by Barbara Pierce

Created on: July 12, 2009

I could remember a time in my life long ago when I cried out for attention. I was a young girl with painful memories of losing my father. I didn't lose my father to death, but I did lose him due to separation. My parents were always separated. In fact, my father was married to someone else. At the time I didn't understand what was going on. It took must of my primary years in school to get over the pain of losing my father so suddenly, and not knowing when I'll see him again. Sometimes I would cry at night, and pray that I would be back with my father soon, but the time became longer, and longer away from him. In the meantime I was becoming more, and more of a problem child. There was no one who understood my pain.

It wasn't like I was in the same city, or the next city for that matter. Actually, I was over a thousand miles away. My father was in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I was with my mother in Montclair, New Jersey. He would call me by phone to talk to me, but that wasn't the same as being with him. It was hard for me to realize why this had to happen to me. It was hard for me to accept the change. One day I was living with my father, and stepmother, and the next day I was with my biological mother.

Apparently, I was born out of wedlock, a lot of children are, but at the time, my father, and stepmother was my family, and this arrangement was fine with me. My mother was ten years younger than my father when she got pregnant with me. He was a married man, and had no intentions of getting a divorce, and marrying my mother. So when I was born, my mother agreed to let my father and stepmother raise me. Of course, this is what my mother explained to me years later. I know that I was with my father until I was four and a half years old. Then one day I remembered riding the Amtrak train with my mother and aunt to New Jersey. My mother told me years later that my father was incarcerated for "bootlegging," processing alcohol illegally. Being that my stepmother wasn't a healthy woman, my father called my mother to come and get me. This was the trip to my childhood troubles.

To make a long story short, I stayed in all kinds of trouble in my primary years in school. I was getting into fights, I wasn't getting along with the other children, and I wasn't obeying the teachers. I had to see doctors, counselors, and social workers from time to time. Seems like these people, including my teachers, and family members thought I was mentally disturbed, and maybe I was. But one day after a long record of being suspended from school, and my mother beating me half to death, I promised I'll never give my mother any more problems, and I didn't. Did I ever get over my pain of being without my father? No, not really, but I learned how to deal with my pain. My father has passed on now, but my mother is still living, she's eighty years old. We never talk much about the pass, but she remembers the promise. She's never had anymore problems out of me, because I kept my promise.

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