A story of hope....

This is a long story and for that I'm sorry, but I wanted to let you all read about this. It is a real story of success in overcoming drug addiction and physical disabilities. Since this is a true story and all the facts I have listed here are indeed that, facts. I invite you to take a closer look at my life and my Siblings......

My Mother has seven Children.
She didn't need seven, I don't know what she was thinking, but there are seven of us. We have lived life in the depths of hell and the glories of heaven. Our Childhood has affected the way we turned out as adults, some good, some not so good.
In some ways our Mother was the best Mother a Child could have, but in other ways she was Mommy Dearest......
This is a story of hope, It is about the seven of us, but more about the one of us who has changed his life in ways you couldn't imagine.......
I feel, for you to understand, you need to know who we are :
There's me Judy. I am Oldest @ age 48, I am logical and sane, independent and live as far away from them as I can..... I used to be a drinker, but never a drunk. I used drugs, but kicked that too. I am terrible with money and consider myself a shopaholic, This had led me into more financial problems than I can tell you. I have avoided paying my bills just to buy what I thought I really needed,I have since then found out there's a huge difference in what we need and what we want. I'm not like that anymore, but I've had to turn the finances over to my Husband and have almost no money to my name to stop my spending habits. He has had to dig us out of financial ruin because I couldn't say no.
I love my Family, but I am different, I am not into gossip, I don't like to back stab, I don't like to use people. I like being away so that when I do visit it feels good to do it. I like to love and to be loved..... To be in all that turmoil down there makes me feel ill. I've fixed myself now and I'm doing well....

There's Janet, she is 1 year younger than me. She's the sucker, I swear she has SUCKER painted on her forehead. Everyone comes to Janet, They will mooch off her for babysitting, they will steal from her, the beg her for money, they also bring all animals they don't want anymore to her, because they know she loves animals and wont turn one away..... They will even drop their dirty laundry off and she will do it. She is sweet and lovable but she is a pushover. Janet is better but people still take advantage of her. But she is better......

Rhonda is next. Shes 3 years younger than me, I'm sorry but she is an alcoholic and a drug addict. She functions, but barely. She has made very tragic choices with family and unfortunately her Children. She is a sad lonely person who chooses to be that way........ Even though we DID live a pretty horrific childhood, She remembers things that just didn't happen. She hates our Mother so much that she makes things up about Mom abusing her that just are not true, The sad part is she really believes what shes saying is the truth. I feel very sorry for her , She has not learned how to cope with the past and so she still uses drinking to somehow ease that pain.Maybe one day she will learn. I keep trying to talk to her but she uses excuses for the drinking and I tell her when YOU are ready it will happen.

Dewayne is next. He's four years younger than me. He was such a sweet boy. Our Step Father used to beat him, I don't know why, he just did. All in all, DJ has really grown into a grumpy but lovable man. He has had his share of booze and drugs also, but let go of that life years ago.... His problem is he loves the Women too much and has been married five times, He started at age sixteen! He only has three Children, so at the very least, he knows what birth control is...... My problem with him stems from the fact that he ignores his oldest Sister and I call and call and he never answers so, I quit....... His life is good, he's happy and I'm happy for him....

David is Child number five, I'm not gonna say much at this point about David because I want this post to be about him and his "story of hope". I will say he is six years younger than me. He and I have never had an issue until a few years ago. David seemed like the "perfect" one of us until things happened to change his perfect world.....

Sherri is Child number six, Sherri can be the biggest pain in the ass. Sherri has always been all about Sherri. I have spent years thinking that She's a slut and maybe she is. But sitting here writing this, I realize she is a product of Child Molestation just like the rest of us girls. Sherri almost died when she was little the Doctors over medicated her at four days old and she quit breathing. They used empty oxygen bottles on her and she suffered brain damage. They told my Parents that she would either be a genus or mentally handicapped, she is a little of both, believe it or not. No matter what, she is Sherri and we try and remember that one thing in time that changed her forever. Sherri is in the middle of a divorce and her In laws and ex are attempting to take her Children BUT the problem is they are no better than her and the Judge saw it. So it's a no go for them! She still has her Kids......

The Baby is Patty. Patty has issues that stem from being the Baby. I never thought being the last one born in a Family would be hard for a person, I guess it is. Patty suffers from chronic depression. She was never abused by her Father that I know of. She is sweet and loving. She also is a rock for our Mother financially, she is the one that has helped my Mother out of many money troubles. She looks the most like my Mom. Patty has been married 4 times and is in her mid thirties.(36) She has four Children and one Grand Child. She was my Twelfth Birthday gift, meaning that she was born 3 days before my Birthday and was brought home on my Birthday as my gift.( I guess that means I own her..... blink blink) Of all my Brothers and Sisters I am closest to her and Janet. Patty's by far the most "normal" of us all. She is Happy for the most part and is loved by Husband Steve for the last 10 years.
Since I have went through all of our down falls I will add this: I love all of my Siblings and I love my Mom. We have been though things that no one should ever have to think about much less live though. We are crazy, funny, mean at times, compulsive and weird but we are Family....

