RecoveryI thought went, “it is easier to forgive than forget,” I discovered many others, but could not find it one quoted in those exact words. I can forgive and still love that person. Not being able to forget makes me cry when I think of being hurt by others. I will never ever mention it again to them. I let it go for their sake. I keep it in my heart to still creep up on me when I least expect the pain to come back. The four months we spent with Aunt Nell and Uncle Keith will always be part of me. The parts that hurt me the most are how I was always made to feel I did not belong. I was not part of any family. I did not want to be part of mine; the one that was Mama, Daddy, my brother and me. I wanted to be included with Aunt Nell's. There was always the recentment of what a sacrifice everyone made for Daddy's family. For this I have forgiven, but have never forgot. Not forgetting I think makes me a better person. I never fussed or brought up what I thought they had wronged me with. Well, once I tried. Try was all I did I could not make myself ask the question I wanted to ask. I tried to get my grandmother to admit being wrong. She just couldn't.

Below is the Quote that some people think means,

"it is easier to forgive than to forget."
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
                              ~Henry Ward Beecher

My New Home

The time that passed while we were living at Aunt Nell and Uncle Keiths was from day to day a struggle for all of us. My grandmother was at her daughters recovering from her gall bladder surgery. She was heart broken over the loss of her home and time for me was not an issue to her. She had made it very clear that we were to not move back in the new house with them. Daddy was to look for us a place of our own. He did not look. The building of the house was slowing taking place. It was placed on a concrete slab, because this is what Aunt Faye's husband done for a living. He had a business that poured concrete. To me they were rich.
My Aunt Nell was a pretty women that had fell in love with my daddy's brother while married to someone else. She had left her daughter and now was trying to make that mistake up by being a super mom to the two boys she now had with my Uncle Keith. My little brother fought for her attention. He would have fits that were much like a dog with rabies if she did more for her boys that she did for him. His feelings toward Aunt Nell were much the same as mine for my grandmother at this time. He had seen her as his savior in all the disfunction that was surrounding us. She was dark haired, slim and had the most beautiful blue eyes. She in her whole adult life was attractive to men. She was a good person basically, but a few times in her live she made some poor judgements, because of men wanting her. She had thought the man she was married to was a useless drunk. He really was a cousin, not first or second to Daddy and Uncle Keith. My grandmother was ashamed of this because Ruby and Roy, Aunt Nell's ex-in-laws did not speak to Grandmother for years.
All of the talk that was taking place over the new house and that we were not going to live there was cutting me like a knife. I felt so that they were throwing us away. We were going to be put into a house once again where we would not have good food to eat or heat. It was obvious that Daddy was not going to do better. The whole amount of time we stayed with his brother was a constant fight. Uncle Keith constantly made fun of Daddy for not having anywhere to go. Which this was just what he wanted. He loved to make fun and low-rate other people. This made him feel better about what a real nothing asshole he was.
He was always quick with an insult to anyone one. This was his personality even when he was not drinking. Here I am a skinny eight year old in a house of mean Uncle Keith. The boys; my brother and cousins following the adults lead in low rating me. Crying was something that will become something I start and never stop. There was no bathroom in the old rental house. Bathing was not done often, but when I remember taking a bath it was in the big double sink in the kitchen. One day I was in the sink bathing when Uncle Keith came into the kitchen. There were no doors from the back of the house into the kitchen. The front door onto the porch was directly in front of the sink that I was bathing in. Uncle Keith came into the kitchen and told me to be sure to wash my ass. He was never did anything other than mouth off unappropriate remarks. He also thought it was funny if you accidentally saw him naked. The grin he got was one of shear delight in he had made me uncomfortable.
The kitchen of the old house was the setting for many of the crazy things these two drunk brothers did. We ate pinto beans and cornbread every night for supper. Potatoes if there were some still left in the crib at grandmother's barn. They were the men and men were more important no matter how useless they were. They were always first to eat no matter what. We as the four children ate what was left. By time we got to the table the two of them had already talked to one another long enough to be mad at each other. It was Daddy letting Uncle Keith tell him how sorry he was, what a stupid wife he had and what he should be doing to fix his miserable life. Daddy would take it for long as a drunk or hung over man could. I am sure he was not in the best of moods most of the time. Whiskey done that to him.
By time us kids were finishing up eating the physical part of the dinner conversation had almost began. We were always rushed out into the yard by my Aunt Nell. From the front of the house with two front doors the sound of plates breaking, bodies falling and cussing was what the four of us kids and Mama and Aunt Nell would listen to. The fights most of the time did not last long and there was not that much blood. The worst was bloody noses and bruises except for the time Uncle Keith grabbed a butcher knife. Killing Daddy may not have been why he got the knife, but then I wondered many times if either of them would get that mad or crazy drunk. Taking a knife to your brother could have ended worse than it did. He took the knife somehow and slashed Daddy across the forehead, right between his eyes. This was the bloodiest the kitchen ever was after there nightly after dinner fights. The cut on Daddy's head was deep, but he did not get stitches. He let it heal on it's own which took forever. It was so terrible that after a few days it appeared his forehead was rotting. It was bruised and infected.
Eventually he went to Dr. Ledbetter in Rogersville and he gave him something for infection. Going to the doctor was something that Daddy could not afford, since he needed his money for whiskey. He worked for his sisters husband just long enough to get whiskey money. Which probably was good for me, because he was not saving to find us somewhere to live. It would take a fight that was out of control for Grandmother to let us come to the new house.

