My story really starts with my parents. It actually goes back farther to an abusive maternal grandfather and a maternal grandmother who committed suicide with pills and alcohol when my mother was 15. It also goes back to my father's family, a paternal grandmother who suffered with multiple sclerosis and was absent both physically and emotionally a lot of the time my dad was growing up. He did have an amazing step-father who stepped into the picture when my biological paternal grandfather left his family around the time my dad was born. The story goes something along the lines of my dad hopefully bringing the family together but instead it tore apart.
Pain ran deep in both my parent's lives. They both were frantically searching for something better, someone to love them. They were grasping at straws trying to create the life they dreamed was out there. And at 16 and 18 years old they married.
When we were young the story was about falling in love when my dad saw my mom after a Bye Bye Birdie musical rehearsal at her high school. She was 15. He a few years older. Ahhh, young love. Later, as I got older, the story got murkier. A southern Baptist boy who knew better, trying to both convert this young girl and also sleep with her. He succeeded in both. As I got even older the story of my paternal grandfather forcing an abortion and heaving threats of statutory rape if they did not get married were told to me. The story of young love getting darker and darker. The start of our family being built out of weak wood and bent nails.
They married in June, right after my mom graduated early from high school. They then moved all the way across the country for a fresh start, a new life away from the familial heartache in San Diego. 18 months later my older brother was born. They started a successful business. Served in youth ministries. Made deep friendships with other young Christian families and almost four years after my older brother was born, they had me.
That though is another story.
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