La Verdad y Una Historia

(Translation: The Truth and a Story)

I miss my mom. It's been over five years since I lost her, since she turned to me in the car, during a drive along the Old Walland Highway next to the river, and asked, "Now, who are you? Who are your parents?" A knife through the heart, for sure. I still wake up on Sundays and think, "I need to call mom," or "I wonder if mom will call today." It is true that she is still alive, but she is unreachable. Seeing her is heart breaking.

I miss my daddy. It's been just over a year since I last saw him. He'd just had hip surgery and was clearly not doing well. I said, "The next time I see you, I expect you'll be up and walking around," and he gave a sarcastic, confused little laugh. The day I was leaving to drive back to Nashville and catch my plane, the nursing home called to say they'd had to suction out his throat (he had Parkinson's and had increasing difficulty swallowing). Basically, I was being told he was dying, but I chose to continue on my way home. One week later, I was back on a plane to Nashville. He died the same time my plane touched down.

I miss my brother. It's true, our relationship was extremely difficult, but I did love him. After daddy died he went off the deep end again, which always included nastiness directed at me, and I made a choice to "take a break" from him. I hadn't talked to him for six months before he died. That just totally sucks. I REALLY can't believe he is dead.

So, I am hereby officially acknowledging that I am in mourning. Maybe that's why I had to re-paper my classroom, all black, except for two purple "accents" (to, I suppose, remind myself that I will come out of mourning, if I allow myself to fully grieve).

All this being said, I find I need to branch out in this blog; I can't write now about the more immediate events. Instead, I think I'll start telling some stories that will eventually find their place in the larger memoir that this will become. So I begin with a story from the annals of my relationship with Joyce.

I met Joyce in a "Jesus People" group. Years later I realized this was loosely affiliated with Jim and Tammy Faye but at the time all I cared about was that there was a coffeehouse, hippies, guitar playing and singing, bonfires, and Mikki, with whom I was in love. I was 12 or 13. I also met Courtney (a boy) and pretended to be into boys because he was "cool" (he let me plait his hair once!). But it was Joyce who would capture my attention in a totally sick and obsessive way for the next couple of years. She was 19, female, black, had a baby, was an alcoholic, and was a drug user. In other words, she was pretty much every forbidden and alluring thing I could think of, all rolled into one. And she had absolutely no business whatsoever getting involved with me. But involved she did get. I fell "in love" with her, and she encouraged me every step of the way. Encouraged me, and tortured me (emotionally). Even at that young age, I'd already found my girlfriend template!

There are many stories to tell, but what I want to get to in this blog is a revelation I recently had about a particular chapter in that relationship.

Once my parents realized what was going on, they were justifiably horrified, mad, and worried. She was an ADULT, for God's sake. An adult, messing with a kid.

So, my parents forbade me from seeing her. As I'm sure you can guess, that didn't go over well with me. I ran away from home to be with Joyce. Now that's a whole story in and of itself, but I'll save it. I ran away and after a day or two, mom and daddy came to get me. I was in the house with Joyce and her baby; her mother was out talking with my parents. They made it clear that if I didn't come home, they would call the police. I guess Joyce's mom told her to tell me to get my ass outta her house. 1973, the South, Black woman "kidnaps" white girl. Not good.

Soon after this, Joyce was shot. In the stomach, if I remember correctly. And my mom took me to see her in the hospital, which I always thought was really strange. And Joyce took the opportunity to tell me, in front of her friends, that my daddy's car was seen leaving the scene.

Up until two days ago I always thought that was just Joyce, pulling her manipulative bullshit on me, trying to scare me (which she did very well). But I was telling this story to a friend the other day and she looked at me like "how dense can you be?" and said, "Your daddy DID shoot her! Hell, I would have shot her, too, some adult woman messing with my daughter!"

And all of the sudden I realized, HE REALLY DID SHOOT HER.