Gloria Faye Brown Bates
I have been quiet for a couple of days. I have been sad, reflecting on my Grandma Alma days.
I went to my cousin's service on Saturday. He was the only cousin who favored my Grandma Alma. He is from my past when I lived in Hell. (When I speak of Hell ... that's where I swear Hell was ... where my Grandma Alma, George lived). Only a few relatives are left from those days now.
I didn't realize I would feel the emotion I felt when learning of his death. He was a link back to the days I write about. I'm sure he lived with his own things that hurt him as he grew up just like I did. I only write about mine ... I can't write anyone else's story.
It's strange how so many children can live in one place ... each one grows up with a different set of experiences. Things, events affected each child in such different ways. If something affected me in a good way ... it could have affected some of them in a bad way ... vice versa.
I don't like to look back ... to write my stories I have to visit the past. When I do ... I leave it behind as I come back to the present ... today. I don't dwell in the past ... as a young girl growing up I did as I learned not to. I couldn't get over the past and I dwelled on it until I was in my twenties.
I am thankful I read a lot ... and not about just one thing but, many things. I am thankful I realized as a young lady I had to work on myself and since ... I have really tried to make me a better, good person. Nope ... I didn't make me perfect at all. I'm the first to say I'm not ... I make all kinds of mistakes ... I try to learn from them, correct them as soon as possible.
I decided back in the eighties I would be 'perfect'. I wanted to be someone everyone loved ... I wanted to never make a mistake ... all kinds of things. I looked very nice ... I got my wish to one day to be as beautiful as my mother ... I liked, loved myself. I loved to dress, have my hair perfect before I would go out the door, even to the store.
I just knew if I acted in a 'perfect' way ... always being nice no matter what ... soft-spoken ... listening to everyone talk ... just be the kind of person everyone loved ... everyone would love me. I always did what others asked ... no one could have been more 'perfect' than I was. When I was angry from being taken advantage of ... I just stayed quiet, nice ... sweet, 'perfect'.
People loved me ... especially males. Females were jealous and I never had a real friend but ... while I was in the 'perfect stage' of my life ... I thought everyone liked, respected me. Females smiled, talked sweetly to me ... they were friends just not real friends. I wasn't a threat to my female friends and I respected them and their relationships ... sadly most women aren't like that.
Three years of my life ... was 'perfect'. Looking back now at myself ... how in the world did I do that!? I am myself ... sometimes, I lose my temper as I am high-tempered when riled. I am straight-forward in a nice way if possible. I am NOT perfect ... I say 'damn, ass, Hell' ... I do say those words but, not ugly-ugly words unless someone does something to bring the Hell in me out. I do try to be nice all the time, I really do. I'm still a good person.
I remember when I worked at the hospital ... I was in the office where I worked with other women one day. They filed insurance ... took payments, admitted/discharged ... I was in the adjoining office ... Communication.
I worked at the Switchboard for years ... later I went to ER Registration/Admitting, our office was across the hall from the Emergency Department. Later I went to Raleigh, worked in Communications at another hospital.
Oh my, I pure loved working in the hospital. I worked on the floors part-time, also. I was in my element in a hospital setting. Even now when I go to the hospital ... I see things ... look for things I know from working in the hospital. I'm thankful for all my experiences.
Getting back to being 'perfect' ... I made it three years ... sometimes I would be so worn out from being so 'perfect'. I was tired of being nice all the time when there were times I should have put my foot down. Being myself and ... not 'perfect' I would have put my foot down, held my ground.
I was tired of having on the perfect makeup every minute of the day ... my hair perfect every minute. I could get up any time of night ... my hair would be beautiful. I slept with my chin on my arm ... my hair never touched the bed. I wanted to be sure if I had to get up during the night for any reason ... I was ready for it ... look 'perfect' ... beautiful. My gowns I slept in always had a matching robe ... they were beautiful. I had to look my best because ... I was 'perfect'.
When I start something ... I'm in it all the way so much I have been known to go to extremes. I was in my 'perfect stage' so, I continued to be. Until one day ...
Someone told me that another woman said something about me. I was devastated. I couldn't understand how ... anyone could say anything negative about me ... I did everything perfectly. I was the nicest person ... well-dressed, beautiful ... soft-spoken ... ready to help with anything ... listen to anyone's problems with a caring ear ... go out of my way to do things for patients, visitors, anyone. I wanted the world to love me.
The world was 'loving' me ... I needed, wanted it ... it stemmed from my childhood, being the extra ... unwanted child thrown on my Grandma Alma and George. It stemmed from being that little girl who went from being a little princess ... to being a little girl who didn't dress well, nor have baths like I was used to ...who began to be bullied, made fun of.
I was too young to understand what went wrong. No one was there to protect me, tell others 'why' my clothes, shoes ... me ... had changed so drastically. I'm sure my mother never gave it a thought when she would abandon me ... she was just a young girl. She was only 14 years older than me. She had me when she was playing with dolls. I grew up to forgive her, understand.
My poor Grandma Alma and George didn't have anything ... they were poor as poor could be. I couldn't even put words to what was wrong just as I couldn't understand when I went to Grandma Alma's bathroom ... stand in front of her clawfoot bathtub wondering why ... the water was so cold.
I couldn't ever make the water get warm so I could take a warm bath like I did in my home before. I had no idea they didn't have hot water ... I was too young to understand why they always heated water on the range or wood stove they had.
