Our Story

If you have read my previous blogs, you might have noticed I mention only my mother, not my dad. Well, I intend to explain this and more. This information about my mother and I is quite personal, but I feel it is important information to help understand me and my stories to come.

There have been numerous times I have said my mother has been through a lot. This is because my mom has had two husbands, and both were abusive alcoholics. She did not know her husbands would treat her they did. In fact, I recently learned she did not wish to marry either of them. She was never properly proposed to by these men. They both expected her to take their hands in marriage, and my mother did not have the courage to say deny them.

My mother met her first husband in high school. He was the football star, and she was the beautiful cheerleader. She told me one day he said, “I think it is about time we got married.” There was no ring or getting down on one knee. She did not wish to marry him but she did. With her first husband, she had my oldest brother, Jacob. After Jacob’s birth, the drinking and abuse only escalated. When my mother was pregnant with her second son, Jesse, her husband beat her head against a wall. She says she can still remember the feeling of her unborn child panicking after the incident. When it came time for Jesse’s birth, the doctors found his umbilical cord tied around his neck, and he did not survive. Shortly after came my sister, Cassidy. With two children, my mother tried to make the marriage work but after so much of being cheated on and abused, she finally decided she had enough and left.

Baby me with my siblings.

A couple years later, my mom met my father at a carryout. She said she remembered seeing him walk up to her car in her rearview mirror, and she thought he was so handsome. Not too long after they met, he moved in with her. Again, my mom felt as if she had no choice. Jacob and Cassidy despised the man, so they went to live with their father, and my father took my mom to Kentucky. How I came about was from my mother’s prayer. She began to desire another child, so she asked God to give her one if he felt she should have one. Therefore, she became pregnant with me. My mom was 36 at the time, so doctors told her I would have issues. I may have some issues, but none of which are because of my mother’s age. When I was a toddler, my father told my mother that he made arrangements to get married. As I mentioned before, she did not want to marry him, but she did not know how say no. He also was abusive to the both of us, and she was not happy with her life living in a trailer in Kentucky. They were only married six months when my mother decided to leave him. I still remember that day clearly.

My mother took us back to Ohio, and we have been here ever since. Jacob and Cassie never came back to live with mom, so she spent most of her time raising me. My mom made due by working in factories and gas stations because she never got to finish college, and we lived in a house my grandfather owned. When my grandfather passed, my grandmother used my mother’s inheritance to move us into a house closer to her.

Now, my brother and his family lives in Findlay, Ohio, and my sister and her family lives in Delphos, Ohio. My brother visits regularly, but we do not see my sister as often. My mother and I live in Ada, Ohio, two doors down from my grandmother.

Me with my mom and my brother.

Of course, this is not all of the details to our story, but it is enough to give you a base understanding. Although those moments have come and gone, I still see their effects on my mother, and I sometimes notice their effects on me. You will see in the future how this has affected me both negatively and positively. It is because of this story I have become the person I am.