Life goes on.
18 May 2009 Leave a Comment
This has been a very emotional few weeks for me. I can not even describe. The old saying “everything happens for a reason” just keeps going through my mind and out of my mouth when people say “I am so sorry”. Yeah me to, but thanks.
I found Odis Walker. He is dead. For years Charles Odis Walker was nothing but a name on a piece of paper, a piece of paper that changed my life forever. Odis Walker, a voice on the other end of a phone, that upset my Mother, Grandma and Aunt Susie. I never heard that voice. Charles Odis Walker, legally my father, is dead.
For about 26 minutes Thursday he lived though, through the stories of his best friend Donald, who at one time was married to his sister. Donald told me that Odis was a merchant marine, blew $100,000.00 in the casino’s in Mobile, raised his son Chuckie, and would give you the last dollar he had if he knew you needed it. Odis died of a brain aneurysm three of four years ago, it was Donald who went to him, it was Donald’s property which housed the small trailer that Odis lived in when he died.
There were other things that Donald shared with me too, before he knew who I was, and why I wanted to know about Odis. The information he gave me put a lot of things to rest, and brought about the one thing that I was really looking for. Just too words, “I’m sorry”. When those two words were spoken, a weight was lifted, I can now move on, knowing the truth was what I always knew to be the truth.
I also learned just how strong a woman my Momma is. It is a huge burden to take on a child at 17 years of age. My Momma didn’t have to take on that burden, she had other opitons but she chose to keep me just the same. Mistakes are going to be made of course, 17 years of age, you are really a child yourself. But my Momma reared me, and three other kids. She reared us safe from some of the demons of her history, and now her grandchildren are safe from those demons as well.
So now I know, and can be at peace with myself and my history. RIP Odis Walker and those others whom I never met, but touched my life nevertheless.
Memories or "Yes I was a beautiful baby!"
26 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
This was taken back when my sister actually liked me (I think, she may have hated me even back then)
According to momma I was about six months old
First Grade
In my family this is known as the “Pebbles” picture, (because Momma did my hair like Pebbles from the flintstones)
Life on Fox Hill Road
11 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
Today driving back from Georgetown Georgia, I took a trip down memory lane. For some reason, I began to think about the time we spent on Fox Hill road in Milledgeville, Georgia. We moved to Fox Hill RD when I was eleven years old. Momma wanted to get us out of Florida after the whole Adam Walsh kidnapping and she no longer felt that Florida was a safe place to raise kids.
Usually my memories of Fox Hill road are pleasent, it was at this time growing up that I can honestly say my family was the poorest ever during our time growing up. Just a few of the struggles our family faced at this time:
-Unemployment
-Welfare and “handouts”
-A Toilet that did not flush, you actually had to flush it with a bucket of water
-Well Water that you could not drink, we went to a spring to “gather” drinking water
-This same water also turned all of our clothes a “muddy” color
Also at this time experienced some life changing incidents such as: my first view of domestic violence and how it affects families, although at that time I did not understand what was going on, I just remember being scared when my momma tried to get my young cousins in the car to take them home with us when their parents began to “fight”.
I found out that my daddy was not my “real” dad also. I can never explain to anyone how this felt to a almost twelve year old. I clearly remember to this day, 26 years later, sitting in that car looking at the form for my social security number, feeling sick at my stomach and crying.
So why I am sure you ask would I choose to remember this time? Simple a tire…yes you read it correctly a TIRE! We have a tire on the front porch that today while driving I thought to myself “Self that would make a great tire swing” like the one we had on Fox Hill Road. This brought on other memories I have of life there.
You see at this time we only had one television in the house, that was usually being watched by my daddy. So us kids spent a lot of time outside to pass the time. We spent days playing in the woods out back and across the street, swinging on the tire swing, playing on the huge propane gas tank out side, roller skating on the back porch, picking plums and wild blackberries in the back yard (which by the way I plan on buying a black berry vine also this month and planting in the back yard), helping to plant the huge garden that momma and daddy planted in the back yard, and walking to Huffs store.
The one television also did not have cable at that time, we had this big antenna that you had to turn until the station came in, my favorite memory of that of course will always be my cousin Hank climbing that pole when my dog Sheba got loose and joined us on the front porch! But back to the story, since we did not have cable we of course did not have MTV (which at this time was new and actually played videos) so my sister and I used to stay up as late was we could on Friday and Saturday nights to watch videos on Night Tracks on WTBS (before it became TBS and Ted Turner became a multi-billionaire).
Life was simpler then, although us kids began to see what money and the lack of it could do to your life we also seen just how hard my momma worked to make sure we had what we did. Although that was the “poorest” time in our childhood, I also believe this was the time my family was the closest.
So this weekend the Fullwoods are going to put up that tire swing, and buy a couple of blackberry vines and hopefully bring a little of Fox Hill road to Cordele Georgia.
