Letters to my son - Intro

I left my life to give you yours.

I swore, as my teenage friends became mothers, that I would be one of the last to get pregnant. I'm not the last, but I waited another 15 years on average. To put it in perspective, a couple of my friends daughters have their learners permits to legally drive, while you can't even sit up on your own.

I found your father. I stopped drinking, left my job, left my home, left my familiar city of the last 13 years, left my adorable perfect apartment, left the strip of night clubs, and left several close friends behind. I also lost my figure. All to meet you. To watch you grow and interact with the world.

I didn't actually know you would ever come when I gave up my life, I just wanted to be closer to your father after 4 months of dating. And I was sick of the construction on my daily commute to my mediocre job. And I was bored of clubbing and drinking was giving me awful hangovers. So really I would have done what I did with or without creating you several months later, but that wouldn't make a good compelling origin story would it? And besides, I can still guilt trip you for causing me to loose my figure.

That one time I had to kick a homeless man out of my car

Teenage pregnancy is a huge problem. When I was a teenager, I was offended when adults would say my pregnant friends had ruined their lives. I felt pregnancy didn't mean they would love their kids any less, so what was the problem?

It was such a frequent occurrence in my hometown that we had a daycare at the high school that students could bring their kids to. One of my friends was able to send her daughter to kindergarten the following fall after we graduated. I thought that was great timing, she never had to put her into a real daycare.

But now, in my thirties looking back, I see what the adults of my youth were fearful of. Those teen moms often partied the hardest in their 20s. A rare gem would achieve their goals, while the others dug deep holes to fall into.

It's probably a combination of several things that caused this. The first is perception, they may have partied as hard as other 20 something's, but society holds them to a higher standard since they have little ones at home they should be taking care of. Another reason for the spike in reckless partying is the perceived lost youth. They had to grow up quickly, and many felt their youth was stolen from them. Drinking & partying was their way of regaining this lost youth & life without responsibilities. And yet another is sheer irresponsibility, they were not cautious while having sex young, they are not going to throw caution to the wind while partying either.

One such teenage Mom was my paternal cousin, *name retracted*. She had her first son at age 16. The relationship with the babies father didn't last, and before she knew it she was a homeless teen mom. Somehow she ended up with baby daddy #2, and three more kids arrived by the time she was 21. She was so desperate when she found out she was pregnant a 4th time, she went to Bush Gardens and rode roller coasters all day, hoping to miscarry. He was born with no complications a few months later. She said her birth control failed all three times with baby daddy #2. She had begged the doctors to tie her tubes when she was 19, but they wouldn't due to her age, even though she had three kids already. They finally obliged when her fourth was born.

Due to my family situation, I didn't meet her until I was 21, she was 23. She had been told I was dead, but that's another story. We both had the same job at different locations. It was sad to watch her go from a single mom success story to a homeless drunk in the course of a little over a year.

Her baby daddy #1 had never sent any support, and baby daddy #2 had tried to kill her with a knife in front of the kids.

While #2 was serving out a jail sentence, our grandmother had died, so she moved into her trailer. She had gotten the bank job because I had transferred from the branch close to her to the one closer to my home, which freed up a position she was hired for. Things were looking up for her. She even got a couple promotions.

We decided to go to the beach for Memorial Day weekend since we had Monday off. We rented a hotel for Sunday night, and she dropped the kids off at her dads.

I drove the hour to the hotel. I was still new to the area, and reserving hotel rooms online was still a fairly new thing, so I missed the fact the hotel was still a good 30 min from the beach. But at $41 a night, I wasn't going to complain. They couldn't even find my online reservation, but gave us the room anyway. We unpacked and got dressed to go out to the bar.

The popular bar in the area was Coconuts on the Beach. The larger part of the bar was on a deck on the beach, where it was near impossible to find a seat due to the crowd. *Name retracted* found a table we could both sit at after getting our drinks. A man with long scrappy hair sat next to her chatting her up while smoking a foul smelling cigarette. She was delighted at his attention.

While she was distracted with the possible beach bum, a well groomed younger looking guy started to talk to me. Turned out he was only 19 and drinking a sprite while smoking a refreshing smelling menthol. I had to ask him for a light since Amanda had misplaced mine earlier in the evening. We were having chats about society and philosophy while smoking our lungs away.

I saw *name retracted* quickly flash the beach bum her breast then start giggling as she lit her next cigarette with the butt of the last one.

