleing on Saturdays. And as I recall, we spent a lot of time together.

I think I will stop there for now. The next chapter gets difficult.