Lilly Sway

I was really sad this last month I had the misfortune to loose a sibling and a parent.  I know that life is short and life is for the living, but the people that pass away are someone’s love, or a sister, a brother, a mother, or even just a friend. I lost my dad, and my sister this month and I am really not my self. I can not just shrug it off. I had a very abusive childhood and have wavered through life with the most positive attitude one can possibly muster on an every day basis.

I never have let myself feel sorry for my misfortune, and I have made those horrid times virtually insignificant in my life as an adult. I have put all of my energy into being a good solid person I am not boasting. I really do work at it everyday. I do not say mean things to people, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, until they prove me wrong.I cried for my mother through her final days and she never once said something cross about her sufferings or the life we endured as children to my father’s alcoholic rage,

This person himself, was a victim of abuse he was left in the streets as a child to fend for himself, at the age of 11 he had already done more harm than good. In the days of the depression were the poverty stricken pockets of those who suffered in the quiet of the doors closed to the outside world. If someone heard, they made themselves deaf for their problems, and situation seemed insurmountable with no end in sight, Why would they add more to it.

I do not make excuses for my father I am an adult, and I have chosen to live life as a good person. He could have done the same with his choices, but he did not and that is a fact. I came from a large family, as many people of my era did. My parents as I was told were a collision of  He  who was called the devils advocate by so many people who knew him, and She who was called nothing but an Angel. I knew it to be the truth for In our home we had the angel who taught us to think, pray, have faith, learn something new everyday, never say a cross word, and always love those who need your love the most. My father in my childhood was never a kind person nor did he ever and I can say this with out trying to say something bad, just saying the truth, he never had remorse nor said he was sorry for a thing that transpired throughout our childhood.

We did not ever know what a peaceful beautiful day was, until as grownups with the power to choose made everyday a day worth living. I was blessed with having the power to see that nothing could last forever, for I knew that one day, I would grow up and have the opportunity to leave the bad place for the place of my dreams one with calm, safety, quiet, and most importantly with only love. I was the only person to survive mentally, I tried to coral my siblings to my safety zone so that they would not lose the faith that I lived for.

I slowly lost my siblings to alcoholism, self destructive indulgence, and to the ways they had come to hate so much. I have been a sort of mediator for those who have dropped in and out of my life and, those of my parents lives. When my mother passed away it took me two years to contact all of my family. There are those who blamed my mother and those who were too young to remember the beatings she endured so they say. I never could forget seeing her laying there with a black eye, or a broken nose, or unconscious until the police broke the door down. I remember the outcome was always the same domestic disturbance, and even the neighbors telling my mom where would you go with 8 kids?  just endure and she did.

I am sad that even though he was so very bad a father and spouse that not one day had he ever repented his actions even when my mother passed away. He was not a good person in his old age, he lived for the turmoil he could cause his children. To others who were outsiders, who only new the last ten years or so of him saw a very sad lonely individual who gave them good advice as a friend and longed for his children to come and see him. I was the only one who looked out after his welfare as my mother asked me to.

I was not in denial, I never forgot, but I did forgive my father.  My mother would say to me on her death bed as she told me of how my dad just took her life over and would never leave even when she asked him to. She said you will grow mean and bitter if you hold on to the bad, so just don’t.  He was breaking into her room at the boarding house she lived in when she was young, she was thrown out for not paying her rent, he told her later that he had done it so that she would let him help her. She was alone and afraid and had no family.

My father was a person who never accepted the word no. He was manipulative and used every thing in the book for his benefit he played the CPS of those days like a fixed card game, one that only he could win. I was recalling once he came in so drunk and crazy he demanded to eat, and commanded us to eat with him (It was 3 o’clock in the morning), we all got up and sat at the table, my mothers face was bleeding we knew not to say a word We sat and ate as if it were dinner hour he fell asleep in the middle of eating we all quietly sneaked out of the dinning room, but he woke up and called us back he gave us all a beating so bad for coming to the dinner table late, that I called the CPS to our home, I was eight. Bad mistake they actually came right out and he said that our mother had to much to drink and that she took it out on us, and that he would take control of the situation now that “he knew”, because he worked nights and had no idea, but that he would get her some help.

I was mortified to the point of becoming catatonic.   I could not utter a word to the people who were chastising my mother, and threatening her with incarceration. My father all the while playing the concerned parent. They left and he said that when he found out what nosy neighbor called them he would take of them for good. Most of our neighbors feared him and with good reason. He was 6 foot 3 inches and 300 pounds of solid man, a steel forge-man the men that he knew were just like him. We never looked at my dad eye to eye as children. That was the devil we knew.

I lost my sister and never had the chance to give her some closure she never stayed in contact and only checked in once in a while. My older sister ran away at 14 and was put in a foster home where a family took her in, and she had so many things wrong, that she as far as I know never had a good day. All of my siblings suffered and have had troubled lives, I have always thought that if I did the same it would mean that he won, that my dad gave us all the horrors and we survived for nothing, if we were just like him. So I did not, I did not let myself get dragged into that self pity, and lack of worth. I made sure that my mothers endurance of all the evil he could throw her way was not in vane. I hate those memories,  and I would like to forget it all if not for the love I hold in my heart for my mother and my siblings I miss my sister and will always feel sad when I think of her.

