Good Grief
It's not really sadness that I feel. I guess it's remorse? I wish that we had had just a moment where it felt like she cared. Maybe I just wish I had had that one 'motherly' moment with her. Or a moment of her opening up and telling me she regretted things. Or missed me, or thought about me, or was proud that I turned out okay...you know, all that kind of stuff. No more maybes, right?
NOTE - I never published this post, written two days after my real mothers death, as everything was so crazy and up in the air and changing every few hours, but as I reread it today I felt as though I needed to post it. At some point I will sit and write out my thoughts and feelings of the journey we took back and those final goodbyes to not only her but to much of the pain of the past. Until then....
Well, I thought I was going to KC. I thought I was going to do this whole "closure" thing with my brother and 4 sisters. I thought I wanted/needed to do lots of things...but in the end, I think maybe I was wrong.
When I got the news that my birth mother had died I was so surprised at the emotions I had over it all. I really didn't think I cared that much.
Link To The News Coverage KMBC
It seemed to be the same with my brother and 2 of my sisters. We were all a little taken aback I think. I honestly don't think any of us thought we would give a shit, but I've said all that in my previous post so I won't be redundant. Go read that rambling mess for yourself.
After much back and forth with my brother and sister #1 we all decided we needed some sort of closure. I was going to fly to St Louis and my brother and I would drive up to Kansas City and we would all get together to view her body and go to her apartment - just find some form of closure in whatever way we could.
The nice thing was that we had never all been in the same place at the same time. Not only that but sister #1 and sister #2 have never actually met in person, so it would be extra special.
I scrambled to get a plane ticket, made the purchase, packed a bag and was ready to leave - nope. I was told not to come because the coroner wasn't going to release her body till maybe later in the week. No point in coming if it won't happen.
I called the medical examiners office to find out the details and to get an idea of when we may be able to come by. I spoke to a couple people who told me that the body was ready to be released but there would be no way we were allowed to view her there. Wait, what?
Apparently television shows and movies are complete fucking liars and there is absolutely nobody allowed to see, or identify, bodies in the morgue. No glass you can stand behind while they wheel the body over and fold down the sheet exposing the head of the deceased. Lies - all fucking lies. The first person I spoke to, btw, had me on speaker phone and I'm like 87% sure she was working on a body at the time - and probably eating a sandwich. I mean, movies can't be ALL lies, right?
(side note - I have to admit I was just the slightest bit disappointed at that. I do tend to have a pretty morbid fascination. I know, I know...it's totally inappropriate and wrong and I'm ashamed. This is the wrong situation to be thinking about going to the morgue and seeing all the lockers with bodies in them. Shame, Sharon, shame.)
I cancelled the flight, left my bag packed, and waited. Should have got trip insurance I guess, huh? But, you know, when the flight is leaving in less than 12 hours you pretty much, usually, know you are going to go. $200 penalty, yuk
There was not going to be a funeral because nobody was going to pay for it, so they (siblings 4 & 5, and maybe the estranged husband?) were going to donate her body to science. The coroners office told me that the only way to actually see her body was at a funeral home. The science people would take possession of the body via a funeral home and would then allow us to have a small viewing before they took her body away but it had to be done within 5 days of death, which would be Tuesday. I would need to fly out by Sunday to have Monday to get together.
Only, they wouldn't take her, because her tissue sample came back positive for Hep-B. sigh....
So, we are back at square one.
But really, at this point, I'm not sure I need to do all that anymore. I don't need to keep dragging it out. I can't keep putting my life, and work, on hold just waiting. And, honestly, I don't really know if laying my eyes upon her face is going to somehow make me feel better. I don't know if standing in her apartment among all of her things is going to really make me feel connected to her - and really...do I need that? I didn't have it before and I was doing just fine....
Sibling #5 is, apparently, having a fairly hard time with all of this. Understandably. She was the one who had the closest relationship with her mom. Even though GeorgeAnne was a shitty mother, #5 still loved her. I get that, maybe more than anyone else can. Even through all of the things that happened with my grandfather, I loved him more than anything. He was all I had and I knew no better. I was completely devastated when he died. I totally understand it.
