Lost

You know I often see movies of kids getting on there bikes, and not coming home until dinner time, like the movie The Sand Lot. Oh how I wish we could have had a life like that.This is so sad, but the only person that had a bike was my brother, because like I said before my dad never got bikes for us girls, and my brother would never let us ride his bike. One day for some crazy reason he let me ride his bike. What in the world did I think I was doing? I had NEVER been to the corner much less around the block, but never the less I got on the bike and started to peddle. I didn't know what around the block look like, so I started getting scared because I thought I would never find my house again. Seriously I had a pit in my stomach, and I wanted to stop and ask for help, but I knew I would get hit for sure especially since my dad didn't know I was gone. Not knowing what to do I just kept peddling, and I finally got a glimpse of my house, I was so happy to be home again. I never rode my brothers bike again. The only other time I ever went around the block again was when I was old enough to go back to the old neighborhood, and it was then that I went around the block, but this time it was in a car not a bike.

Terror Rides

Every summer my dad would take the family to an assembly in another state. An assembly is when J.W's from many other states go for a 5 day conference. and they last all day from about 9:00 am to 5:00 pm in the afternoon with a lunch break in the middle. These were torture for us little kids because we also had to sit through them without falling asleep. Now my dad knew that he could not drink and get drunk while surrounded by so many J'W's, but my dads urge to drink was so strong that he would drink and drive with all of us in the car on our way to the assembly. Us kids knowing this was a bad thing, would not dare say a word against it to my dad for fear of getting hit. So our terror ride would begin, and not finish til we got to our destination, if we got there. Now on these trips none of us kids would fall asleep because we would watch out for others cars and warn my dad if we had to, and we also made sure he didn't fall asleep behind the wheel. What I don't understand is why my mother wouldn't make my dad pull over so that she could drive, that way us kids could just rest and not be scared that we were going to crash. To this day I often wonder how my dad never ended up in killing anyone.

Always Scared

As I got older I started to understanding the words the J.W's would speak from the podium, and you would think I would be enlightened. That was never the case, so now not only did I walk on egg shells,and felt that a bomb would explode at any moment. Now any time there was a storm I really thought Armageddon was coming, anytime I heard of storm, tornado, or earthquake anywhere in the world, my parent would say were in the last days, so when I would hear that I thought Armageddon was coming. When a plane was flying over us I thought for sure it was a plane coming to bomb us, and that would be the start of Armageddon. Trust me there were so many things out there to scare the crap out of me, and knowing that I had to deal with it on my own even thou I was just a child sucked so badly. I would have never bothered my parents with my scared thoughts, because I just knew it would get me in trouble, and it would cause my dad to hit me. I thought of killing myself just so the next time I woke up it would be in paradise, because the J.W's don't believe you will go to heaven unless your part of the 144,000, and I knew I wasn't one of them. The idea of suicide was quickly shut down when my mother told that when people commit suicide they will never be in paradise. As far as I knew I was destined to be a J.W. my whole life and always being told we had to fear god. As they explained it to me fear him not in a bad way, but as a child should fear disappointing there father. Most time I would just nod my head in agreement, knowing in my heart that I didn't understand, and not knowing if I ever would.

Egg Shells

My whole life I walked on egg shells, and lived with a time bomb in the house never knowing when it was going to blow up. We couldn't get away from it by sleeping over at friends or relatives houses, because we weren't allowed to sleep over ANYWHERE. For that matter I didn't have friends other than my school mates, but that's as far as that went. Sober or drunk I stayed out of my dads way, and I never brought any undo attention to myself because that's what my dad would hone in on. If was your day to get it, well god only help you then, because my mom wouldn't. Anything would set my dad off. Not cleaning our room right, not wearing shoes, arguing with our siblings, saying I hate you, stupid, dumb, you guys, or any curse words. Not getting up from bed when told to the first time, sleeping at meetings, and being any other place other than our home. Those were things that I knew for sure would get me a beating, it's not including any other thing that my dad felt warranted a beating. Those kind of things had me walking on egg shells

Never knowing when the time bomb was going to go off. Was when my dad finally honed in on one of us kids. His beating were merciless, and all us kids could do was scream and cry begging my dad to stop. Having my brother be sober and getting in a fist fight with my dad, Oh my god that was the scariest, because I thought forsure someone would get killed. The only times I wasn't as scared is when my brother would be in jail. This is so sad, but I would feel relief when that happened.

Hero

I always wished that that my brother would be the kind of brother that would watch over me. Treat me like the brothers on the Brady Bunch or Partridge Family treated thier sisters. Instead I got a brother that started sniffing paint at a very young age,and was in and out of jail his whole life. Until the day he died. I was an adult when he died, and this might sound awful, but a relief came over me when we found out that he was dead. With him always high, and my dad drunk it made for a very scary scene. My dad always had to show how much stronger he was than my brother by arm wrestling, this almost always turned into very violent fist fights that my brother surly would have won had it not been for my older sister's coming to my dad defense. They would have knocked down drag out fights with my brother just to keep him away from my dad. So instead of my brother protecting the family, it was my sisters. Days like these became the norm.

