Memoir

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 After the loss of my father at the age of four, I developed a full reliance on my mother. She was cunning and resilient, but hopelessly devoted to the same destructive family members responsible for the failure of her marriage. Husbandless and pregnant with her third child, my mom managed to take her small, stopgap family from living in a car in a beach parking lot to a boarding house where she met the man who will be the father of her next two children. Evictions and cut utilities forced move after move from neighboring towns to different states. As my growing family relocated, neglect and abuse from relatives and family friends shadow my and my brother's and sister's lives. The chaotic existence, including the presence of an uncle and step-father in and out of prison and an alcoholic uncle who will not leave, awakened me to the realization that my family was not like other families. I began to question my mother's decisions and disappointment transitions to anger, but a bond remains between me and my mom. Even during the worst times, she surprised with a fiercely protective love like when I was forced to come out as gay at the age of fourteen. In spite of the unhinged way of living, our family was close. My younger brothers and sisters and I had no real friends but each other, and, in spite of her faults, we knew our mother loved us deeply. Nothing prepared us for the moment she was taken away.