Category: stories

My mama raised a storyteller… 

A small girl who grew up imagining tales of mice living in walls, gathering for dinner on spools of thread, sipping water from thimbles, and dining on chunks of cheese and scraps of bread. 

For a long time, after life got rough, I gave up on stories. I turned to poetry fixated on darkness, broken hearts, longing, my shortcomings, and extreme sadness. 

Then, one day in my late twenties, my mom made a joke about the way I referred to my husband in our emails by his initials. Since we lived 2000+ miles away from one another, I took her joke and turned it into a series of short stories about cows. They were so much fun. Every once in a while she’d log on to her computer to find a new installment in the tales of the cows. 

To clarify, I did not have cows. This was simply made-up nonsense, at a children’s level, inspired by a joke she made. 

When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and placed in a facility, my husband began sorting through things in her apartment. Among the most random stuff she had stored in her safe, were printed-out copies of those old cow stories from fourteen years before. He looked at me and said “she loves you. She always has. It’s just complicated.” 

It took writing Girls, Assassins & Other Bad Ideas to really see that he was right. 

My mama raised a storyteller, or more accurately I guess she birthed one. She had very little to do with it. Her favorite may have been my story about the day I was born, which I adamantly swore I remembered… She would laugh til she cried and say “You are so full of shit”, but I’d just shake my head at her and tell her I remembered… (I don’t think I actually remembered, though those stories have been told so often they are cemented in my mind as truth.)

 My own stories are where my journey has me now. I am passionate about the lessons in lives lived and connections with people I’ve known. Even so, there are hundreds of other fictional stories out there that I’ve written or things I dream of writing… 

And more recently there were the Neighborhood Tales… Real-life stories, humanized because it was fun. In truth, Tom, Tim, the lady (Bea), and the son (Baby Bee) are cats. Strays, ferals, dumped… Until her last litter was taken, Baby Bee is the only kitten to have survived their terrible mother. (Well and our Darcy, but that’s 100% because of us.) 

Are we cat people? No. 

But we are kind people. We offer food and a safe, warm place for these cats to be because we don’t want them to suffer. The number of dead kittens we’ve endured is the stuff of horror movies. We have some neighbors who HATE US because they believe these cats are ours. They blame us for cats coming to the neighborhood. In truth, the only “growth” this cat neighborhood has seen is Baby Bee when he was born last summer. Otherwise, it’s been the same cats for almost 5 years. 

And also… The reason they were picked up was to be spayed/neutered. Tom managed to escape. (of course, he did. Also, we don’t know why he is only around on weekends and holidays. It’s weird AF) So no more babies! (the last litter will be adopted out through the shelter, and mom may be as well if they can get her to be much less spicy! (they also mentioned that they have never seen a cat LOATHE her babies as much as she does. It’s so true!) 

Thanks for reading along. I make up stories about them for Chris all the time, and tell them to my mom, who I believe is still with me. She would have loved the stories… but not the cats… 

Full disclosure: In the stories I tell, I do not call her “lady”. She’s the town whore. I’m sorry. 

It was an early morning blur of activity the likes of which I had NOT been prepared for. We’d gotten word, late the night before, that a case worker may be showing up. We were brutally honest about the situation, but she was clear that they weren’t wanting to remove anyone from the family, they just needed to check some things.

It all seemed routine, but one look at the condition of her home and her complete disregard for her offspring, and calls were made. They found a foster home in a matter of minutes. Mom was arrested. Her babies (yes BABIES! We honestly didn’t know) were taken somewhere safe. Because Tom’s son was with us when he wasn’t with his dad, there seemed to be some uncertainty about how to proceed. In the end, late that afternoon they came for him too.

Somehow Tom had gotten word, and he booked it into town. He was already with the caseworker and they were getting ready to leave the neighborhood. Tom tried everything he could to get them to release his boy, but they wouldn’t.

It was devastating.

Tom hung around for a few hours, looking absolutely defeated. After a while, he disappeared. Maybe back to work… Perhaps to a bar somewhere… Maybe to the bed of another lady, looking for some comfort.

Even with Tom doing the best he can, from afar, we’ve had to intervene from time to time. She had a baby last year whom she left overnight. We took her in, made the mad dash to the store to grab formula, blankets, gentle shampoo. The baby was starving and filthy, it was heartbreaking. We had no idea who the father was, and mom was nowhere to be found. Fearing she’d finally done something really stupid and died, we put a call in. The system here, as it is everywhere, is so clogged. Because we were taking care of baby girl and we’ve had such a connected relationship with the caseworkers in the area, they asked us to keep her until a foster home opened up. We only had her for a couple of weeks, weeks that were so precious but also so hard. 

When the lady finally showed back up, she asked no questions about where her baby was. She just immediately returned to her self-destructive and partying ways. 

She gave birth (AGAIN! I swear this lady is a FACTORY) early Saturday morning. While we were filled with a sense of doom (these poor, poor babies) it was also really lovely to see so many family and friends show up in support of them. Even Tom came into town. It truly felt like a joyous occasion, even if we knew what ugly lay beneath this pretty surface. 

Her ex Tim had been hanging around (She’s not too interested in guys with complex names, apparently) and so we speculated he might be the father. This was all but confirmed when he brought his mom over on Saturday to join the celebration. I won’t lie, it was really nice to see his mom. She’s a great mom and I wish she could have intervened, but everything unraveled so quickly… 

The very first time we saw him, I didn’t trust him. He was thick and tough, scars visible around his neck and face. I knew in my gut that this guy was up to no good. I’m not sure when I softened toward him, admitting it wasn’t my gut warning me as much as my fear rising up. 

Sneaky fear, masquerading as intuition… 

In truth, though he’s big and burly, Tom has the sweetest heart. His eyes are deep and soulful, and he’s really a big softie once you see past his rough exterior. 

Then he had a short fling with the neighborhood lady. (I say “lady” because it feels a bit uncouth to call her the neighborhood trollop. I’m a proud womanist and so sometimes I just don’t quite know how to phrase things, but this “lady” gets around. Constantly knocked up, seldom knowing who exactly the father is. She neglects the kids she has, literally ZERO interest in being a mother.) So yeah, when the two of them started hanging out we tried to warn him. He liked her though–maybe his tender heart saw something in her that the rest of us couldn’t see. (Maybe I’m just bitter because I adopted one of her daughters after she decided she couldn’t be bothered to be her mom…)

 No one was shocked when she became pregnant, nor when the two of them broke up. Unlike any of her other baby daddies though, Tom stuck around. After their son was born, Tom took a strong interest in caring for him, and we helped out when we could. It’s a good thing because, well… his mom was still herself. We watched her turn completely violent on him because he reached for a piece of her snack once. It was chilling. Never in my life have I shouted “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!? THIS IS YOUR SON!” so many times my throat went raw. 

Once Tom was sure we would be there for his kid, he took a great job out of town. He’s home some weekends and every holiday. It’s something truly precious to see the two of them together. When Tom’s around they are inseparable. His son is shaping up to be just like the best parts of his daddy, so kind and loving. He’s very sweet with his sister (the one who we adopted. the mom has lost all of her other children. One hundred percent why this boy has had some semblance of stability is because of his daddy. 

Whenever he’s back in town we all shout “TOM!” as though he were Norm (Cheers) and it brings us such joy to see him. It’s always sad, come Sunday evening when it’s time for him to go…