Breaking the Chain: The Strength of a Mother’S Love for Her Children

Introduction

She was fighting to survive in a world she knew nothing about. She never had guidance. She only knew abuse of all kinds. How does she change her life around when all she has ever known is anger? How does she raise children without knowledge of child rearing? How does she break the chain of her own life to make her children’s life successful?

She gives up of herself.

Breaking The Chain

The Strength of a Mother’s Love for Her Children

A mother’s love so strong for her children she will give up anything to make their life what hers never was.

C. K. Pumpie

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Breaking The Chain

The Strength of a Mother’s Love for Her Children

Copyright © 2012 by C. K. Pumpie.

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ISBN: 978-1-4697-3814-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3816-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3815-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 01/06/2012

Contents

Dedication

PART I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

PART II

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Dedication

To Joanna, Joe n Joan and Uncle Flash for believing in me and never leaving me. For always standing by me and finding the good in me. This book was possible because of angels like you. My life was possible because of angels like you. You fill my heart with trust and love.

You are the reason I am where I am in my life.

You are the reason I feel successful and finally believe in myself.

When you have someone who never leaves, supports you even through the tough times and loves you for who you are, a person can break the chain.

Thank you and I love you!

This book is also dedicated to all of you who take the time out of your busy lives to help someone because it is the right thing to do. It is for not judging someone else’s path but rather accepting and encouraging.

For without those people who gave of themselves, whilst not looking for anything in return, I would not be who I am today.

Thank you

PART I

Chapter One

Why I Will Never Be Like You

Was life really supposed to be the way that mine was? Was I supposed to tolerate the screaming and hitting? Was it ok to molest an eleven year old and tell her to be quiet or she will ruin the family? Was everyone’s life was like this? I didn’t know then how many angels are on this earth if you let yourself see them.

My father worked three jobs. He dropped out of high school to go into the army. He fought in World War II. That is where he met my mother during the war. She married my father and she was considered a War Bride. They lived near my father’s sister, Jean. Aunty Jean would help my mother to take care of us when we were babies and elementary school age kids. My mother needed help raising her children. My mother would leave once a year to go home she called it. I hated it when she went home and when she called it home. Wasn’t this her home now? Weren’t we her home now? I can remember back to the house we lived in. I drive by there now and it is almost spooky to see. It’s dingy. I think about going inside but I think it would make me scared and I’d cry. I hate to cry. Babies cry.

We had neighbors next door who had a family of five kids. I loved being over there with all those kids. I wasn’t more than 5 or 6 years old myself then, as I remember. They had so much fun in their house. They were full of so much love and laughter in this tiny three-bedroom ranch house. I remember thinking to myself and dreaming, about one day having the same kind of fun, in a happy house. My home would be different than the home I grew up in.

Next door, at our house, on Sundays, you had to be very quiet in the afternoons. It was dad’s day off, sort of, and he had to read the paper and when it was baseball season, he had to read the paper and watch the game. I could sit quietly in front of the black and white TV. I could watch the game with him but if I opened my mouth, I had to get out of the room. He would scream, "Elizabeth get this

f 27743.png kid out of here". You remember he worked three jobs and it was his only day to relax and kids and all their noise shouldn’t bother him. We should all know better than to make noise on his day off. After all, didn’t he support us? Wasn’t he the one who worked three-jobs? He did all the work and we should do as we were told. Just shut up and do as your told.

My mother would take us to church in the morning. He didn’t go. He did maintenance work on Sunday mornings in a protestant church and he said that was his going to church. We were told to go with my mother and to shut up. Kids were to be seen and not heard. "Do as your

f 27752.png told, he would say again and again. Respect your elders and shut up, my mother would say! Don’t talk back to your elders. So mom took us to Catholic Church because he said it was to be that way. He wanted us brought up Catholic. (You know that kind of catholic that you just do as you are told IF you are a good" girl.) We were scared all the time, so we did what they told us, otherwise, the beatings would come. Mom didn’t care what she hit us with. It depended on what was in her hand at the time. It could be a wooden rolling pin, a knitting needle, or a high-heeled shoe.

Sometimes she would sneak us to her favorite congregational church and I would love it. She would sing and smile. God made her happy. She could recite the bible, any verse you wanted. Sometimes, after we had gone to her church, she would even sing me to sleep, scratching my back, ever so gently and sing Jesus loves you, this I know, for the bible tells you so. Little ones to him belong. We are weak but he is strong. It was such a peaceful time. I didn’t know when I grew up how much I would love that song. After church, we would go home, to be quiet. Unless we went outside, then we could play and yell and giggle like kids.

