If They Would Let Me make her HeadStone from a toilet…

My teen years were mostly awful.  My parents were doing and dealing meth.  They’d have drunken brawls in the middle of the kitchen.  There was a lot of screaming and a lot of ugliness, and Teri and Bill were right in the middle of it all.

I think what was most painful about that was that before we’d moved to Germany, I was six years old, with a six-year-old’s body.  Teri had been like a sister to my mom, so as far as I was concerned, she was Aunt Teri, and her parents and siblings were family, too.

By the time we came back to California, I was nearly 12 and already wearing a 34 C bra.  I did not look 12, and having become an additional parent to my three younger siblings, I didn’t behave like one, either, most of the time.

It’s taken me a long time to understand why everyone treated me so differently when we came back.  I’ve come to realize that my body made people uncomfortable.

In that one year, two men that I called “grandpa” were completely inappropriate with me.  I told my mom about both of them.  She told me I never had to se my paternal grandfather again.  The other was Teri’s father, and she basically told me that it was my fault, and to stay away from him.  I had to spend every Christmas Eve with him until he croaked in my sophomore year.

Teri was like the devil on my mom’s shoulder.  If she didn’t like my attitude, she’d have something to say about it.  Then my mom would say lovely things to me like, “you’re just being a bitch and don’t want me to have friends.”

When Teri’s lecherous partner, Bill, put his hands on me without permission, and constantly made comments about my body, she’d tell me that I should take it as a compliment.  When I chose to completely ignore them from the moment I left my parents’ home, she would loudly declare that she didn’t know why I was being like that.

Well, Bill died more than a decade ago.  I was bitter because no one had told me about it until after the funeral.  I wouldn’t have gone, of course, but I wanted that to be my choice,  and not anyone else’s.

Teri died Saturday Night.  She was the last of my mom’s close friends, and we lost our dad not three years ago.  My mom is taking it hard, though they haven’t been close since my parents got clean in the late 80s.

Still, even at only 52, I’m beginning to feel my world shrinking.  My precious dogs are all gone.  Losing our dad is still so hard to wrap my head around.
Some of my school friends have succumbed to the big C.
It’s like the world is getting more and more chaotic, and all the voices that used to help distract me from the noise are growing quieter.

That’s so much more true for my mom, who, for the record, has owned her failings and is sincerely remorseful.  I want to support her through this loss, but I cannot betray 12 year old Jenna by pretending to care about Teri.  And it’s not just me!  It’s my sisters, my cousins, all of us were made to feel like trash because of this woman.

When I told my sister that Teri had died, she said, “I’m surprised we didn’t hear the gates of hell swinging open.

yep.  That sums it up.