The Little Green House

The Little Green House

I remember when I first ever truly felt home… Safe.

it was when she jumped and screamed because she got the keys

It's a cute old little green house on Wright St. she said, and I know it is just the right one for us!

It was just for us.

We were staying in my Uncle's house (moms brother) on

Because we left

In the middle of the night

Without my dog

Without most of our things

Because He hurt my brother.

Although He had been doing that for quite sometime.

She just left work early that night

And she caught him in the act.

And we left that night. It was bad.

There was so much broken glass, so much yelling.

I always wondered why I didn't remember much before staying at my uncles.

Before getting that new house. I was six when we got it.

Who am I kidding, I didn't remember anything before that.

For a long time.

And then I thought it would be a good idea to fill in the gap and get hypnotherapy after she died.

Yeah, fuck all that jazz. I was under for about a total of 7 minutes and all I saw was the kitchen of Ks (unreleased name pending release form signature) house.

I was staring at the basement door from across the kitchen and all I heard was my brother (13 at the time) screaming out in pain. The cries were too loud, too painful. Something is wrong… 

It all came flooding back like the titanic scene in the hallway, yeah you know which one. And I was drowning instantly in it.

And then I remembered after the hypnosis that there was a big armoire in the basement and I looked at it and knew what was in it was not good and scared the living jeepers outta me.

But I got outta that hypnosis about as fast as possible without damaging my memory enough to forget it because now part of me wishes I would have  honestly just fried those circuits. You should never have to hear your big brother scream out like that, never.  And I don't know why I remember seeing the cabinet but I didn't wanna find out.

She had been married to him for a few years, he was a firefighter in Toledo Ohio.

We don't talk about him. Like Voldemorte. Yuh feel?

He beat the shit out of my brother the whole time.

And his own two sons too.

Me too, maybe? But I don't remember that. We don’t talk about him. Remember?

He was really a different human when my mom was around and never physically hurt her… right? That's what I remember, I think.

Is it though?

I was 18 when I had the hypnosis. Ever since i’ve been unraveling more as I go.

Okay okay back to the story..

We left. And not easily. See lately ive been doing for more hypnosis sessions and remembered the night we left.

He put up a fight and cornered her multiple times. Said I couldn't take my dog because he bought him and he was his and he would shoot him in front of me if she tried.

His name was Atlas. He was a German Shepard and he hated that dog. These things I did remember already, I could never forget that dog.  He was the only thing I remembered and I know I was young, but the trauma and abuse spots in my brain scans say otherwise about why I don't remember the first 5 years of my life.

I loved Atlas. He slept with me every night. he protected me. He kept me safe.

It makes sense as to why my only memory there is of him and her.

My babysitter Lyndsey at the time.

They kept me safe. I remember them.

But only them?

I remember being in the stairs and my brother laughing at me throwing confetti I had made at him.

Those little flash fragments are the only memories I have before 

the little green house. 

Had. 

Then I got Arlo. My German Shepherd.

And its flashed me back to my first, German Shepherd and why my stepdad didn’t like him…

It’s because he protected me.

He kept him just to hurt me to hurt her because doing that wasn't easy and he knew he had already lost her.

On the way to my grandparents in Michigan, my brother told my mom it had  been going on for quite some time and that he never told her because K (unreleased name) threatened to kill her and me if Kris ever said anything. She rubbed his head to sleep in the passenger seat.

And I fell asleep to the sound of her quietly sobbing.

-Jesus take the wheel had a whole other feel for me years later let me tell yuh-

I remember praying that Atlas followed the car all the way to Michigan. I didn't really understand at the time what was going on. I was 5. I just wanted my dog.

I will  never forget what she said though before I had fallen asleep

She was praying too

.....

It is my dignified and sole responsibility to keep my babies safe, I'm sorry I failed you God. Please heal my babies, please heal me. I can't keep running.

she sobbed harder thinking I was asleep now.

I never told her I heard her that night but I also never remembered anything before that, for a reason.

Staying with my uncle was cool an all but he was like a mf drill sergeant.

Can't have your elbows on the table. Can't run in the house. Can't breathe or be a kid.

Don't get me wrong I love my uncle to death even to this day he is an absolute amazing man.

But he ran a  tight mf ship.

Which was totally different for us because our mother, well was the pirate speaking hippie and not this way in any degree.

