Posted by Carol Roach on May 28, 2001 at 08:23:06:
In the early 1900's, a miracle occurred in Montreal. Doris came into this world weighing just two pounds and a father longing for a daughter knew this little angel was a sign of change for his family. Things would be different now that he had his baby girl. He would just let his wife have the two older children. She could raise those boys, but Doris on the other hand, was not going to be weepy brats like them, she was going to be tough and strong.
His wife had already lost her first son because she was young and stupid and he never knew why he married her in the first place. Seventeen years old and a mother of a sick two-year-old with whooping cough and she needed to go out ice-skating. Why would she listen to that old woman anyhow? What right did his Mother have to tell her that she could go ice-skating and leave that baby for him to look after! That meddling old fool was bedridden, she couldn't do anything for that sick kid, yet she says its okay to go out and enjoy herself because she has been working way to hard.
A man ain't to be doing woman's work. When the kid started coughing, the old woman would not stop yelling to see about it. But what the heck? It's not a man's job, so the brat coughed and coughed while the man drank his rum. He did not get to see his wife when she came through the door. He didn't see her, but he heard the agonizing scream when she found her child dead in the crib.
She was never the same after that. She hated her husband immensely but she had nowhere to go. She could not go back home because she had married against her family's will. Some folks said she went crazy in the head. With the intense hatred between the parents leading to the wife's removal from the home, the day came when the bright, spirited, young girl was no more, and so begins the legacy of the little girl neglected.
Doris, the little girl that her father adored so much was not so adored anymore. She was displaced by her father's liquor. One of Doris's earliest memories was dragging her father in from the porch where he had passed out night after night. Doris had to take care of the household which consisted of the invalid grandmother as well as other family members. As a young girl of 8, she had to do the drudgery; all the housework, the cooking and the cleaning for 8 people since her mother was no longer there for her. Of course her dad would not do any of it since that was woman's work.
Doris's grandmother was bedridden and so Doris had to wait on her. The only fond memories Doris had of her childhood were those that she shared with her grandmother. Doris's grandmother was a very sweet, kind lady who loved Doris tremendously and was very saddened by the fact she couldn't care for her as she would like to. The grandmother also realized the emotional trauma that Doris was going through by living in a house where there was no love. The grandmother was the only loving figure in that household for all the children but especially for Doris, she was her grandmother's rock and visa versa. When this sweet gentle woman passed on, Doris was really left alone.
It was only because of the influence of the grandmother that her father bothered with his daughter at all. She never grew to be his little angel as was promised when he paraded through the streets with her shortly after she was born. Instead, he viewed her as a nuisance, a girl, and too much trouble for a man to raise on his own. When the grandmother died George decided to send Doris to foster homes, though he kept the boys at home with him.
Doris became a rebellious young girl as a result of being sent from foster home to foster home. The pain she felt from being rejected by her father and missing the opportunity to grow up with her brothers was more than she could bear. Even though she hated her father she loved him at the same time and wanted to be with the family. Each foster home was a horrible experience for her. She was abused and neglected in all of them. Doris took this abuse for a while until she just couldn't take it anymore and then she ran away yet again.
By this time, her father had a new woman in his life and decided to take Doris back home to live. At last, Doris was going home. However, when Doris got home she found that this new lady friend had a daughter who became the apple of her father's eye. She was his adored little girl, his angel, the daughter he never had.
The following year when Doris was 12, the children were discussing what they possibly could get for Christmas. The daughter of the girlfriend wanted a beautiful big china doll that she had seen in some store window. Doris said that she would like the same. Her father looked at Doris and said, " You were too bad this year. All you are getting is a bag of coal". Doris didn't believe him, come Christmas she would get her china doll - she just knew it.
On Christmas morning the children all were in place waiting to open their presents, the boys were given their presents first and they were thoroughly delighted with them. It appeared that the old man had gone out of his way this year for them. It must have been the influence of his new lady friend for sure. Then the daughter of the lady friend was given her present. There it was in all of its glory, the beautiful china doll. Doris just knew that hers was there waiting for her to love and cherish. And then it happened, Doris was given her present, she carefully unwrapped it and lo and behold it was a bag of coal.
"Daddy", she said "this is coal for the stove, where is my present?"
That is your present he said, "that is what I promised you and that is what you got. It is all that you deserve". The first chance that Doris got, she poked the eyes out of that china doll. She got the beating of her life for that one but she didn't care anymore, she got her revenge.
By the time Doris was 16, she met Reggie, and by the time she was 17 she married him. It wasn't necessarily that she loved Reggie as much as it was that she wanted to leave her home and all of the bad memories that went along with it. So she married Reggie, another alcoholic like her father.
One day when he came home broke yet another time and the rent was due that week, she could take it no more. She picked up a baseball bat and was ready to hit him with it. Her girlfriend was at the house at the time and shouted to her, "Don't do it. Don't run the risk of doing something you will regret and most probably go to jail for. You don't want to lose the kids. He is just not worth it".
That made Doris come to her senses and she put the bat down, but she threw him out that day and never saw him again. Later, she met a man named Charlie whom she loved dearly and they had a son together. Charlie never married Doris; instead, he married another woman. As a result Doris remained alone to raise her 4 children. Times were hard but they survived.
The oldest child met a young girl who was very naïve about the ways of the world. A child was born from that union. But for numerous reasons, they never married and he remained home with his mother until he eventually married another woman.
The naive young girl threatened to put her baby girl in a foster home or out for adoption rather than keep her. How could Doris let her son's child go to a foster home? How could she let this innocent baby girl, this angel from God, go through the hardships that she had once endured herself?
Hence, this is the story behind how I got to live with my Ma. During those formative years, our lives paralleled. I was loved only by my ma (my grandmother) just like she was loved only by her grandma as well. God bless my Ma, I know God loves her and she is finally happy in her final resting place.
copyrighted by Carol Roach. Carol has written 5 other articles that have been published in various e-zines. If you would like copies of her stories just email her at winterose706@hotmail.com and she will be glad to send them along.