Some beginnings
I've been transcribing my childhood diaries.
I started the first just after my 8th birthday. That one is always interesting to look at because, although I kept it only for 3 months, it records the last two months I lived with my dad. My mom left my dad at the beginning of March and a year and a half later, he killed himself.
In those three months, I visited a Ukrainian church, got 5 stars in math, got the mumps, Dad bought us chocolates for Valentine's Day (this surprises me), my baby sister swallowed Borax and we left my dad.
My dad was 16 years older than my mom. I was born out of wedlock when Mom was 18. She seriously considered giving me up for adoption and, in my teens, I met the family that wanted to adopt me. The girl they did adopt was brutally raped and murdered by an intruder into their home when she and I were 14 or 15 years old.
Dad was still legally married to someone else when I was born, though he had been separated from his wife for several years. I was a year old when my parents finally crossed the border and got married though my dad never did get a divorce from his first wife. Whether it was because she had a baby out of wedlock, because she lived unmarried with my dad or because she did both with a married man, I'm not sure, but Mom was disfellowshipped (excommunicated) from her beloved church. I never did ask her if Dad was disfellowshiped.
I don't think they ever had a good marriage and they were very poor. My earliest memories (except for one) are when I was three years old. We lived out in the country with my paternal grandparents then. Those were, in many ways, very idyllic days for me, even though, with my little sister, we were 6 people crammed into a small house.
But our home got even smaller when we moved out on our own to a village closer to the city where my dad worked. The house still stands but I'm told that it is now used for a dog kennel. It's too small even for a one-car garage. A third daughter was born to my parents while we lived in this one room shack. We had no plumbing. Dad brought water from the city in pails. Can you imagine raising three little girls and washing diapers in those conditions? I was in grade one while we lived there.
And then we moved to the city. We rented a two-bedroom apartment with a separate a living room, kitchen and bathroom. I thought we had moved into a palace. I think my favourite part of our new home, however, was the long hallway that connected the rooms, where my sister and I skated up and down in our stocking feet on the polished wood.
I have some good memories of living here, and may share some of them in another post, but there were some hard times too and it didn't surprise me at all when, one night when my dad was out, my mom told me we were leaving.
I started the first just after my 8th birthday. That one is always interesting to look at because, although I kept it only for 3 months, it records the last two months I lived with my dad. My mom left my dad at the beginning of March and a year and a half later, he killed himself.
In those three months, I visited a Ukrainian church, got 5 stars in math, got the mumps, Dad bought us chocolates for Valentine's Day (this surprises me), my baby sister swallowed Borax and we left my dad.
My dad was 16 years older than my mom. I was born out of wedlock when Mom was 18. She seriously considered giving me up for adoption and, in my teens, I met the family that wanted to adopt me. The girl they did adopt was brutally raped and murdered by an intruder into their home when she and I were 14 or 15 years old.
Dad was still legally married to someone else when I was born, though he had been separated from his wife for several years. I was a year old when my parents finally crossed the border and got married though my dad never did get a divorce from his first wife. Whether it was because she had a baby out of wedlock, because she lived unmarried with my dad or because she did both with a married man, I'm not sure, but Mom was disfellowshipped (excommunicated) from her beloved church. I never did ask her if Dad was disfellowshiped.
I don't think they ever had a good marriage and they were very poor. My earliest memories (except for one) are when I was three years old. We lived out in the country with my paternal grandparents then. Those were, in many ways, very idyllic days for me, even though, with my little sister, we were 6 people crammed into a small house.
But our home got even smaller when we moved out on our own to a village closer to the city where my dad worked. The house still stands but I'm told that it is now used for a dog kennel. It's too small even for a one-car garage. A third daughter was born to my parents while we lived in this one room shack. We had no plumbing. Dad brought water from the city in pails. Can you imagine raising three little girls and washing diapers in those conditions? I was in grade one while we lived there.
And then we moved to the city. We rented a two-bedroom apartment with a separate a living room, kitchen and bathroom. I thought we had moved into a palace. I think my favourite part of our new home, however, was the long hallway that connected the rooms, where my sister and I skated up and down in our stocking feet on the polished wood.
I have some good memories of living here, and may share some of them in another post, but there were some hard times too and it didn't surprise me at all when, one night when my dad was out, my mom told me we were leaving.
posted by Magdaleine at 1:00 AM
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