BETWEEN FIVE AND SEVEN

This blog post is a continuation of my memoir, picking up where The Calling left off. As this blogging system does not care to recognize my formatting, please pardon the large gaps where there were page break symbols. A warning: to those super-sensitive the subject matter may disturb. I'm sorry for that, but I cannot change the past no matter how much I would like to.

Blessed Be,
Jade


Between the ages of five and seven years old my mother attempted to drown me. I say between 5 and 7 because it was before I started school (I started school at 6 because my birthdate falls later in the year and I missed the enrollment date by being too young). There was the holding my head under water,  while claiming to wash my hair in the bath tub, as well as holding my face under a shower spray as I choked and strangled. I was having a fit because I could not breathe and was getting water up my nose and in my lungs. She claimed she did not know, was unaware of my difficulty. Difficulty? I am a human being. I do not breathe underwater.

I do not believe that a caring parent can be so obtuse. You do not disregard your child's ability to breathe!

This was the time that I started noticing odd little things, of which I lumped my mother trying to drown me as a part of.  I was often locked outside, alone, and left to amuse myself. I was confined to a small area of our yard, so I could be watched. But I wasn't. My mother often forgot me and my step-father could not have cared less.

She had remarried when I was 2 so the only father figure I had known (besides a doting uncle) was this step-father. He never wanted kids, but he wanted her, so I was always treated as that extra piece of luggage you could discard or leave behind.

It was apparent that I was not wanted around. She kept trying to get pregnant, wanting a baby for herself, but also claiming she wanted to give him the child he never had. It would make us a real family. No it didn't. It never did.


My great-grandmother died around this time. I was stunned at her passing, not entirely sure what had happened. I remember my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, being very upset, and my older cousin being pretty mean about it.

No one had bothered to explain what had happened, and it took me a bit to understand. My cousin used his I'm-older-and-better-than-you voice to tell me how awful I was for not crying. I was a bad person. Hadn't I loved her? Of course I had, I still did! My biggest concern was that when I touched her hand--knowing she would not mind--was that she was too cold. She had often gotten chilly and I was afraid she was cold. I was told that that did not matter, she could not feel it anyway. She was going to heaven. Those words did not console me.

After the funeral, weird things started to happen. My mother got all jumpy and strange, and my step-father was not around at the time. I think he was at work at the time.

My mother was afraid to be on her own after that, and wanted me to stay with her. So, one night as we were trying to sleep, she told me she was afraid. Afraid, I asked? Of what? She confided that she was afraid Bobo--which was the nickname my great-grandmother had--would be lying on the couch in the front room. I reminded her that Bobo was dead, and she would never hurt us, even if she was in the other room.

When my mother became frantic, I agreed to go into the other room alone to see if Bobo was there or not. Of course, she wasn't. I only saw the couch and the empty room, but I am not convinced my mother would have seen the same thing.

At that time I was aware that something had gone on, something had happeed. My mother was very scared, the kind of scared she got when she did something wrong and was afraid she would get caught. She was guilty of something, I just did not know what.



I was given a little duck as a present. I remember how fluffy it looked with its feathers all askew, and the delight it showed at being put in a number two wash tub, half full of water, with a whole two bags of minnows. That little duck had a blast! He also ate till he was stuffed.

I named him Waddles, because of the walk. He started following me every where I went. When I was sent to take out the trash, Waddles followed me. He was a ray of sunshine in my bleak existence. Not surprisingly, he was easy to love and a sweet pet.

For a brief time, life was good.



When my step-father started to beat her, it was a horrific, but occasional thing. It was a shameful and shocking thing to me. I was terrified. I was also told to never say a word about it or I would get it worse. As time passed the beatings and over all violence grew more frequent and then it spilled over on to me.

This was when the danger was cranked up several notches. My step-father liked to flash around his overly large hunting knife, almost as much as he liked to wave around his guns. He really enjoyed pointing his gun at my mother and threatening to pull the trigger. He absolutely terrified me at these times. The look on his face, the glitter of real malice in his eyes made me very much aware of the fact that he was jonesing to kill us. He had as much intent to kill as that snake had.

After these horror filled incidents, my mother would get in my face and warn me to say not a single word. She was very threatening herself at these times, insisting he had not been  serious. But the bruises on her face and the tears said otherwise.

Then this one afternoon, he took it too far. He was supposedly cleaning his guns, preaching about the care and welfare of these weapons. I remember the smell of gun oil hanging on the air, clean and smooth. I liked the smell, but hated that it meant he would be waving around his guns, especially the riflles and shotguns.