Now, I said I would tell you more about David. He is the fifth Child. He came along after my Mom was Divorced from Janet, Rhonda, Dewayne and I's Father and had not yet met Sherri and Patty's Father. David's Father earned a purple heart for saving 2 others lives before he gave his own. He never knew my Mom was pregnant, so therefore never knew he would be a Father. My Mother and his Father would have been married if not for the fact that he had died. David was always a cute child. He was born with a long Mohawk, Isn't that funny? David's Son (yes he did manage to get a girl pregnant and have one child) looks just like him and was born with the same hair cut.....
He was voted most likely to succeed, best looking and was prom king in his Senior year at High School. 2 weeks after his return from his Senior trip he got into a car accident that would change his life forever........
I sat up straight in bed, awoke for some reason I didn't know. I had a feeling that something was wrong, someone was hurt...... I sat there ,my eyes watering with sleep in them . I started to cry with a heavy feeling of doom.The phone rang and I felt a sense of dread when I answered it. It was my Mother. She was crying and I could barely understand what she was saying. " your Brother David has been in a car accident and you need to come to the hospital quickly" "He may not make it...... so come NOW" I hurried to get dressed not knowing what to expect , When I got to the hospital, What I saw was not what I thought I would see. David was there laying in the hospital bed, pale ( for him that was rare because he, out of all my Mothers children had picked up our French and Cherokee Indian heritage and is reddish brown in color, a perfect permanent tan) He looked broken and pitiful. I cried. His head was wrapped in bandages, he had dried blood everywhere. his legs were both broken, his arms were broken, his body was in traction. I held his hand and kissed his forehead. I was scared that he would break if I touched him with more that a feathers touch.
He had lost so much blood that they could never prove that he had been drinking or that he had snorted so much cocaine that he should NEVER have been driving. He had argued with his then, girl friend, Kelly and borrowed her Brothers car and lost control of it.He hit a palm tree going over 100 MPH. He would state later that he saw a man with a shopping cart cross the road and he was trying not to hit him. It was never revealed whether that was truth or fiction. He survived that wreck and Graduated in the hospital along side my Mother, who had quit School and never gone back until she passed her GED test and Graduated with my Brother. He was not "perfect" after that accident he had a paralyzed leg and pain riddled his body. He got addicted to pain pills by taking all of his medication too soon and had to buy more ,but not from prescriptions, but from drug dealers. That eventually led him down a path of selling every valuable thing he owned . When he had gone through every thing he owned he started stealing, not from people he didn't know, but from his family. It was sad every person in our family had been robbed by him in one way or the other, all under the assumption that we were helping him. We would give him money and then turn our backs and he would steal stuff, even our medications. After a few years of this we started to turn our backs and ears on his cries for help. We had been taken advantage by him far to much to expect him to be honest with us. This went on for years and years. No one knew what to do, we had come to our wits end. I wouldn't talk to him any more because the last time I was around him he took money out of my purse and took my pain medication that I Need, and besides it isn't his. I thought I had hid it but I guess not well enough.....
A little over year ago my Sister Janet called me and told me that my Brother David was in the hospital, He had tried to commit suicide. But first had tried to cut his leg off with a butcher knife because it wouldn't stop hurting, that didn't work so he then thought he would end his "miserable life"..... My Mom had decided enough was enough. She had found out before all of this, that he was taking Oxycontin and had became addicted. The Doctors gave him 120 of the highest dosage pills, he would take them all and be looking for more. She stepped in and got him off that (that's a story all of its own) and they had switched him to methadone . They gave him 150 methadone's a month, This had lasted 4 years before he hit rock bottom....... He was taking all of his pills within two weeks of getting them and had ran out this time and had no one to turn to that could help him get more pills off the street. He had no money and no friends this time..... He was in withdrawals and didn't know how to handle it. That's how he came to try and take his leg first and then his life second..... I guess his thinking was to rid his self of the offending part, since that didn't work, taking his life would stop the pain forever.
My Mother finally stepped up and said NO for David she had him committed for trying to kill his self. He was pissed , he called everyone and cussed them out that he could remember the number for. He gave all us a piece of his mind. We didn't care we knew that in time maybe he would thank us. He went through rehab for 6 months. He got out and took his life back. He went to Alcoholics Anonymous and attended meetings every day, 3 times a day as a matter of fact. He traveled to where ever they were having a meeting just so he wouldn't slip, He had a sponsor, that sponsor talked to him and was really honest with him and got him involved in other things . for a change he was helping other people that had problems like he had. He also was involved with a suicide hot line, He listened one night to a man die on the phone and there was nothing he could do to help him. He grew up and accepted responsibility for his actions . He's our wonderful David all healed....
This week has been 1 year clean and sober for David. He has met all challenges in this and has been declared a success . I as well as my family, are proud of him......
Good on ya David!
as always......
Peace!