First 5 years

Writing the story of my life so far is not easy for me. I am often overwhelmed with sadness at the things that have happened to me. As far back as I can remember I have only wanted to be loved, hugged, cuddled, complimented and looked up to. I have wanted one thing most in life. My own family.

 

My family is large. I have 4 sisters and one brother. I come from a different father. My mom came from a large family of 12 brothers and sisters. Her parents are both polish. She was the baby. My father came from a family of 3. I have no idea what nationality either of his parents are but I seem to have the impression that his mother's family came from Spain and I remember him telling me that his father's family, his real father, came from Scotland. This news came to me when I was 14 and visiting him for the first time in 9 years. I was confused, real father? So what about my last name? It turns out that his mother had been friends with a man I shall call Mr. Curry. Her husband didn't like it and when she discovered she was pregnant with her 3rd child, this time a boy, his father Mr. Shuffield denied it was his. Thus kicking them all out and leaving them for Mr. Curry to raise. So he did and he adopted my father and he gained the last name Curry. My life was a lie and now my last name was a lie. I hated it. I couldn't wait to find "the one" and get married and get rid of my lie of a name Curry. My father said that he realized this news when Mr. Shuffield passed away and he went to his funeral. He looked down on the man and saw himself. That's when he learned the truth. He told me the truth about the same age that he learned the truth. He also had mentioned that he had a sister who committed suicide at 12 or 13 years of age. He had 2 sisters left. All of them were large people. My grandmother was a large woman. She died when I was 9. That was the first contact I had with my father since he left when I was 5. A phone call, to tell me the only family member who actually loved and cared about me was dead. I felt alone.

When I think about my childhood I remember happy times. I remember the big house we lived at in Glasgow Montana. I remember it had a chain-link fence around the front yard. I remember it had two large stone flower beds off to the left side of the house, one in the front and one near the back. I remember it had apple trees on the left side as well. Small green apples grew on it and they were sour but I loved them. I remember learning how to do cartwheels off of those flower beds. I remember my mom had a large red wishing well. I remember the backyard had a Koi pond and my mom had fish inside of it. I remember there was a camper that was not on a truck and it was my play house. I remember making mud pies in there. I remember a basketball hoop on the garage in the back there, but gravel made it hard to bounce balls. Inside the house I remember a large living room with a long staircase off to the right side. To the left was my parents room and at one point my dad decided they were going to make the room larger. He removed one wall and one day while using an electric saw he cut off his pointer finger on his left side. He was a lefty so now he had to learn to write with his right. I remember it happening, being outside near him when it happened. I don't remember anything else. I remember the house had three rooms upstairs and a large hallway in-between all the rooms, like a nice sized playroom. I remember there was some attic space on the outside parts of the rooms, connecting two of the rooms. I remember I was told never to go in there, even though there were toys in there.

This is the house where I was abused my the majority of my family members. Aside from my sister Kelly and my sister Kieya. This is the house where my mom and dad met Lyle, or Al for short. I remember he seemed Mexican because of his mustache. I remember he was scary and had a knife. I remember I liked him at first and then I became very scared of him. I don't remember much about him, at all except I hate him. I was told by my oldest sister Kelly, that she once caught him on top of me, I was crying and trying to get away from him. She threatened him. She was in her 20's. At home it was my two youngest sister, Kieya and Keriba and my brother Jon. They all had a different father than me. I was the baby, literally. They were teenagers and Jon was 9. Lyle taught Jon that it was OK to use me as a sexual learning tool. It would be OK, no one would have to know. I knew. I remembered. It was not OK with me. I slept in my sister Keriba's room in a crib until I was 4. I learned how to rock myself to sleep. This is normal and totally OK, most children grow out of it when they are 3 or 4. I didn't grow out of it until I was 18 and started to sleep in a bed with someone else. I broke my crib because of the rocking. I was moved out of her room and into the open hallway upstairs to a big twin bed. I remember my sister Kieya always wanted to put pillows next to me on the floor, I couldn't understand why but she would tell me that I would often fall out of bed and land on the hard floor and she didn't want me to get hurt.
This picture on the left is of me and my sister Keriba. There is an 8 millimeter film that goes with it. In the film I am encouraged to smell a flower and then Keriba hits me on the back of the head when I do. I watched another "home movie" where someone placed the camera on a tri-pod and seems to have forgotten that it was recording. In the movie I am about 4 years old, jumping around, singing, asking questions, being a child. My mother is sitting on the floor messing with lights. Lyle is off to the right side messing with the Christmas Tree. Suddenly out of no where he backhands me and I fly backwards landing on my butt. My mom does nothing. No comforting, no standing up for me, no telling Lyle he is an asshole. Then the tell me to shut up.