After terrorizing my mother, by pointing his rifle at her, and pissing her off in spite of her fear, he turned it on me. He laughed as he pulled the trigger. I tensed, fearing I was about to die. I did not want to die yet! I hadn't done any of the things I had dreamed of doing.

He delighted in my fear, mocking me, that evil gleam in his eyes. Then he told me how stupid I was, saying the gun wasn't even loaded. He pulled the trigger again and blew a hole through the ceiling. It had been loaded. He had not taken the bullet out of the chamber. I glared back at him, silently accusing him of nearly killing me. I did not dare say anything or he would have killed me, I was sure of it.



This was when I had to say goodbye to my best friend, my pet duck, Waddles. My parents said we had to give him up, he could not make the trip with us. Our neighbors said they had a farm and promised to take him there to live with relatives. I never believed them. I hoped they were telling the truth, but I feared for my friend. I never got over the hurt or the sense of loss, knowing that I had been forced to betray my feathered friend.

It was that whispery inner voice that warned me, that told me the adults were full of it; they were frauds.

I did not trust my mother to be honest, she found it amusing to lie, especially if it hurt others. She did nothing when Penny, our German Shepherd was hit by a car. Fortunately, Penny seemed to have only been clipped. She also showed little remorse when Rusty, our Pekingese convulsed to death from overeating of pork chops (Do NOT give your dogs or cats pork. Pork can cause internal bleeding and your dog or cat can convulse to death). It was horrific and I have never gotten the image out of my head. Both were good dogs and they deserved better.

It was after that, that things got really bad, that we moved from the deep South to Los Angeles, California.

THE CALLING

People in the know often say that when one is called to the path of the shaman they have little choice but to answer the call. They also warn of the dire consequences of rejecting that call. One of the other signs of being called to the path, is of near death or dying. In the briefly dying and coming back, often thanks to modern technological advances, one experiences something profound and returns a changed person. There is something about overcoming that struggle that opens up your receptiveness to the spirit world, as well as opening your heart and mind. This usually winds up with the chosen one seeing beyond the physical and past the mundane, and into the realm of the spirits. For many, the experiences are so traumatic that they resist and spend their lives struggling for the rest of their days; others resort to drugs or alcohol to dim the pain and fear.

When you are very young, you are not sure what is going on, but it is frightening and strange. Should you attempt to tell a parent or adult you trust, you are apt to be met with disbelief, contempt, ridicule or fear. One of the worst and most scarring is to be called a liar when you are telling the truth.

At the very young age of five or six, I saw the first truly bizarre and unnatural thing in my life. I knew what I was seeing was wrong, wasn't right or natural, it was something very dark and deadly.

My mother, aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother had decided to go to the river to fish. This was a common activity for many in the area and with warm weather and the sun shining brightly it was the perfect opportunity for relaxing.

At times like these, I stayed close to the adults and looked for rocks or played in the dirt. Things a little kid often does for fun.

As I was doing my thing, I felt something off. I think it was the first time I had ever noticed feeling like that and the sensation was very alien to me. I looked up and saw it.

Swimming along parallel to the river bank was the biggest, longest black snake that I had ever seen. It locked eyes on me, and I on it. That was when the chill hit me, when I knew this was wrong. It stared at me with menacing green eyes. They were an unnatural sickly green. In my heart, I knew that I stared in to the face of true evil; that this snake was not normal.

My mother and aunt were laughing and fishing, my grandmother was preoccupied, yet my great-grandmother saw this thing and cried out as she grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me up the riverbank toward higher ground. I was startled and terrified as I tried to keep up. For an ancient lady she was amazingly strong and surprisingly fast.

As I tried to keep up, I watched this snake cut sharply toward the bank and come after me. It moved with an unbelievable speed. Its eyes never left me, I felt its intent. It was going to kill me.

I watched as it passed my mother by no more than three or four feet and she did not notice. It was shortly after that my aunt and grandmother did notice.

My great-grandmother was still shouting to hurry, to run! The others looked at her as though she were insane. When it finally dawned on them that she was hauling me away from the jaws of death, all the lady-type crying and screaming started.

I was hauled to safety. It was all kind of a blur at that point. I remember the frantic conversations going on around me. The snake disappeared. I don't know where it went, or how it went. My heart was racing so fast it was all I could do to gasp in air.

When all was said and done, no one but my great-grandmother even realized that what had happened had been intentional and that the snake was unnatural. The rest of them fell back on their  version of reality.

Years later, the incident was pooh poohed as my vivid imagination. But my imagination was never that vivid. I also had a credible witness, whom they later claimed was unreliable. Her view jarred with theirs, therefore it was null and void.

This was the start. This was the beginning of my being called to something that I would not understand until much later.

In Peace,
Jade