After the Old House Burnt

The burning of the old house put me in another time in my life that was eventful. The night the house burnt I was taken to my aunts. Her daughters were spending the night with the dad's brother's children. I had my dear aunt all to myself. She treated me in a manner that I never remember anyone treating me ever. She tucked me in her girls beds and sat beside me as I was going to sleep. Telling me that all was going to be alright. She treated me as a daughter, that night. She in later years would even more so. She was like my grandmother and mama dealing with the men of our family. Her brother's were a great worry for her as well as her dad. She worked hard to keep her husband in line. She put extra effort into keeping her daughters away from the drinking men. It always bugged me, because she would not let them spend the night with me at grandmothers. I did get to stay with them alot though.

Insecure was something I had already started even then. Jeolous, and feeling not as good as my cousins was a feeling that I have never not known. It started then, because my grandmother was in the hospital during the fire. She had to be told with great caution. This was something that was going to hurt her deeply. She had worked hard for all she had in the house. She had also lost her son and his entire family in a fire two years prior to this. She still morned over the death of her son, his wife and their twelve year old son. The fact that his wife had died last and they did not get any Uncle Bill's money made it even worse. My granddaddy cursed his daughter-in-laws family all night long many nights. My grandmother was constantly reminded of the fire, because of the money they did not get.

The chore of telling my grandmother was finally taken care of and she was to be in the hospital another week. The discussion then shifted to where they were going to stay when she was released from the hospital. The only thing that could be was that Grandmother and Granddaddy stay with there daughter. The fate that was put on me was heartbreaking to me. I had to live in a house without my grandmother. I was put with my mama and daddy, not my grandmother. I was supposed to take this and not worry that I may be cold, hungry and wet once again. We were to stay with Uncle Keith and Aunt Nell. This was my daddy's brother that was close to his dad when it came to his personality when drinking. He spent many nights ranting all night long about the unfairnesses he had suffered in his life. He shifted to the Korean war most to the time. Bomb Fucked this or that was one of his regular 'isms. This man gave selfishness a profound definition. Thus the beginning of a four month stay that was going to be full of fist fights and chaos.

In the short four months there we will have spent the night in a ditch. Daddy and his brother will leave us at the burnt house with no way home, because they have ran in yet another ditch. My little brother will have numerous mad fits. My aunt will endure all of this in a marriage she left her first husband and child for.