In the summer we could play in the pool. It was a little 2’ pool but if you put a mask on and went under water, it was the most peaceful place in the whole world. It was kind of dirty but it was peaceful anyway. Nobody could scream at you when you were under the water, until you got out of the pool and ran around the house playing.

A person in the neighborhood walked by they house with his dogs. My dad would get up from reading the paper and scream from the front steps, get your f_______g G_d damn dog off my f_______ lawn. It was embarrassing but I could fix it. I would run into the back yard and hide. Then later, I would go up the street to the neighbor, who had the dogs that just pooped on the front lawn (but he cleaned it up) and I would tell the neighbor that I was sorry for my dad talking to them like that. If they wanted me to, I could take their dog for another walk and this walk would be better. I would go down the other end of the street. They would just smile and tell me not to worry about it. They cleaned up after their dogs. Dad didn’t care if they cleaned up or not. It was not ok to be on his front lawn. He worked hard to take care of that lawn. He didn’t want any f______ dogs on his front lawn. I remember I had the mumps once and I couldn’t go outside and play because the other kids could catch my disease. Then I saw dad go yell at the neighbors about their dog and I was glad I was in the house and not outside playing hide and go seek until it got dark with about thirty of the kids that lived in the neighborhood. The kids all ran away giggling and laughing when they heard him scream. He was the nastiest man in the neighborhood. I was glad I was in the house that day.

I use to take dance lessons. I was in tap, ballet and jazz. My Godfather insisted I dance and paid for it. I loved it. He had a lot of money. They use to have parties every Saturday night at their house and they had a pool. The adults would get drunk and the kids could do whatever they wanted. One time, I left the party and wandered up the street and onto Main Street. I was about 10 years old. The kids up on Main Street were all smoking pot. They asked me if I wanted to try it. I did. It was fun and then I went back home. No one even knew I was gone.

My Godfathers daughter lived up the street and she was a Rockette in New York. I liked it when she was home. She would make up my face with her make up and she let me try on all her costumes that were hanging all over her room and in the closet. She told me I could be a famous dancer one day because I was really good. I believed her because after all, she was a Rockette. She used to sit and watch me dance and I would show her all I had learned in dance class. She would smile and tell me how wonderful I was and she believed I could be a dancer. She helped me dream. She gave me a gold charm bracelet of hers. She had boxes of gold jewelry. I lost it. I remember crying when I lost it because she had moved away to the Bahamas and it was all I had left of her. She had believed in me. So did her dad, my Godfather. He was so nice to me. He would encourage me to come over and visit his daughter. I took dance lessons two times a week, thinking of them both all the while. I loved dance. It made me feel like it was the only place on earth. My Godfather had a heart attack and died.

I had to quit dancing and go to work because that was when dad left. Mom needed money. I didn’t know that later on in my life I would love to dance and how it would make me feel so happy. They didn’t know what they were doing and they had given me a gift that would be a tool later on in life to use to create happiness for myself. I didn’t know that then.

Up the street, was my friend Patty. She had such a great mother. Her mother stayed home and took care of the kids. She never yelled or screamed. I had ear infections all the time. When I had ear infections in my ear, I would take my medicine up to her and she would put the drops in my ears for me and it would take the pain away. I had so many ear infections that I had to have surgery to open my sinuses, put tubes in my ears and take out my adenoids. It was too much for Mom. She hated it when I was sick. It used to make her mad. I didn’t know I would grow up to be hard of hearing. Mom would forget to put my drops in or give me medicine because she had a hard time taking care of three kids and Aunt Jean wasn’t around. When she was drunk (and she was drunk a lot!!) she couldn’t find the wholes in my ears but she didn’t want to anyways. She said I was always complaining. My ears hurt all the time and they would bleed. Mom couldn’t help me. She would tell me to stop my whining.

Mrs. P would do it. Mrs. P was nice to me too. I remember when her husband died, I would visit her all the time to try to make her feel better. She always made me feel better. She said I helped her too. Mom told me to stop going up there to her house so much. She said Mrs. P didn’t want to be bothered by me or any other snotty nosed kids and all she wanted was my dad anyway. She