Lost & Found

After a couple of weeks of trying through the school’s principal, I was finally convinced to take a call with my Mom.  I was only 8 years old, but I was so angry with her.  I didn’t understand exactly why things had gone down the way that they did, I just knew that I had been left by myself and that I was being forced into a situation that I hated. I didn’t like living in Prince George with my Dad.  There was just as much drinking with him as there was with my Mom - we just ate a little better (okay, a lot better). It’s not like I wanted to be back with my Mom either, but nothing seemed right anymore.  It boggles my mind that these government agencies you hear about that take kids away from unfit families never figured out how bad things were for me and my sister.  We just meandered our way through all of these bad situations, ducked when violence came flying at us, and held on for dear life as we tried to survive.  And now, my Mom was back in the picture.  The bottom line was that she wanted us to come back to her and live with her and Dale in Edmonton.  She told us it would be different, that Dale was different now, and that the beatings had stopped.  Imagine saying that to your kid.  

“Don’t worry, Joey.  Dale isn’t beating me anymore.”

I wince just thinking about those words.

“Dale isn’t beating me anymore.”

Why is this the badge of honor that should convince me to come back with you, Mom?  What reason could I possibly have for agreeing to this?  I didn’t want to go back to her.  I didn’t want to be around Dale.  But there wasn’t really much of a choice being presented.  

“Would you like the pile of shit behind Door #1 or the pile of shit behind Door #1?”

It was lose/lose no matter what I decided to do.  Now, don’t get me wrong…my Dad was not a bad guy.  He just wasn’t any kind of a parent.  He would let drug addicts he knew shoot up in our house so that we would see the effects of it all.  He once wanted to teach my sister a lesson about how bad alcohol is when she was 11 years old, and so he bet her $50 that she couldn’t down a small bottle of vodka without throwing up; but she threw it back like it was nothing!  There was always food around, but he couldn’t cook - so he’d just mash a bunch of noodles, beef, tomatoes, rice, and corn together (without any spices) and call it a “goulash”. Then we’d have to eat that crap!  I went from being grateful, to just always being exhausted.  

It was also extremely dirty living with my Dad. There’s nothing figurative about what I’m saying here - I’m talking full-on filth. Gross dishes, unswept floors, dingy carpets, and disgusting bathrooms. There was a funk that didn’t go away. It was different than being with my Mom. As much as she was kind of crazy and we didn’t have food, the house was mostly clean. Yes, we would have to sometimes step around beer bottles - and sometimes passed out people - littered throughout our homes, but for the most part the house was clean.

And those kinds of things felt like they mattered.

The thing that nobody understands about people who have been through traumatic experiences is that sometimes it’s the routine of it all that allows you to function as a human being.  Things were slightly better with my Dad, and we did get to eat, but it was so dysfunctional.  Strange people were in and out of our apartment, and we’d be around drunken parties with people my Dad worked with, and it all felt strange to us.  So, when my Mom started coming back into the picture, there was something familiar about her kind of chaos that felt right.  I barely knew my Dad at this point, yet I had been thrust into this life where he was in charge of it all, and it just didn’t seem right. 

As I look back now, I realize that I wanted to believe that things could be different and that my Mom and Dale had changed.  My Mom had never had a job in my entire life, and now she was working.  I had never heard of Edmonton before, but in a way, it sort of sounded exciting. My Mom told me about the wave pool at the West Edmonton Mall, and the amusement park inside, and it sounded like fun to a kid who had never done any of that before. At the same time, I was angry at my Mom for leaving us, but it felt good to be wanted.  And…she could certainly cook better than my Dad.  

I know it was hard on my Dad as this was all going on, but after months of my Mom hounding him, he finally relented and agreed to let us go and visit her for the summer in Edmonton. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to go back with them, and I was so confused by what was going on that I eventually gave in too.