The Burning of the Old House

The family members that did well take great pride in the family name. Often when we talk say that it is the blood; that makes them so strong and prosperous. Our family gene pool held many things that can make you excel in many ways. There was ego, passion, pride, good looks and the desire to have money. These things can be used for the betterment or the down fall of any person. What outsiders saw many times was the obvious. Sometime it was a drunken fit for the whole Corum Hollow to hear. Sometime it was a car ran in the ditch. Then there were a couple of fires. On a better note there was a good cotton crop, the church services we attended, how nice we looked in clothes that were handmade, and the help lent out to the struggling farmers surrounding our home.
One of the major fires was when Grandmother’s house burnt while she was in the hospital. The trip to the hospital was devastating for me more than anyone. It meant that I was to be left with, Granddaddy, Daddy and Mama to watch after my little brother and me. The worst part was I could not go with her to the hospital. She always made me feel like an idiot because I did not want her to leave me. I never could understand that. I know she should have been happy for me to want her with me so much. Maybe it was that I was an easy target for her. My brother stayed out of sight most of the time. He was probably smart in doing so.
She left for the hospital leaving with Daddy and Granddaddy both drunk. It was November, but not cold at all. It was more of just a cool fall day in general. Daddy was in his take care of things mode that day. I was in desperate need of shoes for school. The trip to Rogersville was not far and would not take long. The selection of children’s shoes was limited and I had a pair picked out almost immediately. They were dark brown, kind of spotted with lighter brown. They resembled what a pilgrim would wear. Daddy was at this time driving a white Plymouth; we all were in the front seat, Mama, me in the middle and Daddy driving.
Topping the hill just past the Phillips house was a point that from the house you could always see someone coming our way or if you were heading towards the house you could look to the left and see in the distance the white farm house as well as Corum’s Chapel Baptist Church. We had barley topped the hill when Daddy saw the smoke. He got a look of panic on his face and started driving really fast. I could see the biggest/blackest smoke imaginable as we topped the hill. The speed that he drove made us get to the house in just seconds.
When we got there fire trucks were already trying to put the fire out with no success. The neighbors were all lined up and down the road watching as the house was burning. One neighbor that lived a little farther than you would actually call a neighbor told Daddy that he needed to go in the house and get his dad. Daddy asked him was he in there, Preston Dean said yeah he was out here but ran back in to get something. Daddy ran to the front of the house just as Granddaddy was coming off the porch. He grabbed him and through him to the ground. Just as he let him go he was running back into the house. This man was drunk, crazy and selfish. This persona rolled into one made him no matter what have get a snuff can that had seven-thousand dollars in it out of that burning house.

He had these beady little eyes that were evil blue colored and as he was stumbling to the house he really looked scary. He was small and often had skid marks on the back of his pants from not wiping or wet farts one. He would sit on this light blue chair and when he got up there would be brown left from his bottom. I look at pictures of him now and can’t imagine anything as evil as this man. The pictures are even of him as a younger man, but I still have an image of him burnt in my mind as the dirty old man he was. He had this thing he did with his pointer finger. It was as if you summoning someone to come to you. The way he did it was more as he was fingering someone sexually. He sat with snuff dripping from the corner of his mouth with a want me? Look moving that pointer finger. The thought of it to this day gives me chills. I am almost sure he done it to any female around. He thought my grandmother would not believe anyone that told her he did such things. My grandmother believed, but just ignored.

After all the wrestling Daddy did to keep him out of the house at last the house began to fall in as it fell the attempt the crazy, drunk man was making finally stopped. The house burned all the way to the ground leaving them with nothing. The seven thousand dollars that he had tried to go in the burning house to get was not even in the house. Grandmother had hid it in the well house, before she went to the hospital. She knew that the whole time she was gone he would be drunk and there would be men over drinking with him. She hid the money out of the house; with the irony that this was the money that would be used to build the house back. This was 1970 and that amount of money with some added would build the three bedroom brick house that she and her husband both died in back.

Letting Go

Forgiveness is something that comes easy for me. Forgetting is harder. I remembered the quote, it is easier to forgive than forget. In searching for the quote I thought went, "it is easier to forgive than forget, I thought went, I discovered many others, but could not find it one quoted in those exact words. I can forgive and still love that person. Not being able to forget makes me cry when I think of being hurt by others. I will never ever mention it again to them. I let it go for their sake. I keep it in my heart to still creep up on me when I least expect the pain to come back.
*I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one. ~Henry Ward Beecher    So if I still let it hurt me I really have not foregiven anyone
*Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. ~Mark Twain  Yes, that's what makes me feel better I have given to another person. It at the time makes me feel better to tell them, "its alright."
*Once a woman has forgiven her man; she must not reheat his sins for breakfast. ~Marlene Dietrich   I never bring the wrong the person did me back up again. No matter how bad I want to.
 *It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. ~Grace Hopper    Done that! Said that!
*The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~Mahatma Gandhi   Yeah, I am the bigger person. Oh, that's my ego, wanting me to be bigger/better than them. It is a payback, maybe.

