My afterNOON

How to spend a nice afterNOON

The mind is a beautiful thing

THIS IS MY STORY AND HOW I REMEMBERED IT

To understand my life we must start from when i can remember.

They say that the mind is a beautiful thing and when a child experience a tragic event in their life the mind will block out a lot of events in order to deal with it.

Now here's my story

I was born in 1984 to a loving family of four, my parents and two brothers, my parents had been together since they first meet in school. They had my oldest brother when they were both 19 and hes 14 years older then me. When he was born my mother loved him so much he was her world and nothing he did was ever wrong. I would hear stories from my aunties telling me of how he would get what ever he wanted because he was her baby. And how he would run up and down the road terrorizing this old lady then she would ring up my parents yelling about this little boy yelling and screaming past her house. Then 12 years later they had by next brother and my oldest brother was happy to be a big brother but not so happy to share his mum. After having my brothers my mum wanted a little girl and 2 years later she was blissed with me, followed by another girl and 2 years later my beautiful baby sister was born. Making her the last to be born into my family

Now I don't have many memories of my mum just little bits that come and go every now and then i was only seven when she passed away.

Remember the mind is a beautiful thing

I remember

What i can remember about her is how much she loved us even when she was sick in bed. I remember there been a big earthquake one day my sister and i were playing outside in my dads old van, pretending we were going for a drive i remember how much the van was shaking we thought it was my dad and brother behind pushing us. We realised it wasn't my dad or brother pushing us so we got out. I remember getting out to see what was happening only to hear my mum yelling so we all went inside and seen her running around the house trying to stop all her ornaments from falling off the walls and smashing. Ha ha ha i also remember our home toilet watching my mum putting heaps of naked pictures of ladies all over the walls, don't ask me why she did that because no one knows. Then to the days when you would see her lying in bed for days and not knowing why, or  her asking me to walk to the shop (now the shop was a 10 minute walk for an adult longer for a child but it never felt that way) to buy her some panadol's (painkillers) because she had a head ache. I remember how she would give me extra money to buy me something little for myself, then getting home and asking me if i got me something i would show her my bag of lollies and telling me to go eat them in the other room so the other kids didn't know. Then looking out the bedroom window watching my brothers pushing my sister in the pram. I remember my aunties and nanny been around all the time looking after her and not knowing why. I remember one time my mum had asked me to ask my dad for a smoke and how mad he was when i asked him. He was just sitting outside on the door step having a smoke looking so sad. I remember HER been there talking to my dad while my mum was in bed saying "she needs help" but how mad he got at HER.  I still to this day remember how sad and how mad he was.

Then one day she was gone i was told they took her to wellington hospital "Who took her". I didn't know why she was taken it was all a big secret, we were never told what had happened to my mum we never went to see her in hospital.

Then one day i remember going to my uncles house and my brother was there, i was so happy to see him because my mum had sent him away to live with her brother. He had mixed in with the wrong crowd and started taking things from home that's when my dad started beating him real bad. So she did what a mother had to do to save her child and i give her full respect for what she had done. It was a very hard life for him he was told he was going on a holiday and that he was starting a new school because the old one was on holiday that hurt him real bad. He played up real bad to the point my uncle had to sit in the classes with him. When he knew the truth about why he was sent away he tells me even to this day with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes "I'm still waiting to come home my sister".

Lies Upon Lies

I remember seeing my brother just sitting in the chair looking sad i didn't know why till he told us "Mums dead". They told him to be quiet "Mummies dead'??  "what does that mean and wheres daddy" everything will be OK they say. More secrets more lies "Where is my mummy"

 

I don't remember much from then on i do remember been at home and there been heaps of people, lots of new faces i had never seen before. I remember playing with my cousin and telling them to get out of my room but our rooms were all packed with all the living room things. I still didn't know what was going on but i watched when the men pulled the sliding doors out. And i remember hearing people talking with my dad "So how is she getting back". ha ha ha my dad laughs "On the back of my Ute". Yay mummies coming home i think to myself. But when they did arrive every body was yelling "She's here." "Their here." And everybody moving to the side of the house I cant remember how she got back home I'm trying real hard but i dont know. I just remember seeing her asleep in the middle of the sitting room sleeping They say the mind is a beautiful thing   

