“I’m moving to Birmingham, Alabama. I promise I’ll fly you down and I’ll come up to visit.” Those words shook me. My dad who always kept our world stable was moving. Why? What had we done? Why was he leaving? Once he left it turned ugly. Mom realized they were never getting back together. She would rent a house and just when we would get comfortable we would be moving again. She would say, “I’m sorry sweet heart but mommy can’t afford this house. We will find something else”. And boy did she find something else. She began dating this man. I never liked him. Looking back, I had very good intuition. After several months he was moving in. In the beginning he would try to play a father role (of course I had a father in Birmingham Alabama so I didn’t need this “father role”). I noticed that he always had alcohol in the house. His alcohol of choice was Jack Daniels. And he would drink a whole bottle in a night. Mom began drinking the special cocktail too. It scared me. They would act different. The fights, oh the fights. Unless you’ve lived in a home with alcoholics you would never understand. I’ve always called it “the Dr. Jeckyl- Mr. Hyde Syndrome”. Sometimes it was all fun and laughs. But sometimes it was bad. He would twist her wrists, choke her, get on top of her. I just knew he was going to kill her. Sometimes I thought he would kill us. He was the worst thing that ever happened to my life. He stole my mom from me. I watched her slip away. She didn’t work, she relied on him for everything. I remember thinking, “I will never be like my mom”. What a way to feel about your mother. And then one night I had enough. I was 14 and just wanted to escape. After watching him hit her, then get a knife and threaten to kill her I decided I was getting out. I jumped from a second floor window and ran to a neighbors house. I called my dad (a collect call, lol). Dad called my grandpa and he came to get me. The next day I went to school and said goodbye to my friends. Then after school grandpa took me to my moms house where I packed all I could in a suitcase and the next day I was on a plane to Birmingham Alabama. I left my little sister. How would she defend herself? I cried the entire plane ride knowing I just left the only home I had known and I left my sister. It’s ironic that a city I had never heard of became my forever home. God works like that. Had I not got on that plane, my sister would not have ever come down (she joined me about a year later), I would not have met the love of my life, I wouldn’t have my children, and I wouldn’t have been able to save my mom one day. That’s right, I saved my mom. That story will come in it’s own chapter.
~I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me~
Thank you Lord for giving me the strength to leave and thank you for all the blessings that you already had planned for me.
Birmingham Alabama~I love you. You saved me(along with a father willing to raise a teenager)
Breaking The Cycle 