I didn't realize my clothes had gone to Hell' too. I always wore the prettiest dresses, shoes, socks to school. My Grandmother Lola would buy my clothes and one could tell they were extra-nice. No one at school ever hurt my feelings, nor was I ever bullied, made fun of ... my clothes, home was as nice as theirs.
The lady who came every day to our home 'before' I was taken to Hell at Grandma Alma and George's kept our clothes ironed, starched ... nice meals were cooked ... the house was beautiful, clean.
My mother got a divorce ... I didn't know what that meant ... I just knew my brother was going to a place called Wisconsin ... I was crying over never seeing him again ... he was two years younger than me ... we were close as children.
Oh my, that's when I began to lose the very people I loved ... that's when I began to learn what pain, grief was ... that was the beginning of crying my heart out because everyone who meant something to me was taken from me one way or other. Of course, being a little girl I didn't know I was learning. The older I became I can see when I look back.
George was blind ... Grandma Alma was paralyzed ... George washed my clothes ... need I say more? I didn't know they looked awful. They weren't the cleanest ... my eyes couldn't see that as a child.
My shoes began to have blood in them ... nails were sticking up and 'eating into my heels. It was hard to walk ... I never thought to tell anyone. I just existed not knowing any better. It was a part of being there. Didn't everyone live that way? I was in constant pain ... in my heart ... my body ... feet in physical pain.
I was slapped around because I looked like my daddy or I was in the way ... my cousins fought me ... I had to learn to fight (learn I did!) I had been thrown in Hell ... and the fires were burning me. I had to learn to survive a world I didn't know ... as a little girl I never saw that when we'd visit George and Grandma Alma.
I look back now ... no one knew what this little girl was going through. I had Hell nipping my heels, biting me in the ass every way I turned. My mother was running off to God knows where ... leaving me at the mercy of the world ... and anyone who ... came through, saw an opportunity to molest a little girl.
I didn't know to tell ... it was another part of just being. Who would I have told? I became afraid of men's hands ... hands seem to be sneaking out of nowhere to reach under my dress to touch me.
I guess I just rolled with the punches ... flowed with the flow ... knowing I wasn't as good as anyone else ... I remember thinking when a wonderful movie for children would come on at the theater that the movie wasn't meant for me to see ... looking at Barbie dolls I 'knew' they weren't meant for me ... being in the Girl Scouts or such things.
I wasn't good enough anymore... and all the kids reinforced my thinking that by being mean, bullying, fighting, cussing me ... making fun of me. Before coming to Hell ... I never thought of things like that.
When I came home from school ... oh my ... Hell was in full force ... cuss fights, physical fighting ... the sounds of flesh hitting flesh ... seeing family members down in the middle of the old, wooden floor where Grandma Alma and George sat every day in their chairs.
As I grew up ... learned ... I named the middle of the wooden floor in front of George and Grandma Alma ... The Arena. That's where everyone came to raise hell ... whip someone's ass to show them who was king of the hill, teach their ass a lesson ... show them who they are messing with.
When anyone in my family fought (mostly all women) ... blood splattered everywhere. They fought for their life ... sometimes, my family could be sadistic ... mean, evil. I learned all that ... I didn't ever want to be like that. The children ... always many grandchildren there for one reason or other ... could be just as mean. We all got it honest ... we had to survive. If we didn't win our fights ... we'd get beaten good ... like scratched, bitten, choked ... held down ... beaten good ....blood would fly. We'd hurt each other because we'd get hurt badly if we didn't fight to win.
To this day I still see the floors of that house in my mind ... grit, sand in the cracks of the floor mixed with red blood smeared everywhere. I would be sick, begin trembling ... someone would always find a reason to hit me, slap me to the ground ... scream at me. My every day was filled with such ... and more I have blocked out through time that happened to me, my little girl body.
So ... there I was with my 'perfect self' ... and someone said something negative about me ... and I was being as perfect as I could be. Oh my, what in the world I thought. I told the woman that I always tried to be the nicest person, why would the woman say something negative about me?! I knew I hadn't done anything to anyone ... I was being so ... perfect! I wanted to sit down, cry.
That day is when I quit being 'perfect' ... when the woman said, "Gloria, no matter how good you try to be ... there's always someone who is going to say something about you ... no matter what ... and for whatever reason." As the day went by ... I thought about what she said ... the pain I felt from whatever the woman said ... hurt me deeply. I began to feel anger ... being 'perfect' flew out the window.
I never tried to be perfect ever again ... damn ... I had wasted three years of my life .. someone still found a reason to say something negative about me. I was going to be myself which was still being a nice, good person. But, I sure wasn't going to try to be perfect anymore. The Hell with that!
I am just ME, myself ... Gloria. I am a good person regardless of whatever, whenever, wherever. I'm the first one to say I'm not perfect ... I sure got tired from trying to be during those three years.
I can laugh about it now ... when we are young ... we do some things that are just plain ridiculous. To think I did that for three years! That's just damn ridiculous!
Note by this author:
True story/photo ... written by, owned by me, Gloria Faye Brown Bates
Photos are of me as a little girl ... Grandma Alma and George standing at door ... Grandma Alma in bed.
George would do Grandma Alma's range-of-motion exercises faithfully every day 3 times a day ... rubbing alcohol and Beauty Ray lotion on her. He was blind, she was paralyzed on one side of her body. He would help her to walk with her walker.
No comments:
Post a Comment