The Criminal's Daughter

Chapter 3: Breaking The Cycle

What is it like to grow up in a criminal father? Well, I'll tell you. It definitely shapes someone and their future. You literally have a very small window of either breaking the chains of that life for you and your children but also not to become like them. And in my case, it has still affected me in ways of how I watch people and who I am, my work ethic and basically rarely trusting anyone.

I hated it. It's an awful way for a child to grow up. I know that my brother and sisters hated it too, but eventually my older siblings all went into "the business," went to jail a couple times, got out. My sister Carla and my brother Wayne both ran away from home a lot and were sent to a group home for a bit. I know my dad affected them by how he treated us. They were treated worse than I was. I know they went through a lot and now in their later life are struggling to be better and do better. My dad always put guns to our heads and beat us, made us uncomfortable by stuff he said or did. I was the baby of the family but felt more aware and tired of that life. I promised God I was going to be better and give my kids a future. It wasn't easy for me, and I was an angry kid that started doing bad stuff in the 6th grade. I had nothing, my dad was in and out of our lives and cops were in and out of our home regularly, we were always broke, always moving, lost so much in my life and not being able to trust anyone, was just a terrible way to grow up.

First, some background most "criminal families" aren't like the mafia. It's not a glamorous life. It is not like the "Sopranos or the Godfather". It is not dark wood paneling and fine liquor. Every time I hear one of my sheltered school friends talk about organized crime or something it makes me want to puke. People go into crime because they are poor, uneducated, got mental health issues and they don't know any better, don't care or feel they have no other way to take care of their family. They have some good qualities, but ultimately to choose that lifestyle of always hurting others and having to look over your shoulder, well they are not good people, and they often don't have a good sense of basic right and wrong. This means they are not likely to be good parents and my dad had some good moments but was not a good parent. He scared us regularly.

You know those pictures you see every so often on the internet with some woman turning a trick and her baby is in the background? That was how I grew up, but with drugs and guns and knives lying around like toys. When my siblings and I were growing up, we constantly had strange people coming and going from our house at all hours, often engaging in loud altercations with both my mom and dad (and a lot of cops in and out of our house). And firearms were pretty much everywhere. It's fortunate that the trigger pull needed to set off a handgun is more than a small child can muster, at least until he or she is old enough to understand that guns kill people for real, and that yes, once when one of daddy's friends was carried back to the house screaming and bleeding and couldn't be taken to the hospital that was because someone shot a gun at him.

That's how I learned about firearms safety, my mom just matter-of-factly said to my siblings and me, "That's what happens when you point a gun at someone and pull the trigger" while the look on her face was pure sadness and anger at my dad because we were watching my father and his gang try to staunch the bleeding and perform first aid. We did not play with the guns on the table after that. But I do remember shooting my first gun. My dad took us kids to the gun range, and he gave me an old black M-16 to shoot, I was four years old. It scared me a little. Imagine a little 4-year-old blonde girl holding an M-16. Just crazy thinking about it. My dad passed on his Army sharpshooter skills from me and I to my son Kirk. I taught my son to have more respect for weapons than my dad ever did and I wasn't going to allow him to turn into a crazy person. He knew how to survive and take care of himself but ultimately, he was always a gentle giant and hated confrontation.

By the way, first aid is something you learn pretty early on, because there are a lot of ways to get injured with a "criminal father." My dad was not (too) abusive some days while others he would beat us with a lasso for something stupid or shooting a gun at us if we misbehaved. My mom loved us, but she was depressed and sad having a crazy husband who was always committing crimes and she was abused by her father, so it was a cycle that she had to learn to break free from later on. To this day in her seventies, she wished that she had the strength to leave him because maybe us kids wouldn't had to grow up the way we did. She just believed in marriage and did everything she could to try and save my dad.

There were always weapons (of the sharp variety) or a lot of times lying around that my siblings and I got good at avoiding or when we were playing, we'd use them as fake weapons which, of course, since they were real and we were stupid, typically resulted in us getting to practice the first aid techniques my dad's friend had helpfully taught us. This was entirely normal to us, loud nightly commotion, a general tenseness around the house at all times, mostly sleeping during the day unless we bothered to get up to attend school, and a lot of injuries and cops busting into our house at all hours of the day.

I know now that regular childhood is full of little injuries, but we were always around blood and getting scratched up and scraped and gouged and bruised, just because the environment was dangerous. To this day I don't know how we survived except that we picked up the instincts that people who live with weapons and sharp objects lying casually anywhere just happen to develop. We also had a mother who kept us in church and kept God in our lives, in which I took to like a sponge, soaking it all up. Knowing I was loved by God, made it all worth it.

Once I was old enough to understand what was going on oddly enough, we kids were not conscripted to be a part of it at first. It seemed like my dad was doing it mostly because it was all he knew and after we were born, they tried to protect us and provide for us in the only way they knew how. Strangely, I remember all sorts of activities loading us four kids in the car and dropping daddy off somewhere in the dark and later picking him up to see rolls of cash and guns. Weapons were traded and stored (for those who don't know, guns are considered more secure currency because they can both be traded and used for intimidation), I do know it was still a chaotic and very scary environment to grow up in as a child. To always have cops trying to trick you in giving up your dad, always at our house. It was a scary environment growing up in as a child. You learn survival techniques pretty quickly.

You probably want to know how I got out of it. The story is pretty interesting because thankfully I had a mom that in spite of the environment my dad brought into our home, she took us to church and tried instilling something good in our lives. I was an angry kid, even had my close call in the 6th grade. I was lashing out, was angry and mad and wondered why God had forgotten and forsaken me. I was stealing and skipping school and just TIRED of my life that was thrusted on me. But that Summer God sent an elderly couple Albert and Juanita into my life and they took me under their wing and saved me. Took me to church every Sunday when my mom had to work and my dad was in prison again for the hundredth time. They took me everywhere with them and I was always over at their house.

They spent time, loved me and spent money on me and never asked anything in return. I loved them. When they died, it hurt like I lost a grandparent. I know the pain of losing a parent and grandparent because I eventually lost my dad during a run from the cops in a shootout in 1994. I was 15 when my dad was killed by cops, lost grandparents too and I was 20 when Albert and Juanita passed away. It broke my heart and man did I cry. I cried till I had nothing left in me.

Everyone's battles in their lives are different and you have to realize that God will carry you through all the tragedy in your life. Have you ever found yourself in a life pattern you wish to break free from? You know, a cycle, which keeps repeating itself? Have you ever felt like you keep going around and around the mountain only to end up back in the same spot? I wanted to break free from this type of life, and yet it seemed at the time I was powerless to do so. I know God got me through some traumatic times by putting good people in my life, to show me love and what my future could be like. I will never forget those people God sent to help me.