*Name retracted* has gotten bored, and so had I. The place was crowded, it was hard to get more drinks or hear in conversations. So we decided to go bar hop. She invited Mr Beach Bum to go with us, so I pulled her aside.

"*Name retracted*, I'm pretty sure he's homeless."

"No, he's just a beach guy, he's not homeless."

"Ok, if you say so."

The 19 year old asked if he could tag along, and I said yes. After all, I appreciated someone else in the car who didn't slur their words. We went to a local pier that had a bar on it, but unlike the restaurant bar, they wouldn't let the 19 year old in.

We walked along the beach as a group, before realizing it was already time for the bars to close and we should just start to get to bed. I asked the guys where they wanted to be dropped off, and the 19 year olds place was closest.

I got out of the car to give him a hug and thank him for the nights conversations. He looked at me very seriously.

"Do you need me to help get him out of the car?"

"No, thank you though. He said he just needs to be dropped off at the highway a little ways up. It'll be ok."

I should have taken his offer.

"Turn right." "Take a left." The beach bum told me as I was seemingly going no where.

"Look, I'm tired, you need to tell me where I can drop you off now!"

"Can I just sleep on yalls hotel floor? I promise I'll behave."

"I knew it! Your homeless aren't you? No you can't stay on our floor! Where can I drop you off?"

"Can we at least go to Taco Bell first?"

"Fine."

I pulled into the Taco Bell that was brightly lit ahead of us. I placed my order of 2 plain soft tacos, and he wanted a couple. I asked him for money, which of course he had none. I then shook *name retracted*, who had long been passed out at this point.

"*Name retracted*, do you have a couple bucks - we are at Taco Bell."

She groaned back at me, "Make him pay for it!"

"He homeless *name retracted*, he doesn't have any money!"

She muttered something unintelligible and went back to sleep, leaving me to deal with the situation. So, while waiting for food that I ended up paying for, I started to text a college buddy who lived in the area.

'omg there is a homeless man in my car - long story - he won't tell me where I can drop him off - I don't know what to do'.

His text back was 'wtf! Come this way, I'll help.'

So I paid for the tacos, handed the homeless man two, then set off to go to the highway and head down the coast to his area. It was almost 4am when I got off at his exit. I didn't want to pull up to his place with the homeless man, and the friend was worried about that as well. I saw a hotel next to the beach, and pulled into the parking lot.

I got out, and opened the door he was sitting next to, "You have to get out, NOW!"

"Oh come on!" He retorted.

"Get out now or I'm calling the cops! You can keep that blanket your holding to sleep on." I had a habit of keeping extra blankets in my car from when I was homeless and would use my backseat as my bed.

"I bet you fuck niggers." He said as he got out.

I was so confused by his statement. I didn't know the true weight of the word 'nigger' at the time, and didn't understand how that was even an insult. Who I fucked was my own business. "Sure." I said as I slammed the car door and ran back to the drivers side and sped off.

I headed on down to my friends place, he had some weed we could smoke and after the night I had I needed that release.

He had me park across the street at an abandoned home (it was for sale). I cracked the windows and left *name retracted* sleeping in the locked car. After all, if she didn't wake up with the homeless man fiasco, why should I wake her up now?

I had to take my shoes off outside, and tip toe upstairs to the friends bedroom. We started smoking a bowl of high grade hydro & making out. But when his saliva would touch my skin any place other than my lips, it would burn slightly. Earlier in the year, while studying late, I fell asleep on his arm. That side of my face was swollen for several hours afterwards. Somehow, I was literally allergic to this guy.

We almost got to whatever you want to call the next base, but his tent wouldn't pitch. He had a pill snorting problem that ended up affecting his school work and his downstairs.

The sun came up, and I figured my cousin and I should get back to the hotel room we paid for. I went back to my car, *name retracted* was still sleeping. As I hit the interstate she woke up.

"You have fun?"

"Yeah, after I kicked out the homeless man!"

"Sorry about that. I woke up alone in that driveway and figured I deserved it."

"Yeah, that's what I figured too."

We got back to the hotel room and passed out for around 4 hours before we had to check out.

When we got up, we realized there was what looked like a bullet hole in the wall next to *name retracted", and old blood stained on her sheets. No wonder it was such a cheap motel. We got ready for the beach, packed up, and checked out.

Once we got to the crowded Memorial Day beach, I laid down and asked *name retracted* to wake me up in a little bit.

Four hours later, I woke up.

