Loeva: The Flower Among the Weeds

Loeva: The Flower Among the Weeds

 

Once there was a child, an innocent, with bright eyes and endless potential. That girl was me, nine months old with a s****y a*s and a head full of stars. My father loved me, of that I have no doubts but my mother I am sure wanted nothing to do with me. They say when your "high" you don't know any better-"they" are idiots. I've been high and I know that you know the difference between right and wrong...you just choose to ignore it. But this situation is nothing like that. Picture children crying in playpens with two and three day old diapers on their bottoms and more than empty stomaches. Imagine the smell of sex and drugs and hate crawling underneath a mother's (if you would call her that) bedroom door searching for a tiny nose. Imagine how strong the fear would be in a child of three in charge of looking after a baby while screams of an abused woman fill a house mixing with the screams of a hungry infant. Dirty faces, greasy hair, sunken eyes and small ribs peeking through pink skin-this was my world.

     My father was far from perfect, to be completely honest I hated him most days, but I do feel sorry for him thinking back. I can't remember how many times he told me that he named me after my grandma because he knew I was going to end up with her. I know that deep down the real reason was because no matter how currupt he was he still had a heart and although he broke hers, he loved his mother. That is how I know that somewhere in that pitch black heart of his there was a space for me.

     My gramma told me how my half-sister Amber stood in the doorway of that dying house the day she got tired of watching me waste away. She said that Amber cried until she couldn't and she screamed until all that was left were whimpers-she wanted to know why she couldn't come and why my grandma loved me more than her. In the end my gramma caved of course. She came in with the intentions of picking me up for a visit and when she found my "mother" in the bedroom trading her already high self to a strange man for more heroine, that, apparently was the last straw. That day I was sitting in my play-pen staring at the TV and Amber was crying for food. My grandma took us both, picked us up in one fell swoop. I know I can't but sometimes I think I can remember my gram telling Amber that she'd die before she made her go back to that house. She didn't die, but Amber went back. The court said it was because my grandma was not her blood relative, we had different fathers, and In that situation I'm glad he was mine. Even Amber didn't stay with my mother long after that day, she was sent to live with her aunt and her aunt's girlfriend. I never saw her again after that.

     I stayed with my gram and gramps until the court date, November 13, 1987, a few days after my grandma's fifty-ninth birthday. That was the best day. That was the day I met my mother and father. Although I was only nine months old I learned at an early age that family is not something that Mr. Webster can define, family is love, the two are synonymous. Where there is love...there's family.