Texas April 2013

So here I am at my youngest sister, Cheril's apartment in The Woodlands, Texas just outside Houston. Here to visit my parents, Cheril, Dawn & Matt.

Main purpose of visit is to visit step-mom Joyce who has cancer. Small cell something. Caused by a lifetime of smoking. Last time I saw her was Thanksgiving 2012 and she looked like a concentration camp survivor, weighing 115lb. She has since lost 10 pounds from trouble swallowing and has had a feeding tube inserted. So not looking forward to seeing that. She had also shaved her head because her hair was falling out due to chemo & radiation treatments.

Joyce has always treated me decently. She would stay up late with me and listen to my teenage rants. She wrote to me throughout my life, always sent birthday cards and money. My parents were divorced when I was 4. My dad did not ever write and always seemed very quiet. Not that I got the impression he didn't care about me when I was with them, just that he didn't keep up with me when I was with mom, which was during the school year so I really don't know him.

Apparently I don't know either of them very well.

For a few years I have been hearing all these rumblings that my parents were swingers back in the 70's. The source of this story is my now deceased paternal step-grandmother, Mavis, who I called Granny. Granny is another crazy story but that will be for another post. I do not know whether to believe all this or not but my sisters are convinced. Cheril believes the story. She heard it from Dawn, who heard it from Granny. Why on earth she would tell Dawn something like this I cannot fathom except I do know that Granny did love to gossip.

Back to Joyce. The story she told me of her childhood was one of a passive mom and a dad who always thought he was being cheated on and was verbally abusive to her and her sisters. Joyce couldn't get out of the house soon enough and married young, but I dont know how young. Tommy cheated on her and she left him. She said she loved him "with a fire" and would never ever love another man the way she loved him, would never trust another man again. Along comes my dad and she married him. I was about 4.