*To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~Lewis B. Smedes   I am the one that feels the sadness and madness emotions by not forgetting it-----Get over it. Let it go there is the solution.*Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. ~William Arthur Ward   Feeling good, about something; that's what we all want to do.(Warm fuzzy feeling)

Quote of the Day

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. i'll always be with you.”~~~Winnie the Pooh

 I was only two when JFK was assassinated. It may be hard to believe, but I do remember seeing it on television.  I remember walking in front of the television seeing the footage of the car.The living room and television are still a dim memory to me. The state of the room is also etched somewhat in my mind. At that time Daddy was still working at the Steel Mill in Plymouth Michigan. For the day that was a good job. My grandmother talked often about what a good job he once had. He was a foreman according to her. At that time the household income must have made it easier for him to keep things around the house on Morley fixed. In later years it seemed to become cluttered outside with junk cars. There was a pile of wood that my grandmother complained about each time she came on her mission to help her son’s family.The junk cars housed bums that Daddy would let sleep in them many nights. This made my mama so mad. I always wanted to help, and one morning I attempted to chase one of them away with a broom. He left. I know now that a grown man was not afraid of a little skinny girl. He was not going to run because of me. It may be part of my imagination that I ran him off. My mama always told that I did. I was seven when we left there. Is it possible that a child younger than seven could scare a vagabond out of a parked car, he was sleeping I was beating on the car with a broom. Yes, it is possible if he did not know what was going on, for him to get up and run. He ran down the street which seemed like miles and miles to me.
As a small child the back yard seemed big to me; it really wasn’t. As many people do get ideas of adding on or building something he had done this; the pile of wood was proof of him having some goals for us, there. My daddy is not the only man I have seen this in and it may not be a real bad thing. The whole picture of how we ended up with Grandmother till we were grown is a good thing really. After we got here I never ever wanted to leave. I didn’t want Daddy to get us a place of our own. I knew I was better off with Grandmother.
Grandmother came to visit on a mission, because she knew her son’s family needed help. He was off up there with two kids and a wife. The wife she sure was the cause for it all. It was her messiness of the house and why her son drank so much. “A woman can throw as much out the back door with a spoon as a man can shovel in at the front door, you know.”---one of the things she said often.
The back yard as small as it really was holds a great memory of Daddy; he really was deep down a humble man. Kites were one thing he loved. It seems we did this often in my mind, but really I think I have made the onetime be many more times. Mama and my little brother were in the yard that day. We had a swing set in the corner of the yard. Mama was pushing Kenny in the swing. In the field behind our lot Daddy and I were flying the kite. He had gotten it so high that it was nearly out of sight. Even then it was not high enough for him. We went to the store and bought more string so it would go even higher. Weather we ever reeled it back in I don’t remember. I just know that he was as much a kid that day as I was. When he made the effort to be my daddy he made me feel like a very special little girl.
The things we did then were typical and normal. When it changed or if it changed much I don’t know for sure. There was always a time that someone he was drinking some. It just got worst as time went on. The visitors we had from down here did not help him much. The time was when many men were going up north to work. Some of them that came to our house pretended they were looking for jobs. This is what they told their parents or wives when they wanted to get away for a while. It turned into a holiday instead of finding work. That is how my daddy ended up there. He met my mama there. She was not even from up north. Her dad came to the north to work at Ford. They were from West Virginia. More hillbillies than Daddy even. Still she was labeled a Yankee.
My mama was terribly depressed after my little brother was born. I have come to this conclusion based on the reason there are no baby pictures of him to be found. The youngest picture that I know of is his first grade picture after we left Wayne, Michigan.
When he was still in diapers Mama and Grandpa took us to the Detroit zoo. Mama had a terrible time with him, because he had a stomach virus of sorts. The day must have been something she had thought would make her feel more like a together mother. Grandpa and Grandma insisted that morning that my brother would be fine. I know they must have wanted Mama to be a good mother to us. Her mother was somewhat like mama. She however, had Grandpa to take care of her. Daddy was not as a giving man. He did not pay attention or realize that he could have helped her. It takes one really strong person to make up for what two working together can’t accomplish.
**********