Her long trip home

I only remember little bits and pieces from her tangi ( funeral) i don't remember the drive up there but i can remember my cousin taking out his caravan to the marae (a Maori meeting house) the ride out to the marae only because he said we could ride in the caravan while he drove it out i also remember the door swinging out and been so scared. I remember been at the marea and the bridge house where all my aunties fussed over us making new cloths doing our hair i remember my cousin taking us kids to the beach to play. Then to been allowed to sit out back with my older brother an cousin's while they prepared the sea food and eat with them.

Then the saddest memorie i can remember was sitting by my mum looking at her in her coffin and watching my sister say "Come on mummy wake up its time for you to come home now".... "Wake up mummy please"..... "Please wake up". I then realised my mummy was not coming home with us I just cried an cried and cried till i was told to be quiet by my dad i don't remember them taking her away to the cemetery and burying her.

"WHY DID MY MUMMY DIE" because she was sick they say

Dealing with the loss

DIVIDED
After losing my mum my family was slit up

my older brother had his own family and his first baby was due to be born in a few months of losing my mum a grand child my mother was looking forwards too. My other brother was still living with my uncle, we never seen him for years after she died my sister and i stayed with my dad and my baby sister had been with her god parents before my mum even went into hospital we also never seen her for a long time.
You see my mum was so sick she couldn't look after my baby sister or me and my other sister.

WAS IT HER DID SHE COME BACK
This is when everything is all mixed up for me and to this day I'm still trying to figure it all out to piece it together.

Now my dad was never around after we lost my mum he was always out.

One night we had some babysitters looking after us while my dad had gone out drinking, we were left with babysitters we loved and knew since i could remember. They made us laugh, played games when it got late we had started to hear things and it made us all scared. But they just laughed it off and carried on playing as if nothing had happened they made us feel safe. And when it was time for bed we had to walk down the hallway i remember how scared we all were, so we armed ourselves with anything we would, a long glass bottles was one i could remember. Walking down the hallway slowly looking out for something that might jump out in front of us in the dark but nothing. Once we had got to the room my sister and i got ready for bed our babysitters tried to laugh things off but we could tell they were both scared too. They then told us a bed time story but half way through the story we heard and seen something in the hallway, which made us all yell i remember looking at our babysitters for comfort but the look in their eyes showed just how scared they both were. I cant remember falling asleep but when morning came my dad was angry yelling this and that i didn't know wh. Until i over heard him say that when he got home our babysitters were gone. They were no where to be seen he had called his friend who was the father of them but he hadn't seen either of them. I later found out that the girls had seen what looked like my mum floating up and down the hallway they had ran home, one girl had locked herself in the shed and the other had hid behind a couch and didn't want to come out. But for me even now i struggle with one thing was it a dream or did i also see my mum standing in the hall door looking so beautiful in her green dress and at peace. I guess I'll never know but

From then on we were Known as that haunted house.

CHANGES

For as far back as i could remember SHE was always around us but i never knew why.

My sister and i were shut out from what was going on with my dad, i cant remember how or when this happened. When HER and my dad got together i do remember going to my uncles house where SHE lived, and watching out a small window watching him packing his bags, then throwing them into his car yelling and screaming out at HER words words and lots more,then smashing up the house before he left. I remember HER asking me whether i wanted another baby brother or sister. And how SHE would ask if we wanted a new mummy. Those days are all mixed up and blurred together but from then on we were back an forward from HER house to ours, things happened so fast and so soon after losing my mum

After school surprise

I remember coming home from school one day walking into our house and they were their packing up my mothers house up. HER and HER DAUGHTER were in our house touching our things, Looking through my things! throwing out whatever they didn't want in their house. That was the day i lost alot of my mums things alot of my childhood memories.

