Things might get a bit complicated as the story unfolds. At times I’m not sure if I am coming or going or even what day my birthday actually falls on. Some say I could be two years older than my birth year or two years younger because a fire destroyed the hospital records where I was born. I was born January nineteenth, nineteen fifty-nine in Oriental, NC to a mother who’d given birth to six other children. She was warned by her father not to bring another baby into his home or she would have to leave. Apparently my mother did not marry any of her children’s father and with that stern reprimand from him, she hid the pregnancy. Although I did not receive the proper prenatal care. I still arrived in this world a healthy baby girl.
My mother entered the hospital where a midwife befriends her as she prepared for birth and, whom I thank to this day for saving my life. She told me the story of my early life and how she’d lost out on a promise that was made between her, the best friend and the best friend's husband. Upon entering the room, the mid wife noticed my mother crying. She asked if there was something she could do to help and my mother said yes. "You can take this baby and get rid of it". The mid wife calmed my mother and advised her to wait a few days before making such a decision. My mother told her to mind her business unless she could find a way to rid of the baby. She said she could help but for now wanted her to relax and concentrate on giving birth to a healthy baby. I was born that evening and placed in my mother's arms. She refused to hold me. I was immediately taken away and placed with the other babies in the nursery.
Two days before discharged she hadn’t name me and it was explained that she had to give the child a name. My mother asked to speak with the mid wife who helped with the delivery. She was off that day but came in to see her. They discussed a way for my mother to leave the hospital without taking me with her. On the day of my discharge I wasn't given a name because my mother met the mid wife in the back of the hospital as planned. She threw me into the arms of the mid wife as she reached for the door to leave. The Midwife had to sit because she was badly shaken from having a child thrown at her as if it was nothing more than a rag doll. My mother told the mid wife if she had not shown up she would have thrown me in the trash bin behind the hospital. My life now was in the hands of the mid wife and as I listened. I felt anger toward my mother and pity for her as well. I tried to understand the reasoning for giving me away and wanted to believe she was a good person inside. That would change after I received more information from different people who believed my mother to be a selfish, and a manipulative person.
I must take a moment and give the mid wife a name. She had become the first mother that I’d grown to know and love from the bottom of my heat and deserve to have a proper name. Although it is not what I called her throughout my life, but it was the first word that came to mind while listening to the story she told. I will name her "Angel." I believe God had placed her with my mother to protect me from such a dangerous woman who would have thrown my life away to save face with my grandfather. I believe in Angels and she had become mine. Angel went home that evening and introduced me to her two children and told them what had happened over the past few days. She felt they deserve to know the truth. She’d never lied to them before and was not about to now. They accepted me as their baby sister and loved me as Angel taught them too.
It was difficult trying to work and take care of a new born as a single mother. She could not take time off as she’d liked, so she turned to her best friend name Leona. Leona was married and excited to have me as part of her family and did anything to help her best friend out. Every day after work Angel dropped by Leona’s to take me home. It was a deal they agreed on that lasted for five years until the death of Leona due to pneumonia. Angel was devastated…they were inseparable. She explained how they often fought over whose weekend it was to keep me. She cried, she laughed, when she spoke of Leona and in her words she was an Angel from God too. There were those who assumed Leona was the mother instead of Angel because of the time I spent, from days, evenings and weekends at Leon‘s home. I felt much warmth hearing how much Leona loved me but when Angel began to speak of Leon’s husband James, I noticed a change in her voice. It was a harsh, sharp tone. She spoke of him with much dislike. After the burial of his beloved wife, James decided to keep me and Angel explained it this way:
There was a promise made months before her death between Leona and Angel that James was to marry Angel and make us a family when Leona passed on. The promise was broken and James never returned me to Angel and used the "single mother’s" threat against her if she tried to take me back. She said he threatened to contact Social Services and report her as an unfit mother and she allowed him to keep me if he allowed her visits throughout the week…It lasted six months until James moved to another town without notifying Angel. She became angry with James. I do not blame her after all she was the one who bought me into their lives and now was treated as an outsider. I couldn't understand why James treated her that way.
