(Cont. from part two ...)

One thing I neglected to mention earlier, was that my dad had come into money after my Grandpa died. I was supposed to as well but my mother would see to it I didn't.

My Grandpa had married a wealthy woman years later after divorcing my grandmother and all of that money was being left to my Dad and to me. I was in my early thirties when my Grandpa passed away.

From two very reliable sources, my mother had talked my Grandpa into leaving the money that he was going to leave me, to her instead. She told him she didn't trust me and that I was on drugs ~ which I was not, not at that time.

He was in the beginning stages of dementia so he wasn't seeing her obvious deceit. Bless his heart, he did what she requested and left it all to her. Three hundred thousand dollars is what he'd left to her, believing her promise to give it to me a little at a time whenever I needed it until she felt that I was trustworthy.

However, she never once gave me a little bit at a time, as he'd requested.
She was so greedy and money hungry and I recall thinking that several times throughout the rest of my life through today because of her actions!

Both my favorite aunt's told me the year after he'd passed about my mother actually manipulating my grandfather to leave the money meant for me, to be left to her!

Once I had heard the story from my aunties, I was floored because I had no idea my Grandpa had any money to leave anyone. That was a big surprise to me. No one ever told me anything until my aunts felt bad for me and told me everything.

(part three ... of three)



... Since I had been on the streets, I'd heard through the grapevine, that a girl I met while out there, needed help to get away from a violent boyfriend. Of course, I wanted to help, so I let her stay with me and my son while she decided her next course of action.

A few days before she came to stay, my settlement came through, and I picked it up from the lawyers office. I didn't put it in the bank because I was going to spend it all on my cousins double wide trailer that I'd intended to buy. So I hid it under my box springs, under my queen sized mattress. It was the older box springs that had little stair steps under the inside of them. I put the money that was in a bank bag, between those stair steps.

I had relapsed yet again a couple weeks before, for the fifth time and that pull it had, was definitely pulling me. I had a friend find me a dealer that would deliver to my house so I was not out on the roads.

I wanted to be left alone with my drug, so I smoked it all by myself. My son was able to buy himself some cool new school clothes and other things he'd wanted.

I was not so caught up that I wanted to spend all my money on drugs while during similar times before, I didn't care what the hell I'd spend it on!

My son had lived with me through my entire addiction to crack cocaine and he knew what I was doing even before I realized it and would be trying to hide it. There would no hiding the fact that I was high on crack because a drug like that is easily recognized on a person, once you take that first hit!

My son knew but loved me anyway. To this day, I tell him he is my hero because he is the ONLY reason i didn't seriously consider taking my life back then. I never seriously considered that before in my life, however it gave me an insight of how people could be in a certain place emotionally and would be able to do something like that to themselves, ie: taking their own life.

My son saved me from suicide and from relapsing again on crack/cocaine. He is my true hero forever and always.

God blessed me with the best son ever and I want him to have all he's ever dreamed of having, especially since I was the cause of his dream of having our very own home, being crushed altogether that one fateful morning that our lives were shattered beyond recognition.

It was a very scary and surreal realization. I thank God for my strong mind to this day or I never would have survived what I'd gone through back then. No one knows some of the horrors I endured during my addiction but I had no one to blame but myself.
What had I done to cause me to be okay with what I was doing to myself?

The girl I had promised to help and stay in our home was there for three days. The last day she was there, when she left with no word to either of us, she'd taken my entire world with her and my son's as well, only we weren't aware of it at that time.

Nothing would ever be the same again, I was about to find out.

I recall vividly my son running into my room that next morning, crying loudly and very angry because she had taken money out of his billfold that he'd received from his Dad. He had been saving up and he had seventy dollars but now it was gone, and so was she.

Once I realized the hard fact that they were both gone, a chill ran through my entire body. I froze, my mind froze as I grew cold with realization.

Right then, in my gut, I knew that I had somehow messed up, by allowing this woman into our home for those few days. I ran to my hiding place, under the box springs and was horrified when I grabbed the money bag from where I had so carefully hidden it. The money, our dream house money that was counted as over 36,000.00 was gone!

In that instant my character went totally wrong and I was so cold that my heart sank and was pounding loudly in my ears, while making me feel as if I were going to pass out right then and there. I was more or less in shock!

Why does this type of crap always happen to me when all I wanted to do was HELP someone out of a horrific situation I'd once been in myself?
We were learning how cruel and mean people really were. Was everyone just a liar and a thief and only out for themselves?

I had just wanted to help her because I understood where she was at in her toxic DV relationship.

