Keep Getting Up

Chapter One

Keep Getting Up

Life’s a bitch and then you die, or is it? Can you grow up in the most horrendous childhood yet find peace and happiness within yourself or with what you’ve got? This is my story. My name is Belinda Holloway. Some people’s lives start out hellishly. Let’s follow mine to see what happens.

My Dad was the youngest having two older sisters. Aunt Dolly the oldest then Aunt Virginia were raised Catholic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Grandpa, whose name was Charles, was short about five foot five inches compared to Dad who was six foot tall. Grandma Gloria was little shorter then Dad around five foot ten inches, but he never talked about her and as an adult I only saw her two times. Grandpa and Grandma divorced when Dad was fifteen and the kids lived with her.

I could never figure out why Dad would harp on things. You know what I mean. He would say for example ‘stay in the front yard,’ but he continued to say it until I was sick of hearing it. In 1985 my then husband and I visited our families in Michigan and Wisconsin. My husband and I stayed with my Grandma for a week in Milwaukee. I don’t know about my husband, but I was ready to walk back to Arizona if I had too. Dad had nothing on Grandma. WOW! I just couldn’t stand all the nagging as well as all the games that the adults played on the kids.

Grandma and Aunt Dolly and her husband Uncle Bruce lived a couple of houses down from each other. That same weekend, we went to Aunt Dolly and Uncle Bruce’s place. They had just adopted two foster kids. There was a girl who was very smart and a younger boy who was average. They weren’t related. The girl wanted to go to the mall one day with her friends and asked Uncle Bruce. He said Go ask your mother.

Then Aunt Dolly would say Go ask your father. This poor kid went back and forth while her parents laughed.

With Grandpa Charles’ blessing Dad joined the Air Force at seventeen and he began to drink with his mates. He married a woman, Petra Price in ’54. Dad said in ’58 he came home early one night and found her in bed with another man, so he divorced her. He never said another thing about it.

Mum, Aunt Sheila, Uncle Keith and Uncle John (her sister and brothers) were born in Dublin in order listed. They lived there during WWII. Mum said she remembered the bombs. At sixteen she and her family moved to Ilford in the county of Essex near London in England.

Dad had been stationed in England when he met my mum in 1959. By this time he was a heavy drinker, getting drunk almost every night. There were stories of my Granddad Frederick, who died around this time from heart failure, would chase my Dad down the street with anything at hand vowing to hurt him if he hurt his little girl. They married July 1960 and Dad was transferred back to the states soon after.

Mum got pregnant three months later. In that visit in 1986 my grandma and Aunt Dolly told my husband Peter that my Mum stayed with Dad’s sister Dolly and her family while Dad stayed on base. When Dad got weekend leaves, he’d get drunk, then he would beat my Mum up and she would hide in the closets to get away from him until getting fed up one day she took a frying pan to the side of his head. He never touched her again. She was four foot nine inches about one hundred pounds and eight months pregnant with me. Dad was six foot and two hundred pounds. She couldn’t go home because the airlines and her doctor wouldn’t let her fly and she couldn’t leave because she didn’t know anyone in America.

Years later I asked Mum about it and she said It never happened. I only hid from your father to play with him. Would you really play hide and seek with your husband at eight months pregnant?

I was born shortly after that on June 16th 1961.

Mum said that she had tried to breast feed me, but she didn’t realise she wasn’t making milk. She says Grandma Gloria would stop by with baby food and clothes for me. My Mum threw all my baby snaps away because I was so skinny. She said I didn’t want to be reminded of that terrible time. I wonder if they took any snaps.

Dad got a transfer to Marquette Michigan where my sisters Clara (sixteen months younger) and Betty (four years younger) were born.

Dad tells me shortly after Clara was born I got pneumonia and almost died. He said It was winter and he was trying to drive on ice while trying to keep me calm in his arms. Mum stayed home with Clara.

At two I was at a friend’s house down the street and we were playing on her swing set. I decided to go down the slide on my feet. . I walked home and Dad had his face under the bonnet of the car, so I went inside and Mum screamed Peter! She led me out to him. She had my right hand in hers but the middle of my arm bowed like a dead fish, so she says. He again took me to the hospital and they set my arm. Six weeks later after the cast had come off I was standing at the front window waiting for Dad to come home. Clara crawled behind me without my knowledge and when I saw Dad I got excited and tripped over her breaking my right arm again.