There were a lot of things I didn't understand as she explained them to me, and after hearing them I wished my mother would have succeeded in throwing me in the trash. I couldn't believe the things she was telling me. Some of it was so graphic that I cannot bring myself to repeat it again. Besides I’d only heard her side and not James’s version, and if I ever got the chance it would be too embarrassing to discuss it with him. It was easier hearing it from Angel as a woman than from James, but to this day I feel guilty because I never asked him about the rumor. Maybe I didn’t want to believe such stories about him. There were rumors around town of James leaving me with women who did not have good, wholesome values. They had alcohol and parties at all hours of the night. I told her I could not recall any of it. She said I was too young to remember when such mishaps occurred. I thought it was weird that I could not remember the wild parties and drunken women but I remembered sitting upon James’s shoulder's on our walks from the baby sitter’s at night; hearing the sound of God's creatures, and falling asleep as the breeze whispered to me while I laid my cheek upon his head.
I continued to listen as Angel expressed her anger for James. She said she didn't want to play James's game but had to do what was necessary to keep me in her life so she used the same threat he'd used earlier to keep me in his care and out of her reach. She contacted Social Services to report that an unmarried man was living in his home with a daughter and son without proper supervision.
In certain states you must be married to have a baby girl living in your home. I listened to stories of James's behavior and how he promised to straighten up his life while my days were now spent with Angel. She said those were the happiest days of her life until my birth mother came snooping around. I didn't want to know about her but Angel insists I listen and keep an open mind.
One day a couple came with my mother to Angel’s house. The lady examined certain parts of my body before she turned to my mother and said "put that child up for adoption and move on with your life." Apparently my mother had accused the woman’s husband as being my father and this socialite was not having any part of my mother’s foolish game, Angel said she never heard from the couple again. My mother on the other hand, came back a month later wanting to see me and Angel refused the visit. Angel’s health began to fail her and she could not care for me. James continued to remain in the company of different women, so there was no one else to look after me. Angel had no choice but to surrender me to Social Services and have me placed in foster care. She asked if I remembered going to foster care. I told her that I remembered the first day being dropped off with a suitcase, and crying but not much after that. Not even the part of leaving her home to go there. However, I definitely missed seeing her face. Angel thought because of my age things were hard to remember. I was five at the time of being placed in foster care. She said it amazed her...I could remember the suitcase and foster home but could not remember my mother and the couple incident that happened earlier. I'm not sure why maybe it wasn’t too important to remember.
I remained in foster care for five years and it is where my fourth mother, Katherine became an important key in my life. Some children have unpleasant experiences in foster homes; however, my experiences were wonderful. So much so that it is the first place I call home when I go back to visit … Some may say she’s my foster mother but to me she was a mother who nurtured, loved and made sure I learned my manners. She had become my mother too. Katherine became a foster mother to fifty-eight children, adopted one and wanted to adopt me but could not because someone was in the process of doing so. I didn’t know this of course until I was older and learned this from Katherine. She had cared for children of different nationalities and ages from four days to sixteen years. The older ones always introduced her as their mother. I remember the foster home and playing with the other foster kids.
There were two sisters there I grew fond of, and looked forward to playing with but they weren’t there very long, still, it was a pleasure to be there with them during their short stay. The girls were so pretty that it didn’t take long for someone to come along and adopt them. It was the saddest day of my life. I’d memorized their names and faces. They were even in my dreams. We played double Dutch, hopscotch, hide and seek, watched cartoons together, giggled at everything. Even when Katherine told us to stop laughing, we snickered behind her back. We knew not to get on her bad side.
She was kind and loving and knew how to discipline when necessary but it did not stop us from testing the waters. It was easier to mock and tease behind her back than dare do so to her face. All it took was one stern look and the voice that made you wet yourself to know never to face her front on. I should know... I got a spanking for losing five dollars of hers. It was my first and last spanking and I made sure never to make her angry again.
It happened this way.
