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hey, hows everyone doing?
Sorry i havent posted in aaaggges but alot of things have happened since my last post......Had to go down to sydney for awhile etc etc etc.
I have a story i'd wrote that i'd like people to comment on and give me their views..it's for an english mark at the end of the year..if you see anyway to improve it plz coment and tell me. thank you.
‘Marie’s Memories’
by Klara Nagy
“Adam, are you nearly ready to go?” I yelled. We were getting ready to go to the 10 year reunion at old high school, and if Adam didn’t hurry up, we were going to be late. Everything was finally organized; the kids were asleep, the babysitter had arrived and all we had to do was get out the door, though that seemed to be our main problem. “Ok, I’m ready,” Adam said. I got in the car as he hopped in the drivers’ seat and started the engine. As I sat down, I felt and heard paper crease underneath me. I half got up to see what it was that I was sitting on. An envelope with the word Marie printed neatly on it was lying on the seat. I didn’t have time to open it, so I shoved it in my handbag meaning to open it later.
Arriving at my old school sends the memories flooding through me, failing classes, being bullied, meeting Adam. I decided to just focus on the future; the best must be yet to come!
The hall is full of people who never gave me a second glance while I was at school but are now pushing their way through the people in the hall to talk to me. Across the crowded room I spot familiar faces that sneered at me, laughed at me, taunted me. An old, now elderly teacher makes his way up onto the vast, empty stage to make a speech. I didn’t catch a lot of it, his thick European accent was still hard to understand, but I understood every word I needed to. “I want all to come and talk about your childhood.” As the first person went up and started to ramble on about merry-go-rounds, ice-creams and other sweet things like that. I withdrew from the crowd, not physically but mentally, I was in a daydream. I began to think about my childhood and how it was anything but sweet.
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I was born on the 22nd of November 1976 to my Mum, Louise. She had been caught by the police with drugs and had the choice to either go to gaol or to attend a drug rehabilitation centre for two years. When she got out of rehab two years later she was in and out of trouble with the police. After a few accounts of drug possession, they sent her to gaol. In gaol she met a lot of friends, mainly male friends. She was a prostitute! Through prostitution cam me, Marie.
When I was two years old my Mother met and began to live with a man named David, I think that’s where the problem started. I was abused a lot while I was young, primarily by David, but occasionally also by my Mum. It was hitting and punching mainly, but sometimes a kick or two would surface. When I was five and attending kindergarten, David had given me such a beating the night before that I couldn’t sit while at school. My nice teacher took me into the toilets to find out what the problem was; she of course noticed the bruising that had already appeared. She contacted the police who arrived at my school soon after. I was interviewed by the sergeant but I knew not to tell him anything because it might get me or my parents into trouble. I was sent home but the policeman promised to be in touch. I knew I had not heard the last of him.
I was in the shower when Mum got that phone call I had been dreading from the police. All I remember clearly is hearing the phone, then a loud “Marie” from my mother, she was angry. At that precise moment I knew that she had spoken to the police. She had stated to the sergeant that the bruising was marking from a playground accident the day before and not from physical abuse. In her statement she said that I fell of the monkey bars at a nearby park, they of course believed her, especially when I wouldn’t and couldn’t say any different. I got in a lot of trouble that day; they said that it was my entire fault that the police became involved.
After the incident with the police, they didn’t hit me very often anymore, but they still found many other ways to punish me. One day I didn’t do the dishes so David stood me in the corner, facing the wall and said “Don’t move unless you are going to the bathroom.” While I was standing there, I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is David waking me up saying that sleeping is a privilege I didn’t deserve.
A few months after, Mum broke up with David and got together with Steve. Soon enough we moved from our perfectly good house into his house. The house that Steve lived in was despicable, it had a blue plastic tarp as a roof and there were spiders, ants, cockroaches and other disgusting creatures roaming around. The smell of the house was so vile it resembled a garbage dump and looked like one too. A lot of nights I was too afraid to sleep, I just lay there thinking, jumping at every little noise and sound.
From then on life stayed reasonably normal, the house still stayed smelly and the abuse continued. A few days before my 12th birthday though, it all changed. My Mum gave birth to my baby brother Joshua. I remember being happy when he was born, because although there was a large age gap between us I now had someone to love, and to love me back unconditionally. Mum and Steve figured that because I was twelve I was old enough to look after Josh while she was working as a checkout chick and he was out drinking in bars.
My most vivid childhood memory occurred about now. I walked into my Mum’s bedroom to say goodnight only to find her cutting cocaine on a piece of broken glass. I knew what it was and I was horrified! I had never seen my Mum, or anyone else in contact with any kind of drugs before, and I knew it was wrong. Mum yelled at me to get out, and I couldn’t leave fast enough.
After the cocaine business, Steve thought that since I already partly knew what was going on that I may as well do things for him. He called them jobs. I had to take a marijuana joint to a neighbor and receive money for it and take it back to him. Once he even made me go down the street to some bushes where he had hidden a syringe. It had an opaque coloured liquid in it and I took it back to him. I must have been very naïve at the time because he told me it was his medicine and after being a little bit suspicious I believed him. I didn’t even know what I was doing was illegal.
Soon after, Mum and Steve had a major disagreement with the neighbors and we had to move again. During the car trip I was asleep most of the way, but I do remember waking up once to find Steve with a syringe sticking out of his arm! At the time I think I thought it was a dream and went back to sleep, or perhaps I just wanted it to be one.
