My Dull Depressing Life

The last time I was at Bear’s Den… Well the last time I recall being there, was not long after my grandma Ally died. I don’t remember much but I do remember we were getting ready to leave and mom and dad had this HUGE fight. When we got home, my mom was still angry, she took Emma and I and left. We went to a Women’s Shelter in Rogers Arkansas (at least I think that’s where it was, I could be wrong I was very young). We were there for a while (somewhere between a week and two months). One morning Emma and I woke up and started looking for mom, but she was nowhere to be found, we finally found the director of the place and asked her where our mom was. She told us not to worry, that mom would be back soon… She never did come back. Night fell and mom was still gone.
We went to bed and in the morning we were awakened by our aunt Jill, and taken to her house. And at her house we stayed for months. My mother, my best friend, my rock, my shelter, and the person I loved and trusted the most in the whole world was gone. She disappeared without a trace, without a word, I had no idea what to think. I got to thinking about it… In my small little fourth grade mind, thinking about it, reasoning it out… I came to a conclusion finally. She had left us, left me. She didn’t love us anymore; she didn’t love me. I began to think maybe she hated me. I decided I must’ve been the reason she left, that or she died. But then I thought if she had died, they would have told us. So no my mother wasn’t dead, she just hated me. She had forgotten the love she had for me if she’d ever even loved me at all. I tried to be the strong one tried to be the one to hold everyone together.
Eventually after a few months she came back. Turned out she was in a mental institution. She didn’t even know who she was. She forgot us all. She forgot herself, her husband, her siblings, her nieces, and nephews, she forgot Emma, and she forgot ME! She forgot ME! Her own daughters! She forgot us all! She came home and I thought it would all be the same. We’d be a family again. But I was wrong. So very wrong. My mom wasn’t who she was when I had last seen her. She was this mentally unstable woman who instead of looking after her children, Emma and I had to look after her. I couldn’t tell my dad how bad she was for fear that they would take her away again. I couldn’t lose her again. I couldn’t bear it. So we made excuses for her, did the housework and such to keep dad happy. Life was hell. Heck what am I say it is hell. She gradually got better but it was-is- a long process. I was running the house basically in 4th grade. I was taking on a huge amount of stress, from my mother and the burdens of taking her place, from my sister and the burdens of caring for her, from my father and the lectures and failures the disappointment on his face when he looked at me, from my grades as they began to fall, my cousins still teased and terrorized me. The only escape I found was my two friends and school.
I felt free at school. I didn’t have to clean house or do laundry, I didn’t have to listen to my mother cry, or my father yell. I didn’t have to watch my little sister. I was free. I loved it there. But in 6th grade something changed.