I had been sleeping on my stomach and I could see the back of my legs looked like lobsters. What I didn't see was *name retracted*. After chugging my warm Gatorade, I started packing up the towels so I could go find my cousin.

I ran into her at one of the tents close by. I complained about being left to burn and she chuckled. Then she flashed the guy we were standing next to her boobs before yelling about how she has four kids she adores.

"Can you believe I have four kids? Come kiss me."

One guy took special notice of *name retracted*, and invited us to his car to smoke. He was a senior college student with large arm muscles and abs. As we sit in his car passing a bowl, I was looking around for cops and my cousin flirted and made out with the guy. He kept asking for her phone number, but she wouldn't give it to him. She later told me he was too good for her. I felt she should have at least tried, I hated that she set her bar of self worth so low. When she wasn't drinking she was incredibly nice & thoughtful, a well rounded woman. But when she drank she turned into an irresponsible manifestation of her fears & past.

After another hour of her partying and flashing people, I had enough of my red skin burning more in the sunlight, so we headed home.

I couldn't sit down for a week because the back of my thighs turned purple. And when I cleaned out my car, there was a jizz stain on the back seat where the homeless man was.

Moral: always set an alarm while in the sun & don't go bar hopping with homeless men.

Anubis

According to Wikipedia, Anubis is the Greek name for the Egyptian God of Funerals, death, the dead and the afterlife.  It is usually depicted as a canine, or a man with a canine head.

March 6th, 1986
I was born on the 6th, my parents separated shortly after. My mother had gotten remarried March 25th 1988 - and I was often sent to my grandmothers at the request of my step-father who had grown to greatly dislike me.

August 6th, 1987
Donald was born on the 6th. His father was arrested off and on for breaking and entering and his idiot mother was being lazy ignoring my 3 cousins. My mother would leave me with them so often, I would call their father "daddy" when they would run up to him. Then, at age 2, Donald crawled across the road, and they were taken from their parents and went to live with our grandmother. 

I called us the First Marriage Kids, as the other aunt also often send her 1st marriage child to the grandmothers. While the rest of the kids created in 2nd marriages stayed home. It was fine with us, as we were all mostly neglected and verbally abused by the new husbands.

October 8th, 2002
It had been a year since Steven had killed himself. He as a fellow trombone player at Auburndale High School. I was feeling awful, and I heard Donald open a new Dr Pepper, so I went to get the first sip. He said he wanted to go buy a straight jacket for Halloween. So we got in my car and went on a search for a mall. We didn't want to go to Lakeland and get lost as usual, so we tried to go to Orlando. We stopped at the first rest stop on I-4 and looked up a mall in the yellow pages. I tore out the page with the mall's address, and looked at my printed map to find the way.

We made it to the Florida Mall, Donald got his straight jacket from Spencers. I bought my first ever frappachino. I tried to drink it, but I didn't like it. I was so upset for wasting precious $5 on such an awful taste. We started heading home, and I got lost. I cut through a parking lot to try and turn around.

A cop started following us. He pulled us over, said it was illegal to cut thru a parking lot, and demanded we get out of the car. I had only had my license for a few months, and the car for 2 months. Apparently, my tag that I just had gotten expired September 30th when I thought it expired March 30th. I started crying, the cop asked in a stern mean way "Why are you crying if you have nothing to hide." He called a more sympathetic cop to search my car with a dog. I was so confused what was happening.

We were victims of racial profiling. The cop repeatedly accused me of being on drugs since I wrote on my arm, he refused to believe my cousin and I were even related, despite me having a baby photo of him in my wallet. The power at grandme's house had been shut off that day, so the phone was disconnected. When I gave the cop my grandmother's cell phone - since it was such a similar number he refused to call because he didn't believe it was a real number. I told him we were trying to find 17-92 to get back to Winter Haven, and he told me the road did not exist. I didn't know we were 500 ft away from 17-92.

After getting an expired tag ticket, and a horrifying first experience with a cop that I will never forgive policeman for, I eventually found the way home. I sat in my car wanting to cut my wrists, unsure if I should go to band camp that night. But I thought of my cousins, and went over to the football field for band practice where they had a moment of silence for Steven.

August 4th, 2010
I had just gotten home from work. I had not talked to Donald since he married the whorediot. I couldn't understand why he settled for such a crazy bitch. What I did not know, is the whorediot had recently moved in a new boyfriend to their 2 bedroom single wide trailer Donald her 3 kids lived in. (One was Donald Jr; She had a baby with each of her boyfriends over time, and refused to name the fathers).