It was a very easy move for our family as we didn’t own much, whatever we used to own Mum pawned for money to feed her ever growing addictions. Most days we were without the necessities of bread and milk but Mum never went without those cancer sticks of hers. Our new house was in considerably better condition than the last, it had a proper roof and not quite so many little animal bugs prowling about. I considered the move as a fresh start but my parents evidently didn’t. The weird punishments continued. One day I was running extremely late for school and as a result I forgot to brush my teeth before leaving. When I returned home, Mum was waiting for me with an old tooth brush and a bottle of non-toxic toilet cleaner. Before I could even wonder what was going on she had dragged me into the bathroom and had dipped the toothbrush into the cleaner. I tried to dodge her hand but her aim was too good. She vigorously scrubbed my teeth and mouth with toilet cleaner! I think of the toilet cleaner as the worst thing that I have ever tasted.
A few weeks into my first term at my new school, I began to get bullied, never physically, but bullying just the same. I always put it down to the fact that they didn’t understand me or my way of thinking. I was always very bright but because of my situation, I obviously couldn’t join any after school classes and because my schoolmates didn’t know about my home life I don’t think they understood.
Just after my thirteenth birthday, I was sent to live with my ‘real’ Dad, his wife Jackie and his son Thomas. I know that they tried extremely hard to help me fit in as a part of their family, but as much as they tried, it didn’t work. I really resented my half brother, what he owned, and the love he experienced that I never did. I moved out after less than a year and back to live with my Mother.
We all then went on what Mum and Steve called a ‘holiday’, it consisted of them putting Josh and I in a cheap hotel for two weeks, hardly ever leaving any money for food, while they went out and got continually high and drunk at a derelict friends flat.
Mum did finally return to take us home. Yet when we arrived back at the house we found that we had been evicted! Mum found a window that had been left opened or had been forgotten and we accessed the house through that. In the morning after a good nights rest, we found Mum had left again before we awoke. There was a note left on the table saying that she would return later in the day with a moving van to take us to a new house that she will organize. Needless to say neither she, nor Steve ever returned! They left us for dead without any food or money.
I found a little girl down the street that I could baby-sit for several days a week for a little bit of money for food.
An old lady that lived down the road must have realized that there were never any adults around and she contacted DoCS (Department of Community Services) and they arrived a short while later to take Josh and I into care, as wards of the state.
We were both placed into the care of a lovely lady, Doris. DoCS decided that it would be better for me to live my teenage life away from my brother considering what we had been through, so we were separated. I was then put with a lady called Judy. Judy gave me the life I had always wanted, had always dreamed of, caring, loving and thoughtful. She even had pets! After four months I was just starting to settle down into the regime of a new life when Judy got the call we’d both been dreading. My Mum wanted me back, and had done all the necessary precautions to do so. I had to leave.
Returning to my Mother’s dysfunctional life was shattering for me. I had enjoyed my taste of being a normal teenage girl and realizing that nothing had changed in my Mum’s life was hard.
Two months after returning to live with my Mum, she gave birth to her third child, a girl, Nicole. I practically became the sole carer in Nicole’s life. Nicole didn’t learn to say “Mama” or “Mummy” until months after she said “Marie” because Nicole and Mum never had any interaction or quality time.
Within the next year we were constantly moving houses and occasionally states. It was hard on me but finally by the beginning of year ten we were settled. I was sick of it! I couldn’t nurture any of my talent and do extra curricular activities because I was always caring for Nicole. I convinced Mum to let me get a part time job at the local supermarket. I applied and easily got the job. Even though Mum kept all the money I earned to go towards bills, I really enjoyed the interaction with people my own age, and getting out of the house, even though I was working for nothing.
I continued with my high school education and was able to graduate. I couldn’t achieve my goal of the Higher School Certificate because I couldn’t attend the after school classes and exams required because of Nicole. I met my current husband, Adam at my last and 15th school. He asked me to the Year 12 graduation formal and because I couldn’t afford to buy a proper elegant formal dress, he bought the one I liked for me as a present. Four years later I left home and married Adam, much to my mother’s disgust and we had our children, Katie and Zack. I have tried to overcome the scars of my past and I am determined that my children will never have to live through what I have experienced.
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“Marie, Mare”, said a strong European accent. I was startled out of my daydream by the teacher up on stage calling my name. Itz your turn to talk to us”. I timidly crept up onto that vast, empty stage and took the microphone. I looked out at the large crowd of familiar faces and spotted my husband’s smiling face staring back up at me. For the first time in your life I realized I wasn’t alone. Someone did care for me as a person. I was finally able to tell my story.
I began, “I was born on the 22nd of November 1976 to my Mum Louise. She had been………….
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Epilogue-
“Adam are you nearly ready.” It was a couple of weeks after the reunion and we were getting ready to leave to go out to dinner. I grabbed my handbag and opened it to put my phone in. I felt paper creasing beneath my fingers. I found the envelope that I had been sitting on in the car on the way to the reunion. I decided that now was time to open it. Inside the envelope there was a letter, it said;
To My Dearest Darling Marie,
‘The Reason’
I'm not a perfect person
There's many things I wish I didn't do
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know
I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you
I'm sorry that I hurt you
It's something I must live with everyday
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
That’s why I need you to hear
I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is You
I don’t know if you can ever forgive me for all the pain I have caused you, but I would dearly like you to try.
Love your Mother
Louise
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