I also understand that all of our experiences with her were vastly different. Some of us really had very little interaction with her during our lives. I think, besides siblings 4 & 5, I might have had the most interaction with her, and it was all mostly as I was coming into adulthood, so I was keenly aware of just how completely fucked up it all was. I mean, I had issues, but I looked like a saint next to her at that point.
Which is also probably why sibling #5 really hates my blog posts about it all. So, Sibling #5, I'm saying this directly to you - this is my life, these are my experiences and feelings. Yours may be different - and that is okay. You may tell your story how ever you'd like. And honestly, what a story you have to tell. I can only hope, that one day, you do tell it. I wish you nothing but peace and hope that you take all of those experiences and turn them into something positive.
All I can do at this point is to reflect on the times I had with GeorgeAnne, but I swear to God, every single one of them was just really fucked up. I'm not even joking. But, this is not the time to tell those stories.
I will stay in Los Angeles and I will work through this in my own way. It's not really sadness that I feel. I guess it's remorse? I wish that we had had just a moment where it felt like she cared. Maybe I just wish I had had that one 'motherly' moment with her. Or a moment of her opening up and telling me she regretted things. Or missed me, or thought about me, or was proud that I turned out okay...you know, all that kind of stuff. No more maybes, right?
My grandmother was not cuddly or motherly like that either so I think it's just a thing I yearn for.
UGH!!!!
Fuck this sappy shit, damnit.
I hope we all find our own peace with it, I hope that GeorgeAnne finally finds peace. I honestly don't know if she was ever at peace on this Earth, or ever truly happy for that matter. I never got that impression from anyone I've ever spoken to about her.
It's just really sad. I feel very sorry for her. Nobody should go through life like that. I wish she knew she had value and that she was worthy.
I do always try to find the lesson in each situation - I really feel that the lesson here is that avoiding my real father is not the right choice to be making and that it would cause me to regret it later in life - I'm thankful to have this chance to build a relationship with him while I can.
EDIT -
I did end up in Kansas City, we did end up having a funeral for her, and through it I think we may have found a bit of closure. The entire trip back was a "closing" of sorts.
My husband and I drove out from Los Angeles as we decided since we were going to KC we should finally go empty out the storage space we had been paying for for 6 years.
We visited Grandview, my house, my schools, my friends houses, the hangouts, the moments - it was all right there. My house was for sale. It was empty! I absolutely could not believe it.
I sat on my steps, looked into the windows, and I cried. I cried a LOT! Hell, I'm crying about it right now. Everything in my world was tied to that house in one way or another, the good, the bad and the very very ugly. I was at ground fucking zero.
It was the beginning of a very emotional journey. One I will continue to tell about at another time.
Father Of The Year
Ok, who the fuck takes a kid to a strip club? I mean seriously? WTF! At the time I thought it was fucking awesome, but as a parent I'm completely horrified.
At some point my grandmother decided that maybe it would make me feel better if they went ahead and adopted me. By this point I was 13, maybe 14...I'm not completely certain - but it was around that time.
Now, why, after 13 years would you decide that adopting me would make any difference, I have no idea. They'd had legal custody of me since I was 5 months old. It's not like anyone else wanted me, so I have no clue. But - that is what she decided they should do.
I recall arguing with her because I wanted to change my name. I hated the name Sharon. It was boring and weird and nobody else was named Sharon. I also hated my last name "Hobbs". The kids would always sing the Mickey Mouse song spelling my name. S-H-A -- R-O-N -- H-O-B-B-S
She did not approve of that. I even tried to just get her to let me change the spelling of my name. Had I known I could have become just a symbol, then maybe I could have chosen that. I could have been a square, seems fitting for the time. "The kid formerly known as Sharon" It was not to be though. I remained me, Sharon. Which in Hebrew means "plain" I guess it was perfect.
So, the adoption is complete, still don't know why. But now my real father is my brother, my mother becomes my sister-in-law. My cousins are my nieces and my aunt and uncle are now my sisters and brothers. Confused yet? Ya, try jumping down that rabbit hole when you're stoned. Speaking of which...
My real dad, having gotten divorced from the Latino wife and her 5 kids, was now working over off Main in KC. He was coming around the house a few times. He tells me he's working at a strip club and lives in the building. That strip club was the iconic and notorious Ray's Playpen.
Ok, I'm like 14 years old - of course I find this fascinating. Did I want to go check it out? Well, sure! What a great idea! Every father wants to take their little girl to a strip club, right?
