Aunt Bonnie

One day, Aunt Bonnie came to visit.

I loved Aunt Bonnie, she was always generous with hugs and was ALWAYS nice to us. She had a special place in her heart for my brother Darek, as she had taken care of him for nearly a year before he came to live with us. She wanted to adopt Darek, but the courts wouldn't let her do it, as my father would not give permission to his own sister to adopt one of his kids.

I watched Aunt Bonnie and Gran sit in the dining room having tea, and listened to Aunt Bonnie talk about my parents. Gran seemed very uncomfortable with her, and did not seem to know what to say when Aunt Bonnie said, "Jane nearly killed Karen on 3 separate occasions!" It seemed that my mother had tried to drown me in the bathtub after getting shampoo in my eyes, and I wouldn't stop crying. Aunt Bonnie had come in, and knocked my mother across the room. I listened, wide eyed, as Aunt Bonnie told Gran about how she also came in and found my mother hanging me outside our 3rd story window in an old apartment in Stapleton when I was two years old, and threatening to drop me if I "didn't shut up!"

I did not know what all of this really meant, I was too young to comprehend it. But I never forgot that conversation, because Gran saw me, and her eyes were very red, and she asked me to come over to her, and gave me a hug and said "I love you". This was the first time Gran ever said that to me without me having to say it first. I loved her so much at that moment. There were so many conflicting emotions with living with Gran. Most of the time she acted as if she hated us so much, always screaming at us, and hitting us for seemingly no reason. The worst was when she would slap our faces. But at the same time, she always said I love you, and she would give out hugs every so often. It must have been true, right?

The third time was when I used to climb into the toy chest to hide from my mother. I apparently hid in there, and fell asleep. The next morning, I tried to get out, but couldn't open the lid. At some point I passed out because I remember coming awake, drenched with sweat, and my mother holding me. Aunt Bonnie said that my mother was really not capable of taking care of so many kids, it was just too much for her. She said that sooner or later one of us would be killed or die from neglect.

Aunt Bonnie left, and later that night Maureen and I were in bed talking about it. Maureen and I talked all the time at night, and it would more often than not get us into the worst kind of trouble, Gran storming in, grabbing us by the ankles, dragging us down the bed (that was a long, terrifying trip down to the bottom of that bed) and beating our bottoms soundly until we could not breathe from stifling our cries. It made her more angry for us to cry, and she hit us even harder.

For some reason, Gran did not come into our room that night, even though we knew she heard us talking. We saw her shadow at our door several times, but she never came in to spank us that night.