When we first moved into HER house things were alot different from what i was use to, we had to ask for a drink and use certain cups we were not allowed to touch HER glasses. We weren't allowed to eat when we got hungry we had to wait till we were told we could eat. I missed my mum so much i just wanted to go back home, my sister and i were forced to share a bedroom and a bed, we never had much just a bed, draws with a few clothes nothing of our mums.I felt so alone like their was no one their for me my daddy was off doing his own thing with his new family we were just in his way. We never got along with HER or HER DAUGHTER so he had us sent away to a health camp for months because my sister had yelled at HER "YOUR NOT MY MUM". So the health camp became my second home from when i was 7 right up till i was 9, My first night their i was scared, i had never been away from home without my dad, i just cried and cried all i wanted was my daddy to come back and get me "I'm sorry I'll be good, please daddy". I write him a letter can you please come visit me i miss you but no reply and no visit from him. In the end i loved it there, i finally had adults their that wanted to give me attention take me out ,we did awesome things from hiking to arts, crafts, cooking, camping, spot lighting, bmx riding and then to tucking me in bed and reading us bedtime stories. I still had to go to school and i loved going to school it was alot of fun i learnt heaps made heaps of new friends the teachers were so friendly that every year i went back they were happy to see me Ha ha ha the health camp was the place i first got a boyfriend, i remember the boys and girl dorms were watching a movie in the dark in the big games and family room. My friends were saying hold hands so we did the good times, oh the disco they would put on for the whole camp were so much fun just running around dancing holding hands again. Our dorm leader would take us to the costume room where we would pick out what we wanted to wear to the disco, i really loved going their because for a brief moment i forgotten i had lost my mum.

BUT REALITY HIT HARD WHEN IT WAS TIME TO GO  HOME

Them fighting

I hated it when they would fight because we were always caught up in the middle of it all, no matter how late it was my dad would wake us up and make us walk back to my mums house every time it got bad between them.

I remember one day they had got into a big fight my dad had got so mad he had told me "Were going" then walking back to my mums house, i cant remember where my sister was i only remember it been me she may have been at camp. But i do remember been at home and my dad just went straight to bed he slept for hours while i just sat there watching him as he slept, then night time came it was so dark and scary i was so scared of every noise. I went into the bedroom by him and just sat there on the floor playing and waiting for him to wake up. But i had got tired so i made myself a bed on the floor out of blankets. I was woken up by my dad but he was so mad i don't know if he was mad with me or with himself .

He looked at me and said "let's go back"

That secret hurt

Growing up for me and my sister was very hard, we did have some good times but not enough to way up against the bad. When we did things that was wrong we would be punished so bad.

There was this time when i would have been about 7 or 8. I was at school playing in the play ground, when i put my hands into my pants pocket and pulled out a $10 note. I ended up showing some girls at school, who then went and told on me to a teacher. Now i have no idea of how it got in my pocket even to this day i still don't know where it came from. But that teacher then took the money off me, wrote a note gave it me the note to give to my dad, not knowing what the note said i gave it to HER. SHE read it then later that night SHE gave it to my dad. I ended up getting a hiding that night really bad. "Where did you get that money from!!".. BANG.." I don't no it was in my pocket".. .. "Don't you lie to me" ..BANG" .."Who gave you that money"......"No one i found it in my pocket."... BANG.. BANG.. BANG....KNOCK KNOCK there was a knock on the door..."Dont you move."...... "I don't no i don't no" just say any name i tell myself and he'll stop. Ok think of a name what name. Oh no hes coming back.. "Now where did you get that money from"..... " My friend gave it to me"........... BANG... "What friend"..."Luana".."Don't you lie to me"..BANG BANG BANG...."My friend gave it to me"..... "Your Lying to me".... BANG...."OK i put my hand in my pocket and it was in there i don't no how it got there".....BANG BANG BANG BANG.... I don't remember when he stopped i just remember looking out the window and wishing for someone to help me, hoping someone would save me, "Mummy please help me"

SHE was in the house but SHE never stopped him and for that i will never forgive HER

For me that was the first and last time he ever hit me like that, my sister on the other hand a few years later she would have been 10 or 11 he beat her to the point where her bum was black from it, she couldn't even sit down.