There were times that Daddy flew in and wanted Mama to take more interest in taking care of the house and us. On picture day he wanted me to have a decent dress to wear. The dress was pink silky material with a round collar and black velvet bow tied in the middle of the collar. He came home from work one day determined to make her iron my dress so that I would look good in my school picture the next day. As always I was right in the middle of the events of the day. Daddy got Mama to heat the iron for the pressing of the dress. I followed in as she thought that the iron was ready to start. How it happened was somewhere between a fight and an accident. He was forever trying to make her do things the right way. She was forever trying to just do things. In the line of fire the ironing board fell and the iron hit my arm. My arm had the print of the iron on it. The burn was bad enough that she took me to the doctor. Going to the doctor at one time was something she did all the time. She took us too, much Daddy said. By this time we weren’t taken very much, because of the cost. Went went to the doctor often at one point. I think as we became poor the doctor visits stopped. Mama was the type that would take us to the doctor for very minor things. She was not worried about what anything cost at one point. Her dad had worked for Ford and Daddy's job was good until he lost it. There are really times that I think we could of had a good childhood even up north. For someone as good as I know Daddy really was. He was a good humble man, because my grandmother said so.

Family Pride

When I talk of our family I mean not just my grandparents. I want the sweet wonderful great aunts to be where I came from. Their son's and daughters that thought of us often and knew my grandmother had her hands full.The family members that did well take great pride in the family name. Thing is the egos in our family have always been huge. It really didn't  matter, everyone of them were proud of their name.
When addiction is mentioned or protrayed to me; what I saw growing up was far worse than the average drunk. Today although I may not be exposed to the bars or heavy drinkers; I see nothing as bad as it was growing up.Often when we talk we say that it is the blood;  makes them so strong and prosperous or as I do because of blood don't drink often, because I could begin to like it. This makes me worry more when my girls drink socially. It is highly possible that they are more prone to addiction.
     Back to the generation born in the late eighteen hundreds my grandfather and his son's took the cake. Mayorn and Nancy, my great-grandparents had nine children. Two sons and the rest were girls.One son Red was a somewhat of a drinker and mean but not to the extent that his brother Abe was. Abe being my daddy's father. This was the branch of the tree that was soaked with wildcat whiskey. My grandfather's  sisters children that is where my family pride comes from; although not perfect, but good to me.
     Our family gene pool held many things that can make you excel in many ways. There was ego, passion, pride, good looks and the desire to have money. These things can be used for the betterment or the down fall of any person. What outsiders saw many times was the obvious. Sometime it was a drunken fit for the whole Corum Hollow to hear. Sometime it was a car ran in the ditch. Then there were a couple of fires. Oh yeah, and there were affairs. On a better note there was a good cotton crop, the church services we attended, how nice we looked in clothes that were handmade, and the help lent out to the struggling farmers surrounding our home.

     I realize that reading my stories, some of you may get the impression that some people I was surrounded by were bad very bad people. It is easy to judge others, especially if their actions are mainly motivated by selfishness and addiction. We do come into the world as infants with a desire to be fed and held. This is the beginning of the human characteristic; putting self first. As we grow, live and learn thank goodness that most of us, realize that putting others first makes you feel good. Even the worst of the worst had their moments of giving me something that I could carry with me and use in a positive way. Watching them screw everything up, may have even been a good thing for me. I find humor in many of the things they did; although at the time it wasn’t all that funny.
     I want to explain each of these events and the people in a way that it is understood how I gathered wisdom from each of them. How people even when they seem terrible can make you forget the bad that they did by trying to make it right or look right. I repeat this often and here it is again, better than my words can express.......It is funny to me how many are quick to say they don’t care what others think seem to be the ones that try harder to impress people.


“There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found while journeying east and west-the only folks we really wound are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know; we please the fleeting guest, and deal full to many a thoughtless blow to those who love us best.’~~~Wheeler Wilcox