Katherine sent me to the store with five dollars for a pack of butter. I see two scenarios happening between me leaving the house and reaching the store. The first is a man walking up to me…I am looking down at the five dollar bill where he snatches it from me and runs. The second takes place inside of the store where I reach onto the shelf for the butter, walking up to the cashier and placing the money along with the item on the conveyor belt and there went the money beneath the belt and the butter made it safely to the cashier. I believed the latter is what happened. I remember laying the money on the belt and hearing someone behind tell me to pick up the money before it slid underneath the belt. As I think back on that day, I truly believe that is how it happened, and someone behind me whispered in my ear “you’re going to get it if you lose that money.”
Talk about hearing the sound of thunder and beating of my own heart oh god it was all I could hear all the way home and the laughter of the adults in the store mocking my fate for being careless with Katherine’s money. You’d think they’d have pity on me and let me go with the butter, right. Wrong. I had to face the one woman in town that scared the living day light out of every child in the neighborhood. You see it wasn’t that she was a mean person she just didn’t tolerate any mess from anyone and till this day is loved by all.
She was known in the neighborhood as the freeze cup, candy apple and ice cream lady and if you didn’t have enough money for what you wanted she’d let you have it but reminded you not to come back unless you had more money the next time. The kids would take the candy or whatever they came to buy and run out the house almost taking the screen door with them. She’d laugh at them and yell "see you tomorrow." I wasn’t expecting to get a beating for losing the money and I near passed out walking back to the house. It was hot that day to me, hotter than hell could ever be. It seemed like the longest walk I’d ever taken back to Katherine’s house.
The tears had already begun after hearing those folks talk about me getting skinned alive. I began to say my favorite words that I pray every night while the sun baked me just a little more. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my soul the lord to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take." I thought that would comfort me, give me a little peace inside before the storm. There was no calm for me for as soon as I turned the corner to the house and heard the screeching of her voice which went from raspy to a screeching tire sound that’s trying to stop before a crash. I knew then not even a prayer would stop this woman from skinning me alive. I heard nothing but "where is my Butter? “Where is my money?" It was sooooooooo loud and screeching that I wet my panties standing right there before her. But it did not stop her from asking a third time for the butter. I answered in a whisper voice “I don’t know?" I think I used the first scenario that a man took it and ran. She screeched louder, yelling I was lying to her and that I’d better go find him and bring back the money. She wasn’t buying it so I told her I think I lost it on the roller thingy. That’s all it took when the spanking began right there with her hand which hurt worse than a belt or switch could ever do. She had no problem finding contact with my fanny. With those heavy hands, I got a double whammy that day and could not sit down without sitting sideways.
She never sent me to the store again and I was happy that she didn’t. To this day there is a man without a face haunting me with that five dollar bill and a roller belt at the grocery store running away with Katherine’s money and through it all it is my place to go home too. I believed I call it home because I felt connected with the other children there. Although they were there temporarily there was always a connection to one mom and her husband, He was rarely home for working long hours but when present it felt like a family and it is a time in my past I will never forget.
Days passed and children came and went from the foster home including the two girls I had grown fond of, and it was truly one of the saddest days of my life. I stared at that window, which seem like eternally, until an older girl visiting took me for a walk to try to get me to talk about my loss. I couldn’t remember what she was saying to me; it was like gibberish coming out of her mouth a mile an hour. All I wanted was for them to come home and play with me. My days were lonely. I was the only girl in that home and remember thinking to my self nobody loves me for I am the ugly duckling.
There was a younger boy there that I played with and grew to love and found out later he was adopted by Katherine. We became close and played on the swing in the yard filled with dirt until we became dust babies. We looked like Ethiopians with swollen heads, pot bellies and so dusty, as if a wind storm had come through and gave us a dirt bath as we stood there with grit in our mouth grinning at each other in awe of our dirty clothes and body. It might not have been a pleasant experience for Katherine, who had to clean the bathtub after our bath but she seemed not to say one way or the other. I enjoyed my baths at night alone in the tub and always thought they were too short but after taking a bath and watching TV before bed time it was the best ending to a long day of hot weather, sunshine, and dirt. We look forward to playing in the dirt another day. It made my days go quick but I really missed the friendship of the sister’s that I never saw again.
