I have started this entry so many times, I never finish it, I never want to sounds like I feel bad for myself, the "poor me" entry, but then I think this isn't for everyone else, this is my outlet. I always say I didn't have an awful childhood......but if I honest with myself, I had an awful childhood.
***This is so hard because I find myself trying to make excuses for people, I don't want to hurt feelings, but I am going to really try and not to do any of that in this post.******
To the best of my knowledge this is what I know, my mom, Michelle, was enlisted to go to the army, she was the oldest of her 3 siblings. She and her friend, Casey, would go to Salem and go skating at Skate Palace, she met a man there, an older man, my father Julio. They went to her senior prom together, she got pregnant, and decided she would like to be married, to which her parents said absolutely not, sometime after she finished high school, she ran off with him. They went to Vancouver Washington, where they made some friends, my "Aunt" Lucia and her husband.....my father sold marijuana(not sure how I know that but I remember figuring this out at some point). She "mended" things with my grandparents, at some point they moved back to Salem Oregon, as a child I remember my father worked at a cannery and he hurt his knee or something. He wasn't really hurt he was lazy(that is what my moms family said, so I am not sure if it was completely true, but he never had another legitimate job after that) My mom was a waitress, always more than one job, we had one vehicle most the time so we would have to pick her up and take her to the next job. Even when she was nine months pregnant she worked hard, and people would comment how she was so great and friendly, and never asked for help as a waitress! I remember when the Olive Garden opened in our area, she could finally have only one job because she did well enough there not to have to work more than one job!
My dad, papa, as we called him, was an attractive man, and he knew it. One of my first memories was him and I going to the beach and using me to talk to a woman, I was young and later mentioned it to my mom, who was mad, and he laughed. As an adult it tells me a lot about him as a husband. He used to hit her, she was taller than him, but he could just toss her around like nothing. He hit us kids, I don't remember that much but I was really close to my Dad, I really loved him! One time we had just dropped off my mom at her second evening waitress job and we were in the parking lot, my brother Julius who was probably 5-6 at the time, made him mad. So he bit him multiple times, and someone saw this happening, and CPS came to see us. After that they visited me regularly at school and would ask if papa was hitting us, I always said no, but I remember they always took Polaroids of my body, so he must have been hitting us. WE had to go stay with my Aunt Martha for a while one time, and I remember my mom was so sad. They would have fights and ask me to pick a side, and I used to pick my mom but my dad would make me feel bad so I started picking him.
In October 1990 we left, I don't know what sparked it but we left, I remember not wanting to go, but my mom took me to her Sister's apartment, Aunt Tammee, and when my dad started banging on the door looking for us she said we weren't there. He didn't believe her and he just kept hitting the door, yelling that she couldn't leave him, we had to hide in the my cousins closet, I remember I had nylons on, and it was hot and the nylons were digging into my skin. I could hear him yelling for Michelle and he was getting mad, we stayed in their until we went to the bus station. We rode the bus to Arizona, I remember we stopped in Nevada, the other kids must have been asleep, it was the middle of the night, but I was awake. My mom and I went in and had a hot chocolate together and we talked, I found out we were going to stay with Grandma Bennie, just for a while. I remember it was fun, we visited my Uncles in Arizona, we went to Uncle Quate and Aunt Ida's house they got us a costume for Halloween, and had fun. I remember my dad had been calling and one day he finally talked to my mom, and we went home. My Dad drank when I was young but then one day he stopped, he had a liver problem, cirrhosis of the liver. My mom had to go to work one day, my dad was sick, so my Aunt came to pick up the younger kids, I stayed home to watch my dad, he threw up blood and I would take the bucket and dump it, when my mom got home he was so weak we had to take him to the ER where he passed out. This happened a few times that I remember.
Later that school year I was having a hard time in math, so I was pulled out with a few other students in first grade to get some help, it was a group setting but the teacher started touching me. I confided in a few friends, who I found out it had been happening to them too, but we didn't say anything, until one day a girl name Aloha came up to us and said the teacher had been touching her and asked what she should do, she wasn't really our friend so we didn't tell her it happened to us, we told her she should tell. Within the next few days we were all individually called in to the counselors office and asked questions, I denied it, and was allowed to go back to class. A few days later they called me back in and said some girls told them it had happened to me and it was OK, I admitted it. My mom was called in to the office one day I watched her come in from the hall, she couldn't see me, but I saw her go into a conference room, I saw her break down and it broke my heart, I remember feeling so bad how could I do this my parents, they were very upset. Luckily the teacher admitted it was true and we didn't have to go to court, but I did go to counseling, at first group counseling, later individual, as part of counseling we had to watch our parents go to the sentencing, my mom said I had changed I had become colder, mean to my siblings, and was pulling away from my family, very private. I remember feeling very bad. Like I did something to them. The next year I had another teacher who would grab the girls butts on the playground, we had to go to trial for that, it was scary I remember very little about it, but I remember his lawyer asked me about counseling, if we had a doll we would hit w525ith noodles, which I said no, because it reality we would draw a stick figure of the person we were mad at, and then hang it up and hit it with a pool noodle.I later found out he failed to appear and now is wanted by the FBI. That same year my dad's best friend came to stay with us for a while, he was with my dad when he met my mom, he dated her friend Casey so he was a family friend, he started touching me, more in depth then the others, and I didn't say ANYTHING, he would watch us while my mom ran to the store, and I tried to avoid him or ask to go with her, but she didn't know why, I told her months later, I can't remember how that came about, she was upset that I never told her and my dad was furious, saying he would kill him! I don't remember why nothing was pursued, but it will reappear later in this story.