It was then that I began writing with my left hand. To this day when my right hand hurts, cramps or the fun of it I can write with my left hand.

Across the street was a creek and Dad and I used to go fishing. There was a snap of me holding up the fish I caught. It was about six inches long. I wore a white blouse and a pair of blue pants. I don’t know where it is now, but I wish that I had it. I’ll explain why I don’t have it anymore later.

I had a Beagle, Cubs, and one day a friend of my parents parked across the street and knowing her my dog ran into the street toward her when a car accidentally killed him.

Dad got another transfer back to England in 1966. We lived in Bury St. Edmonds a couple of hours northeast of London.

I slept on the top bunk of our bed while Clara was on the bottom. One night I had a bad dream and I somehow fell out of bed with the railing still in place. Thump!

Mum and Dad flew into the room What the hell happened?

Peter please, your language.

Sorry honey. What happened here? he demanded while looking at me on the floor.

I fell out of bed, I guess. Looking up from where I fell

How could you be so stupid? Get back up and don’t do it again.

Yes Dad. Sorry. I climbed back to bed and wondered do what. I don’t know what not to do because I don’t know what I did in the first place.

A few months later I had an ear ache. I’ll go heat up some oil for your ear. I’ll be right back.

No Mum, please no oil. The Irish have funny ideas of how to treat someone medically.

Your Mum said it is good for you. Be good.

Mum came back in with a dish and teaspoon. Dad put me across his lap and exposed the ear that hurt. Mum took the teaspoon and began to pour the hot oil down my ear. Yeow! That’s too hot Mum.

Don’t be silly. It has to be hot to work. Now stay still she said and began again.

I was up late that night because I not only had an earache but a burn too.

We were close enough to visit Grandma Lilly a lot. I was about five on one of our trips to her. I was in the breakfast room by myself. I climbed an overstuffed high back chair to get to the cupboard above the chair. I grabbed a whole bottle of children’s aspirin and downed the lot. Mum found me sitting on the floor with the empty aspirin bottle in my lap and yelled Peter. He took me to the hospital and they pumped my stomach.

The next visit, I was still five, to Grandma’s house we had just finished a nice little tea, with real china, and I decided to help her. Grandma’s breakfast room led into the kitchen but there was a step down. Thinking I was a big girl I grabbed a cup and saucer and made my way to the kitchen, the only problem was I didn’t see the step, or so I thought, and I fell on the broken cup and saucer cutting my left wrist. Mum and Dad claimed it almost went straight through???? I don’t know what to believe about that, but I do have a nasty scar I call this my third suicide attempt. Mum told me at sixteen I want you to have plastic surgery for it, so people won’t mistake it as a suicide attempt.

In 1968 there was a flood. The street drains got bunged up and there was so much rain it made a river down our street. People were putting sacks of sand at their front doors to prevent the water from entering their houses, but it was to no avail. I remember the kids, including myself, floated down the street. It was so much fun. Mum got angry You could have died.

Yes Mum.

On November 5th the English celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. Guy Fawkes had been one of fourteen people who tried to blow up The House of Lords trying to kill King James I of England and King VI of Scotland in 1605. They put 36 barrels of dynamite under The House of Lords. That night Guy Fawkes was to ignite the thirty-six barrels of dynamite. But guards found him due to an informant and after a long search they found the other men and executed them by hanging. The English build scarecrows and bonfires. The scarecrows are then placed on top of the piles of wood and they light the bonfire. They then light the fireworks.

We went that year to celebrate.

I was about five when Mum had three matching coats and hats made by a friend for us. They were red and a furry type of material. The hat came to a point at the top, thank God, and came down around the chin to snap shut.

Dad told us to keep away from the fireworks, which I did, but one of those stupid embers landed on the tip of my hat and burned a hole in it. Dad came running and ripped the hat off my head. I was ok but like I said the hat had a burn hole. That’s what I meant by thank God. I felt like a fool in it but a regular hat or no hat wouldn’t have been so forgiven.

We moved shortly after that to Thetford in the same general area as Bury St. Edmonds. It was base housing.

We got a new special little guy name Blue Boy. He was a Miniature Poodle and he followed me everywhere. He was white with a little orange on him. The vet said that he was an apricot Poodle. That dog was my best friend and he went everywhere I went.