I begin to think of Angel and started to inquire questions about her. Katherine told me she didn’t know anything about her but would see what she could find out for me. What I didn’t know at the time was that foster children could not have contact with anyone of the past who might have had interest in or previous contact with them. Yet I am told of James visits where he took me to church. He’d found god and was now a preacher. Every Sunday morning he took me to church where I sat on the front pew while women made a fuss over me to get his attention. Katherine said it was disgusting to see women act a fool over a minister who wasn’t the least interested in any of them. He had his eye on another woman. She had six children, very Christian and more to his liking. I don’t remember much about the visit but I recall playing in the dirt with two other girls, but they were not the girls I remember from Katherine’s house. The street and house were different from the one I played, slept and ate at. I don’t remember staying long that day and I never went back to play at that house and yard again.
I was happy at Katherine’s house. It had become my home until the day they took me away. It had become another sad point in my life and now I was leaving the only place I remembered as home and to this day I resent the way social service took me away from Katherine’s home. How can you expect a young child to leave the only home she’s ever known for years and place her with strangers? Sure, I had Sunday visits with James, but I didn’t remember them. I wasn’t listening that day when Katherine called me from the kitchen table to the front door where the suitcase sat. I didn’t put two and two together even after seeing the two girls’ leave with their suitcases that it was time to go. I didn’t get it. The only words I understood that day were “a visit to the man who took me to church on Sunday,” and even when I saw Katherine sitting at the table with a handkerchief in her hand and wiping her eyes, I didn’t realize I was going away never to sleep as a child in her home again. I got in the car with this lady who took me on a ride that seem without end before arriving to James’s home. I asked again where we were going. She said for a ride to meet some people. I’d forget about the man from church because she now phrased it as people. I asked what people, who they were, and why so far away. She said nice people who want to see you and want you to play with their children; I did not realize getting out of the car that day and playing with the same little girls from the house and yard a while back had become the visitors.
The day I was taken away from my foster home was worse than any spanking I could had ever received. The drive to the house in the country seemed longer than the butter incident. If I had to think back to the events of that day with the visitors it would be running behind the car of the social worker who left dust in my face and crying until dark while James sat on the porch with me and my suitcase. The next morning I woke up in a new bed and no one around to assist me with washing my face and getting me dressed for the day. I was miserable, I didn’t eat, I wouldn’t talk and I would not sit with them. I begin to withdraw within. They were all strangers to me and I didn’t want any part of them. No one told me James finally got his life together, remarried and won custody of me.
The adoption was finalized and I was finally given a legal name. And this is where my fifth and final mother completes the fold. She didn’t know what she was getting into with me; after spending a few years in the country, the place I’d fallen in love with and a place that became my tranquility. We moved back to the city where I learned to find my way around. I memorized streets when we drove places. One in particular was my old foster home street name, and every chance that my parents went out for a drive or dinner together I made it my business to run to my foster home. I told Katherine how angry I was with them for taking me away. She said she was sad too. I begin to rebel and wanted her to take me back, but she explained she could not. I didn’t want to hear that and became angry with her, I stopped seeing her for awhile and tried to find Angel whom I lost contact with after being placed in foster home but through word of mouth found her and comfort in running away where she hid me for days. I didn’t want to stay with James and his new wife. She had five daughters and I felt there wasn’t enough room for me and that James only wanted me because Angel sought after me. That’s what Angel was telling me. She told me things about James that I believed. After all I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t remember church outings with him.
But then something strange happened one night while at Angels place. I had a dream and in it I was sitting on top of James’s shoulders with my cheek resting on his head, but that wasn’t a dream, it actually happened. I recall James taking me to the babysitter’s home and playing with her son, eating lunch there and taking a bubble bath while the sitter watched the Lawrence Welch show. I memorized one incident where the babysitter’s son and I had a secret place where we played doctor and nurse; I was scolded by the sitter for playing such a game with him. She made me play by myself the rest of the day. I entertained myself by going to the church next to her house, sitting near the headstone of James’s beloved wife Leona.