It was about this time that I first remember anything about drugs, I made some "friends" at the park they were older than me and we would ride bikes together and play basketball, and they showed me pot. They would smoke it out of a can, they offered but I knew that it was bad so I never took them off on it, as I write this I realize I was 7 years old, and I was offered drugs for the first time.....I was so little. I said I have some of that at my house and they asked if I could bring it to them the next day, I can't remember if I took them some or if I got caught the first time. My mom cried and my dad said he would burn my hands if he ever saw me touch this stuff, They fought later, nothing changed, he had a "plant growing in our laundry room in a bucket, one time a police officer came over because of a neighbor issue and my mom was trying to hide it in a closet. We lived a block away from a friend of my dad's, my dad would send us with "packages" sometimes.
There were good times, we went to to the river for bbq on the weekends, my mom loved going to Newport beach, she came to school and went on field trips with us. There were good times, we always had birthday parties, celebrated the 4th of July with friends and family, we spent time with my Aunt Tammee. We had fun, my mom laughed, my dad taught me Spanish, he watched Spanish movies, and award shows. We loved going to movies, my dad loved the arcade and we spent A LOT of time there, My dad had a motorcycle and took us on rides along with the neighbor kids. So we had fun, it wasn't all bad.
In 1993-1994 was when I remember actually babysitting my siblings, sometimes it was just while my dad went to pick up my mom from work, sometimes he had to run errands, I am not sure what he did. "Friends" would come over and go downstairs to his private like area in the basement on the other side of the laundry. I am guessing he was on the topside of the drug dealing since often more than one person would be there, but we didn't live like we had money, but I know he used also. I never watched him do drugs, but he always was very red eyed, messing with his nose, and was very paranoid. He was always worried about my mom cheating, he knew she must be sleeping around.At night I would hear them fight, he would tell her if he couldn't have her no one could, tell her we were his kids, she couldn't take us away. He purchased binoculars and we would park a few blocks from her work. We would get a happy meal and then watch what she was doing, who she talked to, and sometimes he would make us watch her and tell us what she was doing. If he saw her talk to a male co worker he would show up at the end of the night and confront her, sometimes in front of the others, I know that there was at least one physical altercation with a male co-worker. She had a close female co-worker and then my dad thought the co worker was a lesbian.
May 1994 I remember she went with my brother and cousin on a school field to the Zoo, for Memorial day we decided to go to the Beach, she loved it there. During that trip we found out we had lice so I remember we spent Tuesday de-licing our home, I went back to school the next day like normal, and she went back to work, she worked nights so often we missed each other. Wednesday night I woke up and she was making herself a cappuccino, she loved them and got a little machine recently, I said something to her, I was sleeping on the couch, She told me to go back to sleep but to wake her up in the morning so she could do my hair, she knew that I would not do it but leave it down and she didn't want me to get lice again! So I walked by her bedroom and saw her friend was over, my dad and mom's friend were smoking pot and watching TV. The next morning my dad woke me up for school and my whole life was about to change.
I said I needed to wake my mom up and my dad said no don't bother her, but I told him she told me to, so he said We had a fight and she left. I was concerned that my mom left, she had never left us! I asked my friends at lunch and some suggested that churches help out women, and gave me advice on where she may have went. MY dad met me at the crosswalk after school, I started asking if she came home and he said no, I must have asked too many questions because he said I don't think she is coming back Sophia, I want you to come with me. I am leaving, I want to go to California. I said I know she will come back, I can't leave. He told me I could meet his mom we could go to Guatemala. He told me we would come back for my siblings, it would be just me right now, I couldn't leave them, so we got home and he said Sophia she tried to kill me, I don't think she is coming back, she killed herself. I didn't believe it, he showed me his neck he had cut marks on his neck very superficial now that I am older. I said I couldn't leave my brothers and sister, so he said he needed to show me something but I couldn't scream. He took me to his room and there lying next to his bed was a pile of clothes, he started pushing them to the side, there under the clothes was my mom, he gave her a kiss and started crying. It was an out of body experience, I didn't scream, I just saw myself gasping for air, my mom in her pajamas lying there clothes all over her.............my MOM! He said " they are going to blame Sophia I have to go" I assured him I would tell them the truth they would believe me. He knew it would be blamed on him he needed me to help him move her body, we walked out the back door into the unattached garage, we had a chest freezer, he said we could put her in it, she might be too fat but we could try. I just wasn't sure I could do it but I didn't tell him that. HE showed me the knife it was in a box in the garage. HE said we needed to leave Oregon soon. HE had me call my the Olive Garden and say they had gotten in a fight and would probably not be at work for a few days.
We went to Maria, a babysitter we often used, he told them she had killed herself, we were going to stay with them for a while. They didn't think I should go to school the next day because I might tell someone, I swore I wouldn't I really wanted to ride the bus, I never lived far enough and Maria did. My youngest brothers first birthday was Friday so my dad got a friend to take us to the mall and get him a little cake and a few presents. Later I found out his wife is the person who called the police, apparently my father had threatened to harm them if they did not help, at the time I felt so betrayed that they called the police. Maria was quick to call the state for assistance for taking care of 4 children, because she contacted them the police found us, they had gone to my house and found my mom, wrapped in a rug with rocks in the garage. They did not know where we were, so when Maria called they said they needed some information and showed up at her house. we were all put in the cars, I knew they knew, so I planned on playing dumb like I didn't know anything, but we walked in and I saw my Aunt Tammee she was crying.......and I lost it I just kept saying he didn't do it, I promise it was him, it was her! I made up a story about how I found her on my own, that she was an awful person, I know I called her a whore at one time, it kills me to think I would say that to her family!