For my seventh birthday Dad bought me a Raleigh bike and tried to teach me how to ride it. This was my first bike and it was built for an adult because when I straddled it with my feet on the asphalt the seat came half way up my back. He held the back of the seat and began to run as I began to peddle. It was obvious at one point that he was no longer there and I looked back to confirm, yep he wasn’t there. I faced forward again and saw a parked car on my right and I was heading right for it. Turn your handle bars to the left, away from the car yelled Dad. But instead of turning the handle bars to the left I freaked out and put out my right hand. I put it on the car and went down the side of the car, and then I hit asphalt. Dad laughed. I got untangled from my bike and with a scraped left knee and left elbow I walked my bike back home.

Dad continued to drink, but he was a happy drunk now. We’d go around to his mate’s houses for barbeques and he and the guys would drink themselves stupid.

Mum and Dad would get all dressed up and go out for the night. They would leave us with the next door neighbour’s teenage daughter Gloria. Instead of watching us she’d make us go to bed and have her boyfriend over. Dad most always came home stumbling and leaning on Mum.

Mum and Dad would go to the bowling alley where they were on a league with other friends and they’d spend the night drinking and bowling. I don’t know how he did it, but he won a first place trophy once.

I remember being up late and I heard Dad come home, I wanted to say good night to him, but I heard mumbling and I creped downstairs, but I didn’t understand what I saw. In the living room across from the front door were the settee and an end table with a lamp and other things on it. I saw my Dad stumble and fall over the end table knocking over the lamp, bounce off the settee and land on the floor. Mum had to help him up to bed. I ran before Mum saw me but that scene scared me for a long time. What was wrong with him? Later after Dad died I asked Mum about it and she said It didn’t happen. That was her answer for everything about the past.

Dad was never around thanks to his job and Mum would ignore me but not my sisters.

We moved from one base housing house to another further down the street the year I turned nine. The neighbourhood had a common drive. Each garage for each house angled into it, down both rows of houses.

The next time I rode my bike I was riding up and down the common drive. There was nobody around thank God because I felt like such a fool. I was riding around when suddenly I ran into one of the garages. I had panicked and forgot to put on the handle bar brakes. And thanks to that garage I stopped but with an eye rolling back reaction. I was thrown into the bar between the tires and hit my privates. Let’s just say I walked funny for some time after that. It also made me think twice about riding it again until I was bigger.

There was a tenth birthday party for me with my friends. Everyone was having fun and laughing except me. There were lots of toys and games, cake and ice cream and laughter, but I was in the house crying for no reason at all and nobody noticed that I wasn’t there and it was a small back yard. The only person that cared was Blue boy. He stayed with me the entire time.

There was a train track that ran close to Thetford. I heard some talk about free goodies down there. I didn’t believe it, so I went down myself and the talk was right. A train came off the tracks and landed on its side. It was filled with All-Sorts, licorice sweets, and there were men down at the train throwing boxes of All-Sorts at us. I love black licorice, I always have, and I got several boxes.

Mum and Dad and their friends, the parents of that teenage babysitter, decided to go for a ride. We ended up at Stonehenge. The teenager (Gloria) had a big brother Paul that I thought he was cute. He sat down on one of the stones inside the ring and I sat down too. We spent the late morning playing on the stones and taking snaps.

Dad was sent to Vietnam in ’70. I didn’t know anything about the war except it took my Dad away, but I saw it on TV when Mum watched. People were walking around holding signs and yelling something, but I never found out what it was. Mum what are they doing?

Nothing. Don’t worry about it.

That summer was hot. I walked into the house Mum, Gloria and some of her friends are going to the river. Can I go too please? Gloria said she would watch out for me.

She looked at me for some time I guess you can go but don’t get out of Gloria’s vision.

Thanks Mum, I won’t. Yeah like she’s going to watch me. She’s going to kiss her boyfriend.

Gloria and I got there and most of her friends were already there, including Chuck, her boyfriend.

Picture this; the river wasn’t that big or deep (only waist high), so we could actually walk all over the river. Plus there was a little waterfall made of concrete. It was perhaps eighteen inches tall. Above the waterfall on each side of the river were tall landings and there was Gloria on a blanket kissing Chuck.

The kids would walk up to the top of the waterfall, sit down and ride the wave, so to speak. I watched for a while I wasn’t too sure. Finally I decided to go. I stood there and realised the water barely ran over my feet, so I sat down and let the water take me down. I stood up at the bottom of the falls and still on the concrete began to walk to where all my friends were. I didn’t pay attention and stepped off the concert expecting to only go down to my waist, but it was deeper there. Nobody told me and I went under.

