Biography, Prt. 2

So here's the next little stretch.  Sorry if its muddled, it's not the most striaght forward in my own mind.
 
So there was no time wasted in getting us to a child psychhologist.  My first meeting was two days before my dad's funeral.  The shrink told me to write a letter to my dad, telling him how I felt.  So I wrote(I was reading and writing at a fifth grade level by then) how upset I was that he left.  How mad I was that he promised he would be back, and see me again and he just up and went for good.  But what I wrote the most about was that stupid barbie he promised me.  I even underlined that part of the letter!  Then we put it in an envelope and she told me I could do whatever I wanted with it.
So along came the viewing, the night before the funeral.  And we were each given ten minutes alone in the room with our fathers body.  He looked so real still, but I knew he wasn't.  I ran up to the coffin, tossed the letter I had written IN it, along the side, and poked my father in the cheek because my seven year old curiosity wanted to know what a dead person felt like.  I spent my ten minutes in the room with my father's dead body huddled on the couch across the room from the coffin and glaring angrily.
We went to the funeral.  My mother didn't think leaving us behind would be any better then taking us.  We got to ride in a limo, I hated it.  It felt like everyone knew that we were the poor kids with no father anymore.  Like we should of been wearing signs, but instead they put us in a limo.  I don't remember much of the funeral, we had to stand in a line, and I got so sick of people calling me 'that poor child' or 'that poor girl' and I got tired of the hugs from people I barely knew.
After the funeral my Grandma(my dads mum) gave my little sister and I the barbie my dad had promised us.  I don't know why I did it, but I snuck the scissors upstairs and I massacred that barbie.  I cut it's hair, I slashed it's face, I used the scissors to chew up it's arms and legs.  It was such a beautiful barbie too, I had wanted it so bad.  I remember what it looked like too a tee.  Then I sat there with my ruined barbie and stewed.  Other then the day I was told, I didn't cry during my dad's whole funeral and burial possession. 
My mom started drinking heavily after the funeral.  She was drunk for almost a week straight.  She had been automatically graduated from her schooling program and she was upset.  She had lost her husband and she felt cheated, like now she couldn't claim she was as good a chef as the people who had actually finished the course. 
At the end of that week my mom had a visit from a lady from children's services.  It was short.  But that night my mom sat on our front porch all night long.  I snuck downstairs to see if she was still there sometime after midnight, and she was.  Just staring out into the front yard, stone still, hands folded.  That image is pretty burned into my  mind.  I went back to bed.  When we all got up in the morning mom had made breakfast for us, something she hadn't done all week.  And she wasn't drunk.  My mom hasn't had a drink since that night, almost 17 years ago.  I found out the worker had threatened her with taking us.  And my mom had to choose, and she loved us enough that she chose us.
That summer we went to stay with my Grandma(again my paternal one, my maternal grandma died before I was born).  She lived in the same city with two of my dads three sisters.  And my mum needed some time to get her life sorted out.  To figure out what she was doing.  Plus, my older sister was due to have her baby that summer. 
We spent our day's helping my Grandma clean the church, and watching Benji movies since that's all my Grandparents would allow us too.  We helped my Grandpa in his woodshop.  And we helped my one aunt work her garden....it was huge.  We also spent time with our Uncle Lyman.  He was married into the family and he used to be one of my dad's best friends.  It was my loving Uncle Lyman who first introduced my little sister and I to the world of sexual abuse.  He used to tell us that since my dad was gone, he had to do what my dad couldn't.  Show us what it was like to be real little women.  Neither of us said anything really.  I was so confused.  My dad was gone, my mum was a wreck, and it seemed like my Uncle was the only one showing us any sort of affection, and I wasn't so sure if it was right or wrong.
We went home at the end of that summer different then when we left.  My older sister had her baby, a little girl, and I fell in love with her.  I was an aunt at eight. 
Now the next little bit is weird.
First off, my little sister couldn't swallow the feelings about our Uncle like I did.  But she was only five, and even more confused. 
My big sister had her current boyfriend move in.  And he was a bad, bad man.  He used to beat my brother with a broom stick every time he could get him alone.  My mum was working three jobs at this time.  She was never home.  My brother was broken.  I could hear him crying in his room(he was the only one with his own room) at night.  My little sister was getting more and more upset during this time.  Then one night she sealed my brother's fate.  She accused him of the things Uncle Lyman had done to her.
I didn't speak up, I don't know why.  But my brother was taken from our home, sent through an extensive therapy program, then sent to live with a foster family 8 hours away from our home town.  He stayed there until he was over 18.
In the meantime, my older sister's boyfriend was getting meaner.   One day I could hear the baby crying, so I went into our room(all three girls and the baby shared a room) to get her.  And Shawn, my sister's boyfriend, was beating my sister.  There was blood, my sister was cowering on the bed.  He whipped around when I came in, his arm was raised and he looked scary.  So I turned and ran.  I hid in a cupboard beside the washing machine and prayed no one would find me. 
My sister had lost most interest in her baby.  She was wrapped up in her abusive boyfriend.  Doing anything for his attention and his affection.  She often left her daughter, Kels, with us for long periods of time.  My mum took over raising her.  But I did the most work still since my mum was working.  If Kels cried at night, I got up, got the bottle, fed her.  In the morning's I fed both my sister and the baby, usually skipping eating since food was becoming scarce.  I packed lunches, I got my sister off to school.  We had a babysitter for Kels during the day, but she was unreliable and I skipped alot of school to stay home with the baby. 
Kelsey got older and shortly after she turned a year and a half, my sister announced she was pregnant again, this time with her abusive boyfriends baby.  She wasn't even 18 yet, and pregnant again.  She moved back home, but my mum said that Shawn wasn't allowed to come.  It resulted in constant fighting.  Screaming.  I'm sure my mum hated coming home.  One time my sister lunged at my mum, to physically attack her, and my mum back handed her away.  So hard she broke two fingers on my sister's face.
My second neice was born that summer as well, I was 10.  Shawn was in prison, so he wasn't around.  But I watched Kels while mum went with my sister to the hospital.  Now she had two kids and she was only 17.  Somehow my sister found a place to rent and she moved out with both kids.  For her, life seemed to be straightening out.
But for us it was getting worse.  My mum had taken us out somewhere on an odd day off from all her jobs.  When we returned the door to the house had been locked, and her key didn't work.  There was a note from the landlord demanding payment or else he would seize our belongings and properly evict us.  We were shocked.
We spent almost a full month living in our big yellow boat of a car.  Washing where we could, eating maybe one meal a day, my mum sometimes only ate a bite of food, then gave us the rest.  She dropped us off a block from school so that no one knew.  But I'm sure I smelt.  I'm sure I looked extra rumpled.  But no one said anything.
Finally my mum declared bankruptcy.  Making her bills go away so that she could get the money together to pay the landlord.  We were allowed back in our home.  All the food was rotten, there was dust everywhere, and all our fish were dead.  But we had beds, and a proper bath!
I'll write some more tonight if I have time, there is still 14 years to go!  :) but they go by quicker, I promise!