I remember going to school and loving it. I remember I was excited to go. I remember Lyle having to pick me up and I was scared. I did not want to go with him. I remember getting to stay up late with my parents and watch Freddy Kruger and I also got to drink some wine cooler. I remember sneaking into their room and playing my dad's guitar. I also remember wanting a toy for Christmas and discovering this toy in my sisters closet, to which my dad replied, "oh I got that for Mariah". My niece who was 3 years older than me. I hated her and him. I was not as happy to get the toy for Christmas, but I was a little bit relieved it was all a lie. I remember going to see Santa clause one year. We went to this house, and this guy was there dressed up as Santa, with fake eyebrows, fake beard and a fake belly. I remember thinking this is not Santa, and then realizing it was all a lie. I continued to believe in Santa thinking, they are all just lying to me, if you truly believe, your dreams and wishes will come true. Wishful thinking...

I remember my parents fighting and me sitting on the couch, the same couch that I had chicken pox on, the same couch I had pneumonia on... my favorite couch in the world. I remember my dad made my mom cry and I didn't want her to cry, but I loved my dad and I did NOT want him to leave. I needed my dad. He was wonderful, and happy and always nice to me. They got a divorce anyway and he moved to Wolf Point. We stayed in a house that was too big for us. I remember going to visit him in his new house only once. I remember I got to stop at a store and pick out any toy I wanted. I picked out small plastic dinosaurs. I remember he put a movie on, the Leprechaun. I was scared of it. I remember he always asked me to walk on his back. I remember he had a big belly and he always had a full beard. I remember he reminded me of Santa Clause. I remember he only had one bed and we both had to sleep in it and I was uncomfortable with that. I remember waking up wet, and I thought my dad did it. Who knows now. I remember my mom decided we needed to move. I loved Glasgow and Johnny's Cafe and their blueberry pie. I did not want to move. On the day we were moving my neighbors asked me if I wanted to come over and play with play doh, so I did and immediately I had to leave because they were going to the store. I didn't care, I went over there anyway and played with the play doh in their porch while their father who was a cop slept on the couch in the house. That memory always makes me giggle. I also remember a neighbor who was mentally challenged who would always try to coax me into his mothers house to play with toys. He succeeded once. I got into a lot of trouble. I remember I wanted to go because my brother had destroyed some of my toys with his bee-bee gun. I remember watching Sesame Street and calling their 800 number to order the books, of course we can pay with C.O.D., I got into a lot of trouble with that too, and they eventually made it against the law to sell things to anyone who was not 18 years old. Cash On Delivery also went out of style. I remember once my brother got so angry with me that he took me outside to the side of the house and shoved my face into the dirt. I remember the taste of it, and I remember spitting out the white Styrofoam balls. I had no idea why he did it. I don't think I ever will.
One of my most traumatic memories is one that I am completely alone with and it still affects my life today. I was 4 or 5 and I had seen MTV on the big television downstairs, in fact I had snuck down there and pulled out the knob and watched the tv screen light up with wild long haired men wearing ripped up clothing and sexy girls flaunting themselves at these men. I love the music, I loved the colors and the action. I was hooked, until that one day when my sister Keriba was at home with me, babysitting me and these boys just stopped by unannounced and uninvited. I remember they just sort of walked in. Keriba seemed to know them and wanted them to leave. They wouldn't leave. They looked exactly like the guys on MTV. They got in my face and yelled at me, they scared me and when I started to cry they made fun of me scarring me even more. I remember running and hiding, they would find me, drag me out and scream at me. I would run away to a new spot where they for sure wouldn't be able to find me. They always did. I remember one of them put me up on the island counter we had in the kitchen and gave me a cookie, and then made me cry again. They tortured me for what seemed like hours, I have no idea. Keriba has no memory of this ever taking place. It terrified me, I was not only afraid of guys, but I was afraid of something I had loved, long haired 80's hair bands. I eventually grew to love them again, but I have always been terrified of the door being flung open and someone coming in to my house unannounced. I panic if I am in another room and I can hear the door open loudly, I immediately think the worst. I can be sitting in the living room right in front of the door and if it flies open suddenly, I become fearful and jump. It is something that will always haunt me. I was once sitting on the sink in the bathroom of my first place, plucking my eyebrows and the front door flung open and I fell off the sink in a panic. I was scared all over again. I hate it. I hate being scared that someone will just walk into my house unannounced and cause terror to me or my family.

Then we moved to Havre...