I shared this because I think that sometimes people are still out there with the devil and the Angel and that, if it is bad for you now or was bad for you once, that you can make it out, and be a survivor not a victim. I do not live a day when things could make a person give up, but I did not come all this way to roll over and play dead. I do not hate for I can only pity my father, He had all of the good life for the taking, but he chose the bad.

Food for the Mind

Lilly’s Way

www.lillysway.com

I do not have a big black Labrador or something, is what I said to the gas company. No I do not have a dog in my yard at all I repeated, I was informed by a message on my telephone that I had to be home for an accurate meter reading this month, or I would have to accept the bill with an estimate of our usage. So I called to ask why I had to be home there are no locks on our gates and the meter is in plain site, The representative for the gas company said that my dog would hold the meter reader at bay and that frankly he was afraid that the dog would bite him. I said I do not own a dog ours had passed away two years ago, she said that the meter reader was there between the 19th and 20th of the month every month and that he could no longer stand the thought of the dog chasing back to the gate entrance he said the dog nipped his pants. and snarled at him.

I just laughed it off and said while I feel for the meter reader I was sure that he was mistaken about the address because I do not have a dog. I must have hit a nerve with this lady she informed me that this was no laughing matter and that she was recording the conversation for the sake of training purposes. I again repeated to her that I did not have a pet in my yard and that there was something wrong with her paper work or the man had the wrong address. She informed me of the law and how they do not have to read the meter if the person feels threatened.

I said wait a minute please, and listen I do not have a dog I have two gold fish, a turtle, 3 salamanders, 1 wayward cat, and ant farm but no dog. She asked if I would like to acknowledge that I would not have my meter read until the problem was corrected. I felt exasperated and as if I had been on the phone with no one on the other end. I asked for the supervisor and proceeded to tell her again that there was no dog in our family at this time, and there was some kind of mistake going on here she said she would have a supervisor call me back. I ran through the house and asked if anyone had a dog that they were hiding, or feeding, or were they sitting a dog for someone else, all the replies were no.

I waited for the supervisor who returned my call( the next day), He said that he had done research on our meter, and their past readings, and then he said that we had not had an accurate bill in 5 months, I asked “why not” he said at every interval there was the matter of my dog in the way, or that the meter reader was afraid to come into the property. I asked if it was the policy to wait this long to address the problems encountered on the route of the meter readers? He said that sometimes it take that long to get a response from the owner I said your office called me only yesterday and I immediately returned the call.

He did not respond to that, but to say that had the dog problem been corrected I would have had a regular bill. I now have a 5 month accumulation of in correct amounts in their favor to pay. I read all of my past bills they did not inform me of a problem reading the meter, or of a dog issue. But really all this aside I reiterated that I have no dog and that there was a big mistake somewhere he asked if I could be there for the meter reader on Thursday last. I was and there and there was no dog as I had said, but this was a gentleman that comes out only when there is a problem with access to a property and the owner is there by request (He knew nothing about the alleged dog).

Today I got the bill it was $669.00 and I am out raged and can barely hold the anger inside enough to wait the 22 minutes that it takes to talk to a real person and then I am told that due to the estimates of the low billing because of the dog,(the one I do not have). I will have to pay it. I was  livid by then and felt very exhausted. This was because I know that I could not possibly pay this bill this month. I have a winter average bill of $80 to $180.00, not $600.00 plus. The gas company says that no matter the dog the reading is accurate and I will have to pay the bill or be turned off, because the bill reflects the proper usage. to date. I hung up the phone and sat down to my cold coffee and pen and paper to budget what I can in order to come up with the money, I did not pay the car, we are already on a potato, bean mystery meat diet. so there was no way to cut back there, I did not pay the water bill and there is not enough still to take care of this disaster.

I sat and thought about the dog issue and realized that my neighbor has a big black Doberman pincher in his back yard (this dog could never be confused with a Lab). I walked out and then I remembered it the fence was gone, I saw it the fence was gone between the yards since Ike(The big Hurricane ), and my neighbor had put an electric fence that would keep the dog in his yard through his collar, but when I went in the yard old Riley the dog just looked my way and kept eating his breakfast, so I called to him and there it was, the problem he came all the way across both yards and licked my hand. I  petted his head and took him back home and told my very nice neighbor that his collar was not working. so he put on a new spare collar and poor old Riley was stuck in his yard again. I will have to find a way to solve this problem, and come up with the money or not, but I really do wish that the gas company had left a note or something sooner. I have learned that even if you think that there is nothing else that can go wrong or that you are sure that you are right you probably have not thought about it all the way through.

Food For the Mind

Lilly’s Way

www.lillysway.com