It's All Good

Too many times, as I'd lay sleeping, my mom would wake me up begging me to come with her. She always wanted to leave my dad, but she wouldn't leave without me. My sister would always say she would go...but I'd refuse with every ounce of my little body.

We lived on a 'non-working' farm and we always had lot's of animals. There weren't many neighbors, we grew up mostly by ourselves. But, I felt more comfortable around animals than I did people anyway. They never cried, they never yelled at me and they never beat me.

My dad basically lived at the airport he managed and ran. We'd get off the school bus when it would stop near there and walk to see him sometimes. Not often. It was a small town airport and the gang of my dads friends that hung out there didn't really want or need a couple of little kids hanging around them. My dad did take us on breakfast flights sometimes. Those are good memories for me. He and his friends would each take their own plane and we'd all fly to somewhere in Indiana for breakfast on Sundays. Those were special times when he'd take my sister and I. My dad was an instructor, so one of his planes had the dual steering in it and sometimes he'd let me think I was flying the plane.

Once in a hangar we found some baby rabbits that had been abandoned (chances are good that their mother had been killed by dogs) and they were covered in sores and full of maggots. My dad put them in a box and we took them home. I remember my dad showing me how to use tweezers to pull the maggots out and clean the wounds, and I did. One actually survived

Somehow we ended up with 2 or 3 raccoons, each at different times, for pets. We named each one of them Jake. They were like little people, eating with their hands and wanting affection. Sometimes we'd keep them locked in the bathroom so they couldn't roam the house....they'd tear that room up!

We were a lot like the old Ma & Pa Kettle movies. Open doors with animals running in and out. Since we lived out in the country where people would bring their animals and drop them off...they'd always find their way to our home and we'd take them in. The ones dropped off, the ones no one else wanted or had time to care for anymore, we'd take. Our doors were open, and we'd love them. Dogs, cats, birds, raccoons, rabbits, chickens (my mom worked at a hatchery once, and couldn't stand to throw out the eggs with chicks in them, so she'd bring them home...and yup...pets. We had a chicken house and pen...it was a 'farm').

We had a horse named Duke that only wanted to take me as far as the nearest creek and throw me in. No matter how many times we tried to train that horse, the trainer would quit and I'd end up in the creek. I loved that horse. Dad ended up selling it.

These are all good memories.

So, when my mom would wake me up in the middle of the night, begging me to say I'd leave with her and my sister to live in a house or an apartment in town, I'd always say no. My family (my pets) were there. My memories, which as a kid were my life, were there.

I know it wasn't right for her to put me in that position, but my mom wasn't well. I'm guessing that the reason she'd usually do this to me at night was because that was when she was most lonely, out in the country all by herself and two little girls. No friends, no family...no one but two little girls who didn't understand her pain, her suffering, her inflictions or her addictions.
My mom told me all my life that her pain was my fault because I wouldn't leave my dad and she wouldn't leave me. It wasn't my dad I wouldn't leave, it was my home, and the animals that were my only example of unconditional love.

Often I wonder what would have happened if I'd said "yes, I'll go with you Mom". I don't think she'd actually have left. I think I was her scapegoat. But I still wake up sometimes hearing her ask me if I'll go with her. Maybe someday I'll say yes.