Picking up the train of thought

When my mother left my dad she moved back to Ohio but she didn't immediately move in with my grandmother. We lived in many different apartments, and I have a clear memory of one of them.

I remember walking along with my mother and brother on a very sunny day. I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I've only just recently remembered this and it's become very precious to me. We didn't get to spend a lot of time with my mother as a child since she was a single mother and was either working or going to school. With two young children that can be a very daunting task. At the time I was saring at my feet, as lots of little kids do, and I remember trying not to step on the cracks of the sidwalk we were walking on. In Ohio in the summer it is very beautiful with a lot of big maple trees and a lot of greenery. I remember watching the sunlight make patches on the ground. I don't remember much else after that until a bit later. Our family has just arrived at the apartment complex we lived at. I suppose it wasn't very big, but it seemed big to me. We lived at the very top and I remember how hard it was for my mother to walk up the stairs. I remember this mostly because that day, she fell down teh stairs two or three flights, I don't remmeber much else except that all of our bags we were carrying were on the ground with my mother at the bottom. After that I can't remember anything else, but I assume she was ok, I think she told me later she had a broken foot and wore a cast for a long time, but that for the most part she was ok.

The next memory I have is with one of the women who took care of us during the day. We were now older, around 6 or 7. We didn't live in the apartment anymore, but in a different city in living in half a house. We called it the Split House. This lady was around the age I am now. She was young and drove a bright yellow sports car. Those really long angular ones you always saw in the late 80's early 90's. She had a really nice smile and she always took us special places. She also gave me my first sticker book. I still have it. It was something she had collected as a young girl and I remember thumbing through all the stickers in there. Including ones with Micheal Jackson, and other pop singers from the 80's I didn't know about. I remember it had those wiggly eye stickers, and sniff and scratch stickers and I loved that sticker book. She also took us to her families place one time, and the same day we had icecream at a drive up dairy queen. We ate it on the way to see her family. I remember being scared when we got to the place because it had this old trailer in the front yard that was falling apart and had half of a matteress sitting out the front door. I remember going into the house and seeing an old lady. I guess we were there for a birthday because I remember a cake, and everything smelling of must and smoke. I also remmeber the whole place being rather dark and dingy inside. I didn't stay inside long and curiosity got the better of me and I went outside to investigate the old trailer. I remember it was a rusty blue color and my brother went with me. He found somehting to play in there by himself, and that was the time with I met that boy who tried to play "house" with me. All I remember after that is the look on the boys face when I said no and left.

That was around the same time my brother hurt himself badly on his left wrist. We lived in the split house I told you about, and we were often left to our own devices during the day, wandering about town just the two of us, things like that. My brother and I did everything together. The people who lived in the other side of the house were really nasty people, and their two kids were really mean to us. They were the same age but I guess we must have lived in a dodgy side of town because it seemed we ran into a lot of kids like that. They decided one time while we were out of the house and our mother wasnt around, to lock us out of our house. They were taunting us from the inside and my brother got so mad he punched his hand through the window to get in the back door. It worked only he had to have stitches after that. The next two memories I remember is in the same house. One was when I fell asleep in the bathtub, and floated there for maybe an hour and my mother broke down the door to get to me. lol. She never left me alone in the bathroom again after that. She thought i was dead, and I don't blame her worrying now that I have my own.

We always seemed to be getting into trouble, and My brother and I, so therefor those are the most relevent memories for me. Besides they were the most traumatizing too. It seemed that summer my brother couldn't stay out of trouble. Only a few short weeks after getting stitches for his left wrist he decided to try and open his plastic piggy bank with a serrated knife in the middle of the night. I didnt actually see it happen, but I have severe issues with knives since then, because I did see the wound, and the knife and all the blood. My mother rushed off with my brother to the hospital and I think I stayed with my grandma. My brother had over 100 stitches and he had to wear a cast on his right hand/wrist after that because he had severed nerves they had to recconnect. It was nasty business that. It only gets better too.

My mother decided that my brother was crying out for attention and we went on a family trip to http://www.hockinghillspark.com/Old%20Man's%20Cave.htm Old Man's Cave. Even though it was hard for my mom to walk around she took our family and my cousins there and we all had so much fun. My brother however decided to swim, even with a cast on, and fell in a hole in the water and I remember only seeing his arm stick out and my mother screaming at me to go out there and get him. Except by the time I got to him he was ok. lol. He has only slipped down. We were at this really pretty waterfall too. I really liked being there.

Now that I've got started I can't stop, I just keep remembering more. Funny how that works if you sit down and think about it.

My mother has always been a christian if not LDS. She took us to this barbeque at a nearby church building. It was a really small one. Presbyterian or something like that, and it had a lot of things for kids to play with, including a chained up dog that had been there for ages. It was a really bright sunny day that same summer, and my brother came along as usual, with one hand stitched and the other wearing a cast. We played with some of the other kids, my mother was wearing a beautiful white shirt that day and it looked great with her long dark hair. She didnt really wear her hair down often so it was nice to see. She had lovely thick dark hair and olive skin at this point in time. She also has green eyes. I was impressed, now that I think about it, at how brave she was to go out there despite how mean people can be about overweight people. And that she went out there alone too. Anyways back to the story. My brother and I were eating hotdogs at this barbeque, and I was coming over with another for my brother when I stopped and watched these older kids taunting the poor dog. My brother was off to the side, not really paying attention, and the whole world slowed down as I watched the dog get angrier and angrier. It kept barking at the older kids who were keeping a hotdog just out of it;s reach, and then it noticed my brother. This wasn't a small dog either, it was mix breed, and came up to my brothers chest at the time.

I watched horrified as the dog lunged at my brother when he had just put the hotdog in his mouth, taking the hotdog and my brothers face with it. For one second I was worried it had taken his eyeball with it. Then after that all I remmeber is seeing that beautiful white shirt of my mothers stained in bright red blood, and an abulance taking my mother and brother away.

After that our whole family moved in with my grandma. I think that was a wise choice. My brother was fine, and after about 5 hours of getting stitched up, for the third time this summer, he came home to our new house and did indeed have both of his eyeballs. Those are my first concrete memories as a child. Ironically even though I have an immense fear of knives now, I really dont have the same fear with dogs. My brother has a fear of both though, and I don't blame him!