I honestly thought people thought with the same heart as I did, however this young female proved me dead wrong. Just because I'd helped her, evidently that didn't stop her from taking advantage of me, like so many others had done before her, including my parents and especially my narcissistic mother.
I figured it was just going to keep happening to me but I wasn't worried about me, it was my son's crushed dream that I was over the top worried about!

I felt those old emotions and feelings come back. The ADHD symptoms weren't as bad during my addiction because I'm guessing that the cocaine kept my feelings and emotions quite numb, so they didn't appear as often when I was I using. I'm no professional but it makes sense to me, that was what caused that to happen. It was all I could do to hold it together and to this day I don't know how on earth I did.

I had to worry about my son at that point because he was so devastated that my heart broke into millions of pieces, watching and listening to him get angry yet turning around and then cry for his loss.
In my mind, I was his mother and I had neglected to protect him just as I was unable to protect my daughter years before.

I felt so utterly worthless and useless and just no damn good. I didn't deserve to live as far as I was concerned. I had to be the WORST mother that ever lived, why me and why my babies? I never tried to hurt anyone so why was everyone trying to hurt us? I was lost and I had absolutely no clue what to do or where to start.

I silently begged God to save my son from this pain, knowing that it was my fault that he was hurting and I was the one who deserved all the pain, not my baby boy.

Since I had no money after this cunning burglary, I could not pay rent, and two months later we were evicted from our home. During this time, my son had stayed several nights with one of his classmates. I was sleeping in my Jeep at that point in a friend's front yard.

I had nowhere for us to go. I was lost and confused but I wasn't doing crack cocaine anymore, so that was a plus!

Thankfully, those classmates of my son's, told their mom what was going on and she came to me, offering my son a home until I could get back on my feet. Relief that God had answered my prayer hit me and I remember feeling so grateful for this angel woman that was offering her family, time and home just to help my baby boy.

God had already been working on my son's behalf. I didn't care about myself, I just wanted to be sure that he was going to be taken care of while my gut tightened painfully with the thought of being away from him.

I cannot find the words to tell you how dark and alone I felt, not to mention feeling what a worthless human being and mother I was for allowing this to happen to us, to him.

So he aquired a bonus mom and bonus brothers in his life.

At that time, I was so grateful that my son would not be homeless with me that I cried intensely while thanking God for my son's blessing of the angel family He sent to my boy. I saw her as an angel that God had given him.

Since that time, she and I have had several issues because she took it upon herself to tell me how worthless of a parent I was. That didn't really matter to me and I was aware that she didn't care for me very much. All I really cared about was that she loved my son. It wasn't about me. What mattered most to me that she was helping my son and I was beyond thankful for the entire family and for them accepting my baby boy into their life as family since day one!

I tried harder than I ever tried before to get a job in my small hometown. Sadly, no one would consider hiring me because of my well known addiction problems. There was nobody that was willing to give me a chance.

My son's bonus mom seemed angry with me as time went on and I still had no job and for which I'm sure that in her mind, I should have had zero difficulty landing a job, regardless of my reputation, so in her mind, I couldn't have been trying very hard. Would anyone ever believe in me again?
Was I just meant to fail and hurt my children that I loved more than anything in this entire world?

I eventually had to move to the next town over, leaving my son to stay with his bonus family. I went the nearest homeless shelter because I was afraid if I stayed in my hometown, I would relapse once again. Above all else, I could NOT let that happen again. I had to show my strength for my son's sake.

Years passed, and my son grew into a young man. I was never able to get any job steady anywhere, so we were probably never going to be able to live together as a family again. This was a sobering thought for me. I tried not to allow the guilt to harbor full force but it took the reins anyway and did exactly that!

He stayed with the family that took him in when he had no other place to go. His dad passed away a short time ago yet he pulled himself up and made himself finish highschool. He did it in his own with no one pushing him to do it. He succeeded and in 2018 he graduated with his class. I felt so very proud of him but was unable to attend his graduation. My partner had driven to Ohio to attend his son's wedding other he would've happily driven me to his graduation. A friend of ours offered to take me but at the party minute his work called him in and it was unfortunately, unavoidable. I felt like a horrible mother and I know he wanted me there even though he told me he truly understood.

He was better off, in my mind, without me I'd decided because all I seemed to do was to hurt my kids. I could not fail this precious boy again.

My daughter has not spoken to me since 2015 nor has she let me see my grandkids. I don't believe it had anything to do with the burglary situation but more to do with an online discussion we had on Instagram after I had moved to the outskirts of Longview, where I reside to this very day. I've reached out to her countless times through email since she has me blocked on FB, only for me to receive a short response or no response at all. Well, no response in being interested to get together and talk this out anyway..

