Inspiring Answers – Part One

Not really, but the title fit.  Here are the answers from your questions.  BTW, wow, some of you asked some pretty awesome questions.
 
1. What’s your worst childhood memory?  Your best?
 
Worst: There are a lot of worst memories from childhood, but the one that really stands out and still makes my heart really hurt happened one summer night when my father was home.  We were all sitting outside on the porch, my mom, dad, brother, me, Pauline from next door, her kids: Susan, Paula, Peter.  It was late and really hot.  We were having a really bad heat wave here in the north and because it was so hot my mom let us stay up really late.  All the adults were drinking and pretty drunk by then. 
 
There was a stray cat, all white, that was left behind by his former owners after their house burned down that winter.  I adopted that cat and I named him snowflake.  I tended to Snowflake all winter long.  I’d sneak him in my room through the window at night when everyone else went to sleep.  My mom knew, but my dad didn’t and I was told to not let him catch me.  In spite of the fact my mom hated animals; but she looked the other way when I did this because I loved this cat and there weren’t many happy times for me when I was little.  She’d also buy cat food for me to feed Snowflake. 
 
Flash back to that summer night.  Snowflake came up to the porch to see me, as he did every night. In spite of being a stray cat, he was very loving and not scared of people at all.  I remember holding onto him on the corner of the porch, keeping him away from my dad.  But he got loose and he walked over to my dad and did that thing cats do for attention.  He rubbed against my dad’s legs.  That was his fatal mistake.  My dad yelled at me to “get the fucking cat away from him or he would kill the fucking thing.”  Snowflake wouldn’t come to me and the next thing I know my dad took the cat and smashed his skull against the cement stairs…repeatedly…until he was dead.  Right in front of all of us.  Then he threw Snowflake at me and said something like, “next time I tell you to get the fucking cat away from me maybe you’ll listen.”  To this day, I feel 100% responsible for that cat’s death and when I think about it my heart hurts, literally hurts.  If it weren’t for me caring for him he wouldn’t have been around that night and wouldn’t have been so trusting of my fucked up father.
 
Best: My best memories involve a man my mother met after her and my dad divorced.  His name was also Tom, a stock car racer out of New Hampshire.  My mom met him through my Uncle Ralph, who was also a stock car racer.  Tom went by his nickname Squeeky.  His CB-radio handle.  Tom was separated from his wife and had 2 sons.
 
Squeeky LOVED me.  But wasn’t too enamored of my brother.  Which was cool with me because my mom and dad always preferred my brother over me so it was awesome to finally be someone’s favorite.  Squeeky loved me with a passion and prior to that I had never known that kind of unconditional love.  Don’t get me wrong, my mom LOVED me.  I always knew this.  But I never felt it was unconditional.  Squeeky would call me his little princess, he’d talk to me, let me play on his CB radio and I’d talk to all the truckers.  He even gave me the CB handle of Snow White. 
 
Mom told me he had always wanted a daughter and I guess I filled that space in his heart…as he filled the space in my heart that longed for a loving father.  Squeeky and I became inseparable that summer.  He would take me on fast car rides just to hear me laugh.  If I said I was bored he’d scoop me up and take me to Canobie Lake Park, or the zoo, or wherever.  See I was never used to this kind of stuff, my mom didn’t drive, my dad didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. 
 
I was madly in love with Squeeky, he was madly in love with me, and my mom.  But my mom got pregnant by him…and broke his heart when she refused to have the baby.  I remember the day she went to get the abortion.  I do.  I didn’t know at the time where she was going, but it was the first and only time she ever left Squeeky to babysit me alone.  I remember he cried that whole day…cried and held me tight.  I remember trying to do anything in my power to get him to laugh that day.  I also remember that was the last day I ever saw him.  My mom came home and he left and that was that.
 
Later on when I got older and I asked my mom what happened she told me about the abortion.  She also said that she didn’t love him as he loved her.  She could never love another man the way she loved my father.  She also said I was getting too close to Squeeky and he was getting too close to me so she ended it after she broke his heart by having the abortion.  She said he tried to keep in contact with me but she never told me because she didn’t want to see my heart break again. 
 
I think what I found attractive in the opposite sex was formed during this time.  Squeeky was handsome.  Tall, black hair and blue eyes.  Something I’ve always been instantly attracted to during my adult years.
 

I’ll have to answer the rest of your questions later; I’m crying at my desk at work and need to get myself under control again.