March 7, 1984. My mother felt her labor beginning late into the night and being unable to sleep she made out the thank you cards from her baby shower. The following morning she made pancakes for my father and around 9 A. M. she went to the hospital. About three hours later I arrived on a beautiful Thursday afternoon.
I have early memories of crawling on the floor and visiting my grandparents. The most vivid memory I have is getting a popcorn kernel stuck up my nose. It took us quite a long time to get it out before it occurred to my parents that they should apply pressure to one nostril, closing it, and telling me to blow my nose. That successfully dislodged the kernel.
I began kindergarten quite happily, going to the morning classes at Greentree Elementary until the first grade. After that my parents, mainly my father, had us move to Riverside to take care of my dad's parents. Those two were very unhappy, mean people. They hated my mother and made no attempts to hide that feeling. They turned much of my father's family against her and had they lived longer, I am certain they would have grown to dislike me as well since I stick up for my mother.
Upon arrival at the public school system in our new "home", the teachers decided that rather than going to the third grade after second, I should go to fourth. So, I avoided the third grade. It was nice, sped up the school thing. I wasn't one to enjoy school after second grade. It become more of just a process to go through to get to the rest of life. So, I graduated class of 2001 with some very nice grades. I took a year off after high school to do nothing. I took a few classes at community college but I had to stop to take care of my mother. I have every intention of someday returning and majoring in history.
When I was eight years old, jumping backwards I know, my parents informed me my mother had a child when she was eighteen years old. Somewhere out there, I had a sister who was fifteen years older than I. In 1998 we registered on a website called Big Hugs.com to find my sister. On December 15, 2000 we got a call that a match had been made. Since then we have a wonderful relationship with my sister.