She is using the silent treatment on me and is very good at ignoring me. She sees me as someone who blamed others for my mistakes and that can't be any further from the truth.
Anyone who knew me knew I was not one to blame others for my mistakes. That is my mother talking through her. My daughter harbors a grudge longer than anyone I have ever known, except for her grandmother, my mother. She's in contact with her of course and is my mother's power of attorney.

There is a hole in my heart where her and the kids are supposed to be. I'm crushed because she refuses to acknowledge me anytime I ask her to talk this out with me, whatever the problem might be, I'm turned down fast. Any correspondence I receive from her is vague and distant with short and snippy small talk, if you will.

The problem is that I'm not sure why she's not speaking to me. She hasn't told me, which leads me to believe that she either doesn't care or she's waiting on me to figure out why by myself. I would just rather get together, hash it out and move on with our lives. What she's doing now seems like she's playing games while making me sweat and she's "paying me back," in her mind.

She was speaking to me until 2015 and the only thing that happened after that was I was talking about my mother in a post that I had posted on FB and she didn't like that everyone could see it. Normally, I'm not going to put it out there like that but back then, I'd just been fed up because my mother always seemed to get by with everything she'd done to me and she would always make sure everyone knew I was the bad guy in her story, everytime.

I was the black sheep of the family because I wasn't their blood family, I was adopted and that's when I'd first noticed that my cousins didn't care for me too much either.

I mean, if your own narcissistic mother will treat you so horrible, right in front of them, then they should follow suit, right? No, my daughter made a very cruel comment about my cleavage where everyone could see. She could've direct messaged me privately but she'd rather embarrass me instead in the comments!

Since I had been hooked on drugs and had mental issues early in my young adulthood, people would believe anything that my mother would say about me, for the most part.
She was the good kind protagonist and she made me out to be the hateful antagonist while she was my poor victim.
It was quite the other way around but people always wanted to believe her and never me!

I was stuck between two hard places back then and since I was given no guidance as a young girl through to pre-teen and on past into adulthood, it was already an unfair fight! How was I supposed to deal with this while not knowing what to do in most situations because there were no old-school compassionate people around, they hid themselves. I wanted to hide myself.

I'd had my fill, hence the post. All I can do is be here if she reaches back out to me and cry almost daily for the love of my little girl to come back. She's grown into an amazing woman and is an exceptional mother to two of my grandchildren.

Lastly, my kids include one that I didn't give birth to but she had my heart at the time. She was going through a lot in her young life and my heart broke for her. You could see the pain she was in but I felt so helpless to do anything for her because she hated me. She wouldn't allow me to help her at all. This other child, who I love dearly to this day, is my bonus daughter. My son's father's daughter with his first partner. My son's bigger sister has two girls that are precious and they are my bonus grandkids. I also have my first two bonus great grandchildren from the oldest of my two bonus granddaughters!

My bonus daughter was twelve years old when I first met her and she was quite the rebellious teen back then and she also had a bad attitude and acted out much of the time.

She didn't like me at all from the beginning. I was simply not her mama and she didn't think she was supposed to like me! I got so frustrated with her from time to time but it was only because she didn't listen to me. All I wanted to accomplish with her is that I wanted her to like me. I wanted her to see I cared about her and what she was going through. She was my son's sister and I wanted them to be close and I wanted a place in her life as well.

It took years for us to become close, to any degree yet, she grew up from that rebellious young girl into a beautiful young woman that is an excellent mother, daughter and sister. They are my family. My son's father's entire family became my family, despite our rocky relationship and they are now the only family I have.

My mother, not to many years ago, told me that I no longer had a family because they were her family, not mine. I was told to leave them alone, so I did. I'm referring to my mother's side of the family. Not one of them ever tried to contact me after that, except one first cousin and her hubby that I still talk to regularly today. Three of my third cousins and I are still in contact and they consider me family.

My Aunt Linda and Uncle Lonnie definitely considered me blood family and Aunt Linda never backed down to my narcissistic mother and told her pretty much how the cow ate tha cabbage when it came to me anyway.!

I wish i could go back and change so many things but I can't. It's just so important for my kids to know exactly, how deeply I loved them back then and that I did my best with what I knew. I need them to know how much they mean to me and how much they mean to me still now!

There's an urgency inside of me, rushing me to let them know this. I pray one day that my daughter and son will forgive me for whatever they are holding resentment against me for and my prayer is that it will happen before I leave this world. I'm at peace within myself, finally and I'm in the process of being at peace with God.