Everyone has a childhood. And I would say most people encounter some sort of suffering during this influential time in their life. My story is not much different than yours. I was born and raised in a small town on the Columbia River, just 80 miles from Portland, Oregon. My childhood was filled with sports and dance activities, which I loved. In hindsight, they were a great escape from the chaos of home.
I have 2 brothers and 1 sister. The eldest is a half brother 12 years apart from me. He is what people define as an alcoholic and has been this way for as long as I can remember, probably since he left home at 17. My sister is 6 years older than me and was adopted before I was born. She is married with 3 kids and drives a city bus in Portland. My youngest brother, 5 years my elder, is in the Airforce in South Carolina. I haven't seen him in almost a decade. By the time I reached high school I was an only child and some would say spoiled.
Suffering is part of life, and I never really knew what it was until the day my mom disappeared in August 2000. My mom had spent much of her life in and out of the psych ward. She was regularly prescribed drugs (like many). What set her apart from others was the lack of progress she made psychologically. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder which i witnessed first hand from the time I was born. I visited her many times in the hospital in the short 17 years I knew her.
The summer of 2000 was different. I had moved into a friends house for a period of time because her mood was so unpredictable. It hurt me to see her like that. Near the end I knew something was wrong. I even told my good friend, while waiting for cheer practice, that I wanted to play "A song for Mama" by Boys II Men at her funeral. Little did I know that song would play a couple of weeks later. I remember everything that surrounded her death. From the fight we had before she left to the image of her driving past me as she took her final journey. I waved to her as she passed but her face showed no emotion or recognition of me in the next car. At the time I thought nothing of it. I just thought she simply wasn't paying attention. It wasn't until later when I came home, worried getting in trouble for being past curfew, that I knew something was wrong.....
