In my last post the most significant thing in mine, my
sister and brother lives was that my dad remarried someone we had never met. We
also gained a stepsister whose age was between my sisters and mine. I was 11 at
the time so there were seven years until I turned 18. The next seven years were
constant conflict with my stepmother. Looking back I think it would be fair to
say that this whole situation was terribly unfair to my sister, brother as well
as my stepsister and stepmother. To just automatically draws in together and
say "be a family now" seems so unfair to all. Before I start on the years where we lived
with her I should bring up something that happened were still with my uncle and
aunt.
We met our new mother and stepsister for one weekend after
Memorial Day. They were married on Memorial Day weekend. We got to meet her the
next weekend. We never really spent time with her, we were just ordered to
spend time with our new sister. It was awkward at best. An edict came down the
next week through our aunt and uncle that my sister was no longer to be Joe's
caregiver. This was so that when we lived with my stepmother he would bond with
her and my dad felt Cathy would be a hindrance to that and so it began. I
remember one time we were going home from somewhere and my little brother was a
baby still was crying and wouldn't stop. Cathy wanted to pick him up but she
was forbidden because of the edict from my dad and stepmother. He cried and
cried and said "I want my mama". I wasn't allowed to tend to him
either. I remember being in tears over this but orders were orders! We found
for the next seven years this is how things worked. My stepmother would tell my
dad what she wanted from my sister and I and he ordered us to do it. No
questions asked. No response from us was allowed. It was just do it and shut
up. Probably not the best way to start a new family. I always said we were a
blended family that never mixed.
That next fall we moved into the house built for my dad and
stepmother. It was on the edge of Wilmington Illinois and a few miles away from
my uncle's acreage. In an earlier post think I mentioned the living
arrangements. My brother and I shared bunkbeds in the family room. My sisters
could stay up later and they watched TV. My brother and I were supposed to
ignore that and go to sleep. This was very difficult and I was always asking my
sister what they were showing on the TV when it seemed like something I wanted
to know. Of course I got in trouble for this and was scolded repeateadly that I
was supposed to be going to sleep. I was supposed to accept it because "my
dad was doing the best he could". I think I heard that saying 4 million
times over the next seven years. No matter what decisions were made it was
always "this is the best I can do so shut up".
One of the commandments in the Bible is to honor
thy father and mother. Jesus says that is the first commandment with a promise.
The promise is that life will be well with you on the earth if you honor thy
father and mother. Because of this I have been very Hesitant to speak
negatively about my father. He is no longer with us and so now I feel I could
speak openly about the strange way in which we were raised. Just to be clear, I
don't believe were ever physically abused, other than some spankings from uncle
Pat with his belt. I receive spankings from my father but really they could not
be called abuse or even close to. What we suffered for the next seven years was
emotional and verbal abuse from our father and our stepmother. Sometimes her
daughter, our stepsister, joined in and sometimes she sided with us and never
said anything. This is it how the next seven years went. In further post I will
try to address some of the weird things that happened over the next seven
years.
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