I had a friend staying over that night, and for the life of me I can not remember who it was. But he said she could come but we needed to try to dress "older". You had to be 18 to get in. I was all like "Ya, we got this" Me, being a scrawny, flat chested, pimple faced geek...how the hell did I seriously think I was gonna look 18?
I don't recall all the details, but I do remember walking into the place and seeing larger than life dildos hanging all over the walls, videos with graphic images, magazines and everything else you can imagine, and an older giant man my real dad jokingly called "Tiny", of course.
We went upstairs to his place. I recall it being dark and I don't remember much about it but I did have my first Yoohoo there. It was delicious! As we left we had to stop by and say hello to a couple of the stripper chicks.
Ok, who the fuck takes a kid to a strip club? I mean seriously? WTF! At the time I thought it was fucking awesome, but as a parent I'm completely horrified.
Later that same week, my real dad comes by and we are sitting outside talking. He decides to smoke some weed and tells me to go get my grandad's pipe. (He smoked a pipe ALL the time, because cigarettes were bad for him, lol)
He loads the pipe up and lights it and hands it to me. First time getting stoned and it is with my real dad...
At some point I injured myself, probably fell down laughing or something so I got the brilliant idea to make an ice pack by putting ice in a ziplock bag and melting the bag edges to seal it.
The next morning my grandfather woke up to find his pipe sitting on the kitchen table in a puddle of water from a leaky melted mess of a plastic bag. All with a lovely note saying "I hope you enjoy this as much as I did"
I didn't really see my real dad again for quite a while. He didn't resurface till the shit really blew up a year later.
But, of course, that's another story.
It begins with a baby on a bus
Don't get me wrong, aside from the dark and dirty secrets, my grandparents were good to me, they provided well for me, and I loved them because they were all I had and I knew no different. They were FAR better than the alternative of growing up with the people who gave birth to me.
Georgeanne and Mirl, my real parents
I was born in Minot, ND on the Air Force Base. My real dad was stationed there, married to my real mother. He was 18 and she was 16 - super young and dumb.
The story goes that my father came home to find me alone in the apartment with nothing on but a dirty diaper and a high fever, I was 5 months old. Apparently my mother was next door in bed with his best friend...Many stories have circulated about what horrific acts transpired after that revelation, none of them were good.
Ultimately, he shipped me on a bus to live with his parents, giving up full legal rights to me. I arrived in Kansas City in the middle of the night with pneumonia and no provisions. My grandparents found themselves parents again. He left for Vietnam.
My Aunt Helen and Uncle Don and 2 of my cousins, my real dad and my (grandmother) mom. This would have been shortly before I was born.
Dude looks like Gomer Pile, lol. It's okay, you can laugh. He was/is a really tall, lanky guy and should be instructed to never, ever, stand like that.
I was known as the "black sheep" of the family. I was Georgeanne and Mirl's daughter. Two fuck ups that had another fuck up, that was now going to fuck up my grandparents life.
Don't get me wrong, aside from the dark and dirty secrets, my grandparents were good to me, they provided well for me, and I loved them because they were all I had and I knew no different. They were FAR better than the alternative of growing up with the people who gave birth to me.
My grandmother was a school teacher who later became the librarian at a Junior High - in a different school district, thank God! And my grandfather, he was retired from something that he got a pension from. He was always doing different things. He had inherited a farm when his mother passed away (I was like 6 maybe, but I remember she died on the toilet, lol.)
Anyway, people would pay to come fish at the farm. He stocked the ponds with catfish from Arkansas and would clean and prep fish for various restaurants around. I was the ultimate tomboy. I ran around in cutoff shorts with no shirt. I had super short hair and everyone swore I was a boy. I was a hellova fisherman too.
I'll save the dirty truth of the farm for another post....
My grandmother had 2 grown daughters that were well into their own lives and in their 30's. My Aunt Barbara (Florida) despised me but my Aunt Judy (Michigan) was always nice to me. I had an Aunt Helen and Uncle Don and their 3 kids, my cousins, Rhonda, Terri and Debbie. I loved them. They were the family I wanted...and needed, but they didn't know that till much later in life.
My cousins, Terri, Rhonda, Debbie and Me (2yr old) Notice the saddest, ugliest Christmas tree in the history of EVER! It looks like it has cobwebs all over it!