There are times when I close my eyes and I can see James’s silhouette standing next to me as we look down on her grave. Not sure what he’s saying if anything but it was real and thinking back bought more memories of him. I thought back to the wind upon my cheek, the dirt road, the critters and James humming a tune that he also sang when he tucked me in bed at night. I remember watching the bottom of his shoes walk out of the room and into the hallway where the light shined on top of his shoes. I recalled sitting on the porch with James clothed in a pretty red plaid dress with white lace socks and black patent shoes waiting what for I do not know. I’m not sure if we went to church that day but that night in Angel’s home I begin to see James in a different light than what she’d told me. It’s not that I didn’t believe what she said about him it’s just that I begin to see he loved me and maybe he made a promise to Leona to help raise me but never to marry Angel.
We heard a horn blow outside of Angel’s home. It was James and his wife my fifth mother whom I will call Clara. I gave Clara a hard time because I was angry with her for what happened to Angel and now it seemed she was stealing James from me after my dream revelation. I became closer to James and begin to ask questions about my childhood. He was eager to talk and told me his side of the story and of course a different version was explained. He told me there was no such promise to marry Angel and if there was an agreement it was between the women for he never got wind of it, he said it was Angel with the wild life style. But a mystery brother he adopted and I didn’t know existed, found me and told me James was a womanizer and a partying man and it is how Angel got me back before giving me to social services. I didn’t make a big deal out of it because it was his past and he was now a married man with a family. I was confused enough and was trying to find an encouraging period in my life.
I was not there to judge but to find answers to my beginning and to be fair and keep an open mind as Angel asked me to for my birth mother. James’s account seemed more believable than Angel’s because it fit in place with how I became to live with James and Clara. He told me I was living with him when social services took me from him. Someone reported him as having parties and women at the house during late hours with a small child and a young son living in his home. He said he played cards on the weekend and had quiet gatherings but I was taken away because of the legality of living with an unmarried man with a little girl in the home.
James was given notice to turn me over to social services within a week. I’d heard of this son from Angel and was skeptical until I was invited for a summer visit with him and his family. Talk about confused and lost for words, I didn’t know what to think. After my visit with my brother in New York, I sought out Katherine for answers but her lips were tight as a sealed envelope. I knew if I asked Angel I’d get a different story. She told me a story of James stealing me from her and taking me to lunch at a little café downtown, where he went to the restroom, walked out and forgot about me. I was placed on display in a window with a sign around my neck that read “little girl misplaced by her father. “ When he returned, he was scolded by the owner where Angel got wind of it. James made her promise not to tell Leona, if she told on him she would not see me again. I never questioned James about it but I was told by another party that it happened but it was more of a humorous cute story than with James deliberately leaving me behind.
I was now in my teens and wanted to know more about my birth mother, so many half truths, and characters in my life. I wanted to know if she was alive and what about my brothers? I was told I had six brothers yet I knew nothing about them.
If I ask James he‘d tell me different stories about them. If I asked Angel she’d tell me that they were working with families and lived about twenty miles away and living around my birth mother. Every time I’d asked James to take me to visit her he’d say okay. But when time came to go, I was told by friends of his that one of the brothers died, or why bother. They could be immigrants or that it would break my father’s heart if I left him. Finally, I said alright and left well enough alone.
I begin to work on my relationship at home with Clara, but something was still missing. I felt my dad slipping away from me and I was angry at myself for searching out a mother who cared not enough to keep me but offered to throw me in a bin because of her father’s threat. Yet here before me was a loving step mother with girls of her own who cared enough to accept one more. And I show my gratitude by adding more pressure to their lives while they tried so hard to love me and make me part of the family. I had become my own worst enemy.
Months later my father had triple bypass surgery I begin to withdraw again. I was losing him and I felt my behavior was part of the problem. I continue to run back to Angel. I told her about my father’s condition. She was worried too, and told me that she loved him and was devastated that she’d lost him to another woman. I told her I know and that he loved her too but not in the way she wanted. I believed he cared for her in a Christian way but loved Clara with all his heart. I never once heard them argue or say an unkind word toward one another or about other’s the way Angel spoke of him. After James’s surgery I settled down for awhile but became restless and was finally put out by Clara with the news of my pregnancy. She’d had enough and told each of us if we became pregnant and had not finish school we had to leave. The first to go was her youngest daughter who moved in with the father of her child. I followed and slept in cars and buildings until my sister found a place where we shared food and rent until she moved out of town. I kept the place, found a job and moved to a bigger place for my son and me.