We lived there temporarily with my two cousins, so that was fun! We all caught up on missed time and had the best of times.

It helped to distract us from whatever we were running from..

We stayed many nights with Kathy O her best friends and her kids which were like our cousins too. They had a pool and we spent a lot of time there growing up. Love them and their house so much

My mom always used to say, that people and things pick you, you don't pick them or choose them. They choose you.

She looked for houses, I remember one was right down the road from my grandparents and she loved that one

Beautiful little farm house a few houses down

Acres of beautiful land, really a nice house

But it didn't pick her

She said the house will choose us. .

And then it did

It was old, and needed some love, but she loved projects just like her daddy.

She said I'm broken, but I’m still beautiful. And I can make it beautiful, too.

I remember how she just glowed when she talked about going to look at it and she said, “I think I found it I think this is the one!”

It was a cute little two bedroom house, totally decorated in the 70s.  It was her favorite color. Green. It had bright yellow little flower tiles in the kitchen,  and a big archway perfect for hippie beads, she said.  And she hung them there, too.

It has the cutest porch swing so I can people watch! She said.

It has a creepy Michigan basement, and mini attic.

It had a big old antique door with a functioning skeleton key to unlock it. It had a partially fenced in yard with a lot next door, and she said she could build the rest (and she did) of the fence with wooden pickets and paint flowers on them! she never did paint the flowers, but she and my grandpa did put the fence in off the garage in the lot next door. A tornado hit the tree in the lot and smushed it years later. My mom and I watched it hit about two minutes after she had just gone into the gate to get our puppy Missie Doodle. And she wanted to rebuild it but never did.

It had an angled ceiling room up a narrow staircase out of my moms bedroom, which my brother got as his room, and I had the back bedroom off the big kitchen. She loved it.

Speaking of storms I remember once my mom and I were standing in the kitchen talking and she was sweeping the floor.. as a huge tree limb bursts through the window and we both peed a little bit I'm pretty sure, and looked at each and just busted up laughing, my mom said like what in the actual fuck that is just my luck just swept the whole floor and Mother Nature says HA here’s an even bigger mess Kristi!

We laughed all night about that tree. My grandpa had to come cut it up to get it out and it was quite the mess.

Her and my grandpa worked so hard on it for years fixing it to be just the way she wanted it.

They found a newspaper from 1944 in the floorboards, with articles about the war and other local things. She had it hung in the hallway to the little bathroom, across from the basement door.

Our happiest and best moments as just the three of us were in that home, in that yard.

We laughed the hardest there,

Cried the hardest too

We sang happy birthday and Earl had to die

We made homemade cookies and mud pies

She had a tire swing hanging in the back tree

She would rake leaves mountains high for us to jump in.

We planted flowers, oh so many flowers

She was happiest there. So was I. So was Kris.

Which it’s sad because in the end she was the saddest there. And so was I after she left.

Which is why, one day her flowers will grow again, and it will thrive again. Serving people in her memory, and always being home to those that are lost.

Home, is not necessarily about the home at all, it’s who makes it.

I’ll never forget the first time she truly felt home,

It was when she finally did it, all on her own

🏡 💚

Finishing notes

(years later, just after she died I remodeled it some to restore damages from renters she had had in it for a couple years before  she finally got it back just before she died. When she died, we found a turtle she had rescued and had food for in her bathtub LOL. If you know my mom then you know saving animals was a regular thing for her. she also had ripped up the floors once she saw real hardwoods, and halfway redid some things. We finished them and made a nursery for my daughter Aurora Jade, in her bedroom after entirely restoring the walls. I painted a beautiful tree of life up her bedroom wall, for Aurora, since that's the tattoo my mom never got on her back that she wanted. Since then, my cousin who we originally stayed with when I was little before she bought it, took over and has also made huge improvements to the home and kept it afloat over the last few years. As it stands I intend to buy it back from him this year and make it a hippie healing art shop in her honor).

~May your warm hugs, your wicked smile, and your heart of gold always live on, mama.

I feel you more now recently than I ever have.

I know my purpose and its to use your, our story, to heal others.

With the next couple weeks approaching being very hard and triggering for me and September being suicide awareness month. Please always remember to check on your people with mental health disorders, without, who ever, where ever, just check on your people. Even if they say they're okay.. that doesn’t always mean they actually are and it could save a life just to make sure.