The REAL Parents
Like so many others, my real dad came back from Vietnam all fucked in the head. He moved to Leavenworth, KS and got a job at the penitentiary there. He married some woman who had 5 kids of her own, one who was the SPITTING image of my real dad....it was never admitted to me though, but come on! She was Latino, her kids were all Latino and then there's the young boy who was a scrawny built twig with eyes exactly like me and my real dad....but whatever.
On the back of the photo it reads:
1305 hrs, Thu 23 July '70
V.C. Prisoner Of War Camp, East of Pleiku A.F.B.
(my real dad is the one holding a gun)
On far right, a POW interpreter, on my left, AIC Tarloton, a guard for POWs. On his left, two V.C. who was captured up on Monkey Mountain which is not shown in this photo.
Mirl Hobbs
They'd all come over once a year on Christmas Eve for dinner and he'd play "Dad for a Day". He was a stranger, he wasn't my dad. But I'd wonder why he never took me with them. If he was my dad, why didn't he want me? Why did he want all those other kids and not me?
I'd hide in my closet (that was my safe zone) and cry about it every fucking year - on Christmas Eve....ugh. You know what else, I don't ever remember getting a present from him. Not once.
He's currently living in Florida, in some back wood, nothing town, I think, with a different wife who is legit psycho. We never speak. I'll have to do a separate post about that whole fucked up situation. Seriously, like graveyard curses and multiple personalities....it's quite a tale.
No idea who the woman was. But, he did come visit at some point when I was about 2.
My real mother...wow, this one's good. How much time do we have? I'll try to condense it as much as I can.
So Georgeanne, eventually went under the alias of Connie, was 16 when she had me. She divorced my real dad and married multiple times and ultimately had 6 kids by 5 different men.
The funny thing is that we all grew up within 20 miles of each other and never fucking knew it.
I remember I met her one time when I was about 7. She came to the door one night and when I opened it she said she was my mother. She had a baby with her, my sister, Michelle. I don't remember anything else about that night and didn't see her again.
At one point, when i was about 12 we drove out to some shit-ass no-tell motel she was staying at in Independence, MO for me to meet her and she was so fucked up she couldn't even answer the door.
I finally met her, for real, when i was 18. After a long string of shit, my parents decided I should go live with her - a total stranger, in New Hampshire...they flew me out there and I was left standing in an airport not having a clue who I was looking for or if anyone would actually show up.
She was an alcoholic and a drug addict. A professional liar and had no basic respect for anything or anyone. She had two of my sisters living there, the only two that hadn't been taken away or given up. They were about 7 and 8 at the time and had been raised to steal everything they could get their hands on and run the prescription scams for her. They'd never had rules or boundaries of any kind, they were out of control. It was heartbreaking.
We ended up in jail together one time - that was one for the books. Got arrested with my real mother, lol. Stealing, of course. Not that I'd never been to jail before, but this time I actually hadn't done anything.
This is one of the few pictures I have of her. This was in 1991, surprisingly she's really lucid in this pic and looks to be doing well. Well, aside from living in the basement of her husbands parents house - with her husband, the two girls, and her mentally deficient boyfriend - who was younger than me....omg. I'll get to that one eventually. The girls had so many issues. I tried to be there, I did, but at some point I had to cut ties to protect myself and, ultimately, my newborn son. (another story, of course)
I recall one night, would have been in '91, sitting at the dinner table with mom and dad (grandparents). The TV was always on in the living room and they'd listen to the news while we ate. Anyway, they did this story about prescription scammers and I shot out of my seat and yelled that that was what my real mom was doing and sure as shit! By the time I got in there they were flashing her and her husbands pics on the screen! You know what, I called the tv station and tried to turn the bitch in lol.
I don't even know if she's alive currently. I went to a grocery store she was working at once and went through her line just to see if she'd recognize me. Nope...not even a glimmer.
Anyway - after all is said and done, I suppose I am glad I had the life I did. Maybe in my next post I'll talk a bit more about the reality of life with my grandparents. Maybe I should wait...we'll see.
My mom(grandmother) and me. I'm guessing it was my first birthday. I believe in the back that is "Aunt" May. She lived to be 103. My mom passed away about 15 years ago.
