Never Alone

     I watched a series on either Prime, HBO, or Showtime.  It is about a man who worked over 20 years as a Border Patrol Officer when unexpectantly things turned for the worse.  He was trying to help a friend out and he ended up on the other side of the border and in the end he was smuggling drugs into the US so he could get or keep his family out of harms way.  During the series, the man was falling for a beautiful Mexican woman and he states something like "your people are bringing drugs into our country". And she looked at him and says "your country keeps on buying the drugs".  It is a pretty much in-your-face statement that she made.  If our country stopped buying the drugs the people who produced the drugs wouldn't have a reason to bring them to the country.  It’s basic business,  if people are not buying what is being produced or what is being sold, the business will eventually fail. 

     With drugs, it is not only a one-sided story or a single person who is doing bad.  When I first smoked weed when I was like 18 or 19, I didn’t go out looking for it myself, I wasn’t out hunting it down, someone else was smoking it and asked if I wanted to give it a “go”.  With my Mom and her drug addiction, she was never alone.  She always had someone with her or someone to introduce her to the new stuff that would make her feel better.  There is always a person who shows another person who to go to or where to go to get what that person wants to make them feel better.  "I know a guy who knows a guy" type of situation.   All of my life my Mom had a guy who knew a guy or introduced her to the guy.  I know that she didn't or wouldn't put the work in herself to get what she needed.  What she got herself into was usually because a guy took her to what she needed.  She usually can or could coax or talk a person to do something for her.   She had that way about herself.  She used words to people to either pressure or con them into doing something that would better her.  

     Even though she is very guilty of what she did, and she had the choice to do better the addiction was too strong to not make the right choice.  Her addiction was so strong that her choices led her to making unforgivable decisions. Those unforgivable or unforgettable choices were letting all of her kids go for the need and want of the drug.    

   However, when I was growing up and still to this day when I hear how bad Susie was, or that she should rot in the back of a dumpster, I wish those people saying this remind themselves that she wasn’t always alone in the decisions she made.  

 

Christmas Time

Christmas eve was always good in the Green (My Grandparent's last name) household. The leading-up feeling to Christmas had me excited every year! Everything from my Grandpa complaining about having to bring the tree in, it being too tall and having to trim it, him complaining because he had to climb into the attic to get the decorations down....a whole lot of mumbling curse words while he was on a ladder to bring everything down. And then of-course being forced to sit on Santa's lap who and which I was so extremely scared of, to watching my Grandma and Aunt Angie baking cookies and make candies made it so exciting!

My Aunt Jean and Uncle Larry would come for Christmas eve and bring my cousins I think almost every year that I could remember. I think when my Aunt Mamie and Uncle Pete lived in Osseneke, MI, she would come on Christmas eve but I can't really remember them being there. I know when they moved to Traverse City they wouldn't come for Christmas, the visits would be very rare. Once-in-awhile my Grandma's siblings would come by on Christmas eve, if they would come out it would be my Uncle Bob and Aunt Darlene. We lived in a double-wide, it wasn't a very big house which made it feel like it was packed during the celebration. My Grandma would make dinner and about five different pies to fill my uncle's stomach until they would almost burst. The food and drinking a lot of beer would have everyone pretty stuffed.

After dinner, my Grandpa would take all of us kids out for a ride to find Rudolph! And of course, we found him. It was a blinking light in the sky everyone could see when there was a clear night because it was actually the airport light that would blink. The route he would take would be a loop so we actually wouldn't see Rudolph until the very end of the ride and after we saw him we would go back home.

Once we were back home we would see footprints from the snow in the living room and the tree would be packed with presents... Santa would have come to the house and not only would it be presented for me and my Aunt Angie but Santa would have stopped and dropped off gifts for my cousins also prior to him stopping at their house in the city when they returned home.

After all of the gifts were opened and the kids were playing with the gifts and just playing whatever they were playing and like clock-work, we would get a phone call from my Mom. This is when the long-distance phone calls would be "collect" calls. When the person calling didn't have enough money, or probably with my Mom's case she was calling from a payphone, the person on the receiving end of the call would have to pay for the phone call. I have no idea how much the collect phone calls were but I do remember what a big stink my Aunts would make when my Mom called and the complaints about how much money she was costing them. "Why does Susie always have to ruin Christmas?" I would hear from them. And then I would get the phone and hear "Hi baby girl!" "I miss you!" "I love you!" usually some other types of niceties in-between those statements which were her norm. I don't ever remember getting the collect call "will you accept the charges" from whatever jail she was in during Christmas. My Aunts (usually Angie) would say "what did she say? What did she want?" I think the only response I would give is a shoulder shrug and then move on to playing again.

Even though the phone call was a nuisance for folks sitting in the living room or maybe an annoyance, I actually liked the phone calls. I was reminded later in my 30s when my aunts would complain about the phone calls. They had no idea how it made a young girl who was missing her Mom feel hearing those comments every year.

I believe there may be only one Christmas she was home. I don't remember myself actually enjoying Christmas time with her.  I only have a photo. And the only reason why I think this is Christmas time is due to the homemade decorations hanging from the ceiling.

                                       1979: My Grandma, My Mom, My Aunt Jeanie (behind my Mom), My Aunt Mamie in the front