This is weird, because my brother got everything from my dad, name brand clothes, t.v's, bikes, and cars. I can't tell you how many times his bike got so called stolen, but it didn't matter my dad would replace it, and when he was old enough to drive, same thing with cars. Stolen or crashed they would get replaced. When it came to us girls I can't remember ever having a bike, or toys, or for that matter a car when we got older that was bought for us.

Door to Door

Now I know that there isn't anyone out there that hasn't been woken up by some J.W's knocking on your door early in the morning. I hated having to wake up so early to get dress, to go door to door trying to sell magazines. I was so little, and all I wanted to do was watch Saturday morning cartoons. There would never be those kinds of Saturdays for us kids. Plus we always went door to door around our neighborhood. I was always so embarrassed, because I knew come Monday I would be made fun of for being a Jehovy as the kids would call it. It was bad enough that all J.W kids had to stand outside the classroom for the Pledge of Allegiance, and on top of that we could never participate in any birthday or holiday parties that were celebrated at school, and trust me there was always some kind of celebration going on. So off to the library we would go, to read while all the other kids were having fun. Amongst the other things we couldn't do at school was participate in sports, because in the eyes of the J.W's competition was a bad thing. I often wondered, why I just couldn't be a normal kid.

Rated R Movies

To make up to the family for drinking my dad would usually take the family to a double feature at the drive in, and if that night happened to be in the middle of a school week then so be it. My dad didn't care of the effects of going to bed after midnight was having on us kids, and my mom for sure wasn't about to tell my dad, no the kids need there rest. So off to the movies we went, and back then there was no rating for Mexican movies, and again our well being was not taken into consideration. So as children, and I am talking about ages of 4yrs old and up sat through movies that had sex, nudity, violence, and foul language. Not once were we ever told not to look, and the words the children should not be watching this movie lets go were NEVER mentioned. I lived in world where the kids never came first.

Violent Encounters

My brother did drugs as long as I can remember. So you mix my drugged up brother with my very drunk father and you have a very volatile situation. There was this one night that my dad didn't go to a meeting because he was too drunk to go. When we got home there was blood every where, we just followed the blood trail and found my dad bleeding from his head. My dad said that my brother wanted money for drugs, and my dad wouldn't give him any, so he took a big rock and smashed my dads head. He needed over fifty stitches to get head sewn back together. Nothing happened to my brother (nothing ever happened police wise). After everything that my brother did to the family or to my dad it seems that my dad always forgave him. This wouldn't be the last time my dad would end up going to the hospital, because of my brother. This also wouldn't be the last time I would have to clean up my dads blood off the floor.

Meeting Night

Well like I said before going to church or kingdom hall as the J.W's would call it was a big thing for my parents. As a kid I hated those meeting nights, 3 days a week 2 hours per meeting. That's not including the time you had to put in walking door to door trying to sell magazines to people. If you didn't go door to door then your were an inactive J.W. and god forbid that happen. Being just a kid all I ever heard was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, and I would get sleepy. If my mom caught me sleeping she would pinch me to wake me up, but if my dad caught me sleeping he would hit me with the belt, and not when we got home either, he would wake me up and walk me outside the J.W. building take off his belt and hit the crap out of me. I would be mortified, because I knew people could hear me screaming and crying. When I would see some other kid sleeping I thought they were so lucky, because there parents wouldn't take them outside to get hit.

Drinking Binge

My dad would drink every day, but he would get falling down drunk every other day. There was this one time where my dad got drunk one night, and failed to fall asleep so his drinking went into the next day. My mom who never shows any kind of emotion took us kids to the store that day, and we were gone for a couple of hours. As we rounded the corner on our way home we could see my dad in the middle of street with a big chain his was trying to hit any car that drove by. My mom was going to turn into the drive when my dad started coming at the car with such rage that us kids just started screaming telling my mom to move before he got to us. She moved the car a little to late he started to beat the crap out of the hood with the chain. She finally peeled away from him, I remember being so scared, and thinking that he wanted to kill us for being gone. I can also remember begging my mom for us not to go home. After a couple more hours of being gone, we started our way back home again not knowing what to expect when we rounded the corner thank god he wasn't out there. Us kids stayed in the car while my mom checked out the house. My dad had finally fallen asleep, who knows how many cars he terrorized that day. He just lucky no one called the cops, but living in a close knit neighborhood I'm not surprised that they weren't called. I'm sure we were felt sorry for living with the neighborhood drunk and all.

Holidays

I can remember that Christmas was my favorite holiday. The J.W's didn't celebrate any holidays, but that didn't stop me from wishing that we would. When we would go to meetings I can remember seeing houses decorated, and I always told myself that if I had my own home I would decorate all of it inside and out. Well you would think that if we didn't get new clothes and toys on that day, that we would get them through out the year, not so. My whole childhood I was never bought a new toy, and the only new clothes we got was 3 shirts and pants right before school, after that it was second hand.

I never understood the reasons behind why we didn't celebrate any holidays. I do remember that my dad would take us to my aunts house every Thanksgiving, but I think it was because he liked turkey. In our home we never had any kind of holiday dinner. Oh how I wanted to celebrate holidays go trick or treating like my friends from school, or get an Easter basket, or get a tree and be in the Christmas play, but those things would never happen to me as a child. I hated going back to school after a holiday, just seeing all my school friends with their new stuff always made me sad.