After that, we left and went to my daughters house. The next day was a Saturday. That was the day of his funeral. I wanted to wait until Monday, but some just disagreed with me. I was in such shock that at the time it really didn't matter. 

As I look back,  to the day of the funeral, I looked horrible! All I did was put on a skirt and a top, nothing that was even pretty.

We got there a little early. There were flowers and plants and lots of pictures of him and I and our daughter. There was a beautiful puzzle piece that had his ashes in it. There is a large puzzle in the mausoleum and it is beautiful! His puzzle piece went to the puzzle.

As I stood there looking at everything, still thinking that this is all just a really bad dream, my old boss and dear friend came up to me. She told me she had been in the mountains and as soon as she heard, her and her husband turned around and came back. She said to me that she couldn't stay because she wasn't dressed properly. But she didn't leave before she told me some things that were very encouraging words. She is a wonderful lady!

As I sat next to my best friend that I've known since I was 5 years old, one my left side and my daughter on my right side,  my daughter started crying. It tore me up to see her like that. I put my arm around her.  That's all I knew to do.  It really breaks my heart when I see her in that kind of pain!

Finally it was all over with and we went back to my daughters home.  I think that night we all went to eat. All of my husbands family, my daughter and grandchildren, son-n-law.  I had to force myself to eat a bowl of soup. Someone had told the waitresses and when we left and were standing outside, two of them hugged me and told me how sorry they were for my loss.

I'm not sure how long after my husband passed away, one of my grandsons said that he thinks a snake got around granddaddy's neck. I was not allowed to tell my grandchildren what really happened. I did tell him that is wasn't a snake. I just told him that granddaddy had an accident.  They are not my children, so I had to respect what my daughter asked of me and I did.

I lost my mother when I was 11 years old. I didn't meet my real father until I was 25 years old.  I was adopted by my step father in 1968. I was 8 years old.
I had one real brother and two step brothers.  All of them were older than me.

My real brother and my oldest step brother had the same first and middle name. My real brother had his first name changed before we lost our mother.

Michael, my real brother was nearly 15 years old when our mother died. She had a rare type of brain tumor, called an Ependymoma. It was the size of a grapefruit which was also rare.  This type is not hereditary.

We were devastated to say the least. I'll never forget the pain I felt for years after she died.  I don't think any child should have to watch their mother die in the hospital, but I did. I was the youngest and didn't fully understand.

To this day, there are times that I really need my mother.  I was raised without a mother and it made life very hard. I never forgot her. The pain I felt from her death was horrible!

Not long after she passed, my step father kicked my real brother, Michael out of the house. He got to go live with our grandmother. My step father would not allow me to go live with her. In fact, I was no longer allowed to see or speak to her. I was no longer allowed to see or speak to my only brother, Michael.  I'll never forget sitting in the living room, watching my brother leave, leaving me there with people that I didn't belong to. I just sat and cried, while watching him walk out the door, then getting into our grandmothers car, leaving.

My grandmother and my brother would come to the high school, during lunch and I got to see them.

My step father re-married in December, just 8 months after my mothers death. The next year he was divorced and married again. This woman had a house in Florida.

We had to move to Florida. It was just me and my younger step brother. He was a year older than me. It wasn't long before the school knew something was going on. 

I refused to dress out in PE. The teacher told me she would fail me if I didn't start dressing out. I was so upset! The other PE teacher called me in her office one day and I had to show her my back.

It wasn't long at all before my step brother and I were told that if he hit us again, to run out of the house as fast as we could and get to the nearest phone.  We did, but the woman that we were supposed to call had gone out of town. So, we roamed  around for 3 days and 3 nights. We were so hungry that we finally walked to the police department. They fed us and we ate every bit of what they gave us! We were taken to a shelter home. I was in about 7 different foster homes in less than a year.

My grandmother came to Florida and talked with the counselor's at school and DEFACS.  They were in the process of giving her custody of me.

Over the Easter holidays, she sent me a ticket to fly back to Georgia to see her. I got to stay with her for a week! That was really fun. My brother and I had gone to see one of our uncles. When we got back home, she was crying and told us that we had to take her to the hospital.  Before I left to go back to Florida, I saw her. I made her a promise that I did keep, it just took me a while.

I went back to foster care. I got a few letters from my Aunt. They were not good news.

I was very sick, deathly sick. I had to have surgery, but the doctor in Florida refused to do the surgery without seeing the actually x-rays from the previous surgeries. Why, I don't know. But I did know that if I didn't have the surgery, I would die.

I ran away from the foster home. Three days later one of my teachers knew that I was staying with a girlfriend from school. When she got home she told me he was parked up the street. She said that he needed to talk to me and he would not force me to get in his car. I had that gut feeling again. I walked up the road and talked with him. He told me that if I didn't get in the car with him and go to DEFACS that I would regret it for the rest of my life. So, I got in the car and went to DEFACS. My case worker called me in her office. That's when I found out that my grandmother had died. They had given her custody of me, but I never got to go live with her.

Again, my heart was shattered. The pain from losing her was devastating.  She had died 2 days before I found out. I was not allowed to go to her funeral. She was buried next to my mother.

I had no choice but to go back and live with my step father, who had moved back to Georgia in the same house we grew up in.  He made promises to me that he never kept. But he did take me to my doctor. My doctor put me in the hospital and did the surgery.  A few days later I was taken to emergency surgery because of complications. I really thought I was going to die. I was extremely sick. I spent 3 weeks in the hospital. I went back home with my step father and my 3 step mother.

I just couldn't take it any more, so I ran away and turned myself in on a Friday night. I tried to tell them to call my case worker in Florida, but it was the weekend and they couldn't get in touch with her. My step father told them all kinds of lies about me and told them to keep me there. He said he didn't want me. So Juvenile Hall locked me up.

The following Monday my Aunt and Uncle picked me up. I lived with them for several years. I  was 15 at the time.  A year later my granddaddy died. I never got to meet my grandparents from my real fathers side. Again, my heart was broken.

From the time I was 15 until I was in my early twenties, I went through more hell than you could ever imagine.

Then I met my husband and my life got better. We had our ups and downs and arguments but we made it work.

On December 31, 1997, I got a call from my Aunt who now lived out of state. It was about my brother, Michael.

For the past 8 years he didn't want to see or talk to me. He pushed everyone out of his life. The last year of his life, he called me many times. We emailed each other many times. He asked me so many questions about our past, did this happen to you?  Weren't you made to do this and that? I thought he knew, but I guess he wasn't sure. He always talked about the past.

During that last year of his life, he had told me that I was the strong one. I never thought I was strong at all. He said that I was the only one to get married and stay married. He had married twice and divorced twice. He had 2 daughters from his first marriage and 1 son from his second marriage. When he and his second wife divorced, they agreed that Michael wouldn't see his son and he wouldn't have to pay child support. I don't think he ever saw him again. He did get to see his daughters though.

It was New Years Eve when I got a call from my Aunt.