All because she didn't want to come back home and live with HER and him, he ended up pulling her out of the house by the hair then beating her real bad when he got her home. All i could do to help her was cuddle her after it and cry with her. The next day at school i watched her trying to sit down on the floor in the school hall, i knew how much pain she was in and that she couldn't sit down. I watched the teachers talking to her then taking her outside i never seen her all day. The school had got involved and called the police who then went through our house they ended up taking my dad down to the police station. Social welfare tried to step in, what alot of good that did they just released my sister back into my dads care and the next day she was gone. Because SHE had my sister sent away, i will always remember what SHE said to my sister. "Do you want your dad to go to jail"....."No"..."Then why did you tell your teacher what happened"..."Because i couldn't sit down it was sore"..."Well now i have to take you to my mums so they don't put him in jail because of YOU"...

And with that she was gone for a few weeks, that was the last time he ever hit us and i love my sister for standing up to both of them.

My sister

Alot of the time i felt sorry for my sister, because she was 5 when our mum died then had to deal with our family been split up and all of the sudden SHE was their trying to replace our mum. But my sister fought against HER in every way she could and everything that SHE would say, you see my sister is very different from me I'm shy and keep to myself never talk out of place, did what i was told. But my sister was the opposite always said what was on her mind never scared to challenge HER and for a few years of her life my sister thought she was a boy she really did, she would tell me to call her another name a boys name. She would go around school hanging out with the boys "No I'm a boy too see let's go ask my sister" ....."I'm a boy aye"....."Um mm NO your a girl"..... It wasn't till she went to the toilet one day, looked down. Arrrrgggh "Where's my pee pee gone"..."You don't have one because your a girl" From that day on it was clear to her that maybe she wasn't a boy. She was always known as our tomboy she dressed like one acted like one too.

For many years after our mum passed away it was hard for both of us but most hardest for my sister when i was sent away she was left home to deal with HER.

I remember when we were living at HER place my sister got so mad with HER they had a fight and SHE goes "Well if don't want to live here then leave" my sister been so stub born yelled back, "Fine I'm packing my bags and leaving". And she did i watched her pack her bags grab her teddy bear then just walk out the door SHE just watched her with my dad too "No she wont do it she'll come back" they just laughed at her like it was funny or a big game. But my sister was so mad with HER she just kept on walking half way down the road when my dad finally decided to step in and told me to run after her and bring her back.I now understand why she did what she did my mind dealt with the loss of our mum by blocking it all out, but she was left to deal with it by herself.

Who is SHE/HER

Some of you maybe reading and wondering who SHE/HER is well I'll tell you SHE was my aunty (my mums sister in law) but i never really knew who SHE was till after my mum was dead and buried, that may have sounded cold hearted but that's how it was my mum was gone then SHE just there. Even though HER and my uncle lived just around the corner i still don't recall meeting her till my mums tangi. I remember a time when SHE would come to the house and talk with dad while mum was sick but i still didn't know who SHE was. It was never made clear why SHE was always around home before my mum went to hospital but after mum had died SHE just kept telling us all that SHE was helping my dad deal with the loss helping out with us kids. Yeah right SHE was helping HERSELF to a man that had just lost his wife and best friend. It took many years for us to hear the rumors my nanny (my mums mum) told us stories our cousins told us of things they saw. My nanny had always said SHE was the reason my mum died "SHE killed my daughter she would say" she hated HER from the moment my nanny had meet HER she never liked HER. "That dirty b@#*h" my nanny would always say

One of the stories i was told was when my mum was in hospital sick my nanny, aunties and cousin had walked in on them doing things the house was dark no lights them in the dark but my nanny knew what was going on and what they were doing they got caught. My nanny always said that's why my mum wanted to die she knew what was going on between them.

When HER and my dad got together my uncle left town we never seen him for many years after that come to think of it we never saw my mums family till we were at high school, after what they had both done