I never stop searching for my real mother until I was adult and married with family. I was informed while carrying my third child that she had passed away and the name of the burial place. I have not gone to see the site and feel no reason to do so. I had four mothers and a father who loved me dearly in their own way and I would not have it any other way. I was blessed to have such lives cross my path and each journey took me through love, hate, misunderstanding, forgiveness and patience and through it all the greatest gift I gained from each of them was Love.
I lost contact with Angel and heard that she died from a stroke. I was devastated to hear she had passed away for I never got a chance to tell her how much I loved her and thank her for saving my life.
James’s health began to fail him and I saw his friend’s come around more than usual. It was then that I knew something was wrong. I was at my father’s house visiting one Sunday after church and one of his dear friends asked to speak to me alone. I said sure and went into the dinning area where he told me to always remember that my dad was a good man and loved me dearly.
I thought it strange that his friend pulled me aside to tell me something that I already knew but I listened anyway to what he had to say. He said there would be different stories told about James and I had to remember the good things and forgive those who repeated bad things about him. He said he knew my father to be a good man and we all had faults and were not to judge. I wasn’t sure what it meant but I believed it had something to do with rumors of wild parties and women. Later into the week I was over to my father’s house and another minister friend of his came over to see him. I didn’t know my father was leaving that same week for the hospital never to return home again.
The minister gave me a big hug and talked about how much I’d grown, I guess making small talk before the big talk. They talked more about my childhood and reminiscing about the good old days of my youth and their mischief. I told them I was surprised to hear about their glory days but in the back of mine I felt there was some truth to what Angel had said about the women. It might not have been as wild as she claimed but James was not the saint that I thought. His friend got serious after a few laughs about the past and said there may be rumors that my father did not want me but that it was not true. He said Jim short for James loved me and would give his life if necessary.
I looked at my father and told his friend I believed him. My father’s eyes welled with tears and I knew he believed in what I said. There was a moment of silence between the three of us before I excused myself to allow them time to spend together for it would be the last time my father’s friend would see him alive. I was so vulnerable to whatever my father told me and never believed it would be my final week of seeing my dad alive. I took on a lot of guilt that week because I was asked to stay with him while my mother attended a conference for her minister course, but because my husband couldn’t handle the children and go to work, I put my family needs over my father. I have felt guilt ever since.
I told my grandmother how much it bothered me she said the only thing that should worry me is that I never called him father or dad. He had a nickname that everyone called him but my grandmother made me see things in a different perspective.
On my visit to the hospital three hour drive from home. I begin to think of what she said and made it a point to greet him as dad instead of the nickname we called him growing up. When I saw him at the hospital I called him dad and gave him a big kiss and hug. He seemed pleased. My other regret was taking my two children with me to the hospital and not allowing them to see their grandfather for the last time but I was so naïve and honestly thought he was there for a short visit.
James (Dad) died twenty-seven days before the birth of my third child. He died February first nineteen eighty-seven. He was born on February nineteen, I’m not sure of the year and my son was born February twenty-eight nineteen eighty seven. I did not attend my father’s funeral due to doctor’s order but I cried like a baby and still do at times when I think of him. I never realize how much he’d gone through for me until I went back and read my diary from my teenage years and thought back to all the good stories I've heard about him.
Katherine sold her house and moved into a small apartment. Several months after the move, her health began to fail. She was placed in a nursing home, two weeks later she passed away from cancer. I loved her much.
Clara (Mom) had a stroke. Clara’s stroke along with other health related issues left her legally blind and paralyzed on one side of her body. My family and I drove down to be with her during her stay in the hospital. Mom passed away earlier this month. I loved her and I miss her dearly.
If I could use one word to describe my gratitude for what they all have done for me it would be “Thanks” from the bottom of my heart. Your love for me has shown me the way to love and it’s what I express to all who cross my path today.
There is no greater power than LOVE.
Katherine
James (Dad)
Clara
Me