I got the phone call as I stood in an empty room in my house that was going thru foreclosure. I rarely used the room, and would rent it out. That day, I was cleaning or something, but thankfully it gave me space to pace during the call.

"What's up mom"
"Donalds dead"
"What?"
"Donald committed suicide."
"Where's Grandme?"

I don't remember what was said after that. But in the subsequent days and weeks, it came out that the whorediot and new boyfriend had threatened Donald's life if he didn't move out. It was 2 days before his birthday, the allegedly fought that morning and left. 3 hours later, the landlord busted down the door with the police and found Donald hanging from a trailer bathroom door, which I do not believe could hold his weight without collapsing. There was blood in the entire bathroom, which indicates to me a struggle. The bitch's clothes were soaking in the tub.......

The cheating whore fled the state insisting her innocence, and the lovely Polk County Sheriff's department refused to investigate - because fact is - he as seen as Mexican, and she was White. No investigation required, open and shut case according to Grady's racist minions. No investigation into the death threats, they simply looked at his Facebook as saw he was depressed. The cunt went on to have a 4th and probably more kids, all with worsening fetal alcohol syndrome among other disabilities. The children were exposed to their mother having sex on numerous occasions, making it impossible to take them out in public without them being inappropriate without knowing it. The poor children and Donald are victims of this sick fuck of a woman.

It's hard to make peace with such a situation. To not feel incredibly guilty for cutting off communication, when I would have picked him and his kids up in 2 seconds flat. When I would have risked jail time beating the whore unconsciousness if I had been told what was happening.
You don't mess with my little brothers.....

August 5th, 2016
I had been in a bad mood all day at work. After everyone left shortly after 5pm, I stayed behind and continued to work until I feared I had stayed long enough to be responsible for setting the alarm, so I headed home. I was distracted the whole drive home. Thinking what would be different if Donald were still here. He could have been living with me, helping with the dogs, drinking Dr Pepper and making fun of British comedy and South Park. I started crying so much I wasn't sure if I was going to wreck my car. I didn't care. I took the curvy Lakeland roads above the speed limit without concern for my life.

Then a dog ran in front of my car. Despite barely paying attention to my drive home, I managed to see the little black figure dart out in front of me, only to quick do a 360 and run away from the road on the train tracks after I swerved a little. It looked like it may have been limping, I couldn't tell, so I pulled over. The car behind me had seen what happened, and stopped on the road to tell me "If I was not going to church right now I would help." I replied, "It's ok, I got it." He tried to say more about how he felt bad, but I was already walking away from the road, towards the dog, assessing the situation. As I would walk closer, she would run farther. So I dropped to my knees and began crawling.  The dog would watch me inching closer, and she was eating something off the railroad tracks.

I tried to think if I had any food in the car to coax her towards me, but I remembered I had just cleaned my car the day before. I begged her to come to me "Come here sweet girl" in the friendliest voice I could muster after crying for so long. She inched forward. I laid my head down on the rocks, a few feet from the rail ties. She came closer. My hands were extended with my palms out, and once she got close enough, I grabbed her. Immediately puppy breath was infiltrating my nose as she licked my face. "Oh my god, your a puppy" I exclaimed after thinking she was just a short terrier type dog. I was worried about whatever she was eating on the tracks being on my face, but all I could do was to wipe the slobber off onto my shirt.

She had no collar, so I held her tight against my chest and walked slowly back to my car, hoping she didn't try to jump out of my grasp. She tensed up, fearful of what I was doing. I got back to the car and sat in the drivers seat with her on my lap. I closed the door, and let go of her, expecting her to run over to the passenger seat. But she didn't move. She appeared terrified and had as much of a death grip on my thighs as a puppy paw can. Luckily, I was less that 5 minutes from my home.

I named her Anubi. She came to me in between Donald's deathday and his birthday. She is all black, like the Egyptian Anubis was often depicted. Anubis often protected graves, I've been too emotional to ever visit Donalds... even though I live closer to it now. Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the wold of the living to the afterlife, while Anubi reminded me why I'm still in the world of the living.

It's the little things. Seeing her tail wag and she couldn't stop eating when I put her on my porch. The way she didn't want to get off my lap the first day. These little happiness' make up the reasons why we continue day to day, despite the heartache and pain and regret.

You never know when your guardian angel is going to throw a puppy in front of your car - so remember don't text and drive. :)