I panicked and forgot that I could swim. I tried to catch my breath when I kept surfacing. Finally Gloria pulled me out. What happened? and between coughs I told her what had happened.

Hey Belinda?

Yeah.

Angela came over to me, Gloria couldn’t get back to Chuck fast enough, and Angela said You’re lucky to be alive. Gloria didn’t know about you until someone grabbed her away from Chuck and told her about you.

What! Thanks Angela. I’ll know better in the future. I looked around and she was right where I left her when I went down the falls. It didn’t stop me from going down the falls I was just careful.

Mum and Dad smoked and one day Clara took one of Mum’s fags (cigarettes) and on the other side of our back yard wall she lit it. When I found her she talked me into having a puff. Mum found us and punished us. She took the hair on our heads and while holding it bashed our heads together.

Across the drive and down a few houses from us were a girl and boy, siblings that had made friends with me. Her name was Tracy Bradley and she was either my age or just a little bit older. The boy Spencer was younger than me, but we sort of dated.

The neighbourhood kids would go to the construction area close to home and play on the piles of sand and we found this extra-large tire to play with. It was perfect for one of us to get inside and then the rest would roll it down a hill. That was so much fun that today I still wish I could do that.

While Dad was in Vietnam he left his car on a patch of grass by our house. Mum didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. We kids used to get into the car by the front door and we would knock down the back seat and get out through the boot. One day Spencer and I were in the boot of the car when he suddenly got on top of me. What are you doing? and I slapped him.

I don’t know. I saw some older kids do it. That’s all.

We’re through.

Because we were on base housing we celebrated the American holidays like Halloween. Mum took us around the neighbourhood and we would stop at certain houses because they had hot chocolate or cider for everyone because it was cold. Other houses had sweets. I figured that my sisters and I had maybe half a bag of sweets when we walked up to this one house. There was a scarecrow on the porch and we had just gotten almost to the steps of the porch. On the porch there were four other kids going for sweets in the plastic bucket when this bloody scarecrow jumped up and yelled. Betty and Clara ran back to Mum dropping their bags. I ran back too, but I held onto my bag. It was funny because I like scary things. Plus I laughed because they had dropped their bags and all their sweets.

Belinda, go and get your sister’s bags and sweets.

I don’t want to go Mum please. I’m scared! I also didn’t want to go get their things. They always ganged up on me and were mean to me and they deserved it.

I don’t care go get them now!

I don’t believe this not even the scared card didn’t sway her. I slowly went back and while gathering my sister’s sweets and bags I watched the porch and reached for the sweets hoping he wouldn’t jump again, and then I ran back.

Chapter Two

There was this mount of dirt in the local park and it looked like it had once had a moat around it. Kids said there used to be an old castle on the top. We would go up there and would find things but nothing old enough for a castle.

When we had nothing else to do we would go there and make a race to see who could get to the top first. When they did they would sing I’m the king of the castle get away you dirty rascals. Wow. Looking back on things now I had good friends and lots of fun.

At school I was sort of dating a boy name Graham. We hung out at school together but I lived on base housing and he on the other side of the village. We didn’t get together after school.

There was a school dance and Graham and I went together. We danced to two songs that I remember very well and they were Nielson’s Can’t Live and Elton John’s Rocket Man. It was my first dance, first date and it was the most wonderful night. I even kept the dance ticket, but I’ve lost it over the years.

One day a friend of Graham’s told me that Graham didn’t want to be with me anymore. If I had taken the night to think about it or just asked him I wouldn’t have made a big mistake. But no I’ve got Irish blood and I walked over to Graham Well if you don’t want to see me anymore then I don’t want to see you and I turned and walked away. I found out the next day that he never said that, but he wouldn’t take me back.

School was good because I had an English accent and I went to an English school and I fit in. Our home room, which was our Maths room, gave us small bottles of milk every day.

Behind the classroom was a field of grass. In front was a large expanse of pavement. We girls at break and lunch would go to the field and make Daisy necklaces. You puncture the stem of one flower to make a small hole and insert the next flower stem into that hole and make a hole in the second flower and so on.

Sometimes we would gather, boys and girls, on the pavement. There was one teacher that was extremely tall, all legs, and when he’d walk past us to