Moments In Life

There are moments in your life where you can look back and see that one single event changed your life irrevocably. Something that was so profound that you know that there is no going back, no recovering from it. I have had several such moments in my life. It seems, as I begin to get older, they become linked with one another like a circle. Never ending. Never knowing where one begins and the other ends. Let me explain.

For those of you who have followed me for a while know the story of my sister. Beautiful, smart, charismatic, full of life. Melody Joy was her name and it fit her well. She had the voice of an angel and brought joy to everyone in her life. She had three beautiful children. Sadly, her life was cut short by a domestic violence dispute. I will not go into all the details in the post, if you want to read them, you can check the archives. The basics of it are that it was an abusive, jealous husband, combined with drugs and alcohol, and the gun she bought to protect herself that ended her life.

When my uncle was a young man, around 17 or so, he went hunting with his best friend. They laid the guns against a fence so they could climb over. My uncles gun did not have the safety on and when it hit the ground, it discharged and shot his best friend. He held him in his arms as the young man died, my uncle screamed for help and no one came. They found him the next day, still holding onto his best friend.

Growing up, I had a lot of cousins, there were 27 of us grandkids. There were some that I was closer to than others however. One of them, Julie, was only a year older then me and we were very close. At the age of 12, I went to visit her where she lived with her mother. We had a great time and I got to meet her boyfriend. We became instant friends and I also fell in love with his mother. She was the kind of mother I had always wanted and for about two years after I had left to go back to the hell of foster and group homes, she would write to me and tell me about the things happening in their lives. One day I got the call that Billy (her son who was my cousins boyfriend) had been involved in an accident. It seems that he went to collect his younger brother from a friends house for dinner and when he went in, he found the two boys playing with a gun. The home they were visiting was a police officers and it was his duty weapon. Billy demanded the weapon and his brother just laughed at him and waved the gun some more. Billy, afraid for everyone’s safety, moved to take the gun and a struggle ensued, it ended up with Billy shot point blank in the chest. He did not survive. The younger brother had believed that what he had in his hand was a toy gun.

These are stories that most people read about in the news every once in a while. This has happened to three people in my life that I know and love. The losses were devastating.

The most recent of these however, was the loss of my sister. This led me to one of the most critical decisions in my life. In a day and age where you can get toy guns of any kind, I made the decision that none of my children would be allowed to play with guns. No water guns, no cap guns, no pretend rifles, not even a silly string gun.

A bit harsh you say? A woman who doesn’t think anyone has the right to have a gun? No, I believe everyone has the right to choose weather to arm themselves with guns or not. It is a constitutional right and who am I to say that is wrong. I grew up with guns. I can shoot and clean guns with the best of them. No joke, I was 20 years old before I knew you had to have a license to hunt because my grandfather took us hunting year round. This was not just hunting for sport. We lived in Colorado and we hunted deer, elk, rabbits, pheasants, ducks and other various animals, but we also ate everything that we shot and killed. So, just so that I am clear on my stance, I believe that everyone has the right to choose.

My choice has been not to allow it. A lot of people do not understand this. A lot of people, even people in my life, have felt that by not teaching them how to handle guns properly, that I am tempting them to seek it on their own, thus putting them into further danger. I do not agree. This is why. A few years back, when Chris and I first got together, we took the children to the park. We did this on a regular basis, so, pretty normal. What made this so different was that as Chris and I got settled down on the grass with a blanket both the children came running straight for us at breakneck speed. “There’s a gun by the swings Mommy, there’s a gun by the swings” Neither of them touched it, they simply came to us and told us, which is something we had taught them to do. Now, mind you, when we inspected the gun, it was a toy gun. No harm no foul. It did however, look exactly and I do mean exactly like a revolver. We had to pick it up to tell the difference.

I am droning now aren’t I? There is a point to all of this.

You see, my brother called me to ask if he could take the children camping. I had some serious reservations about him doing this because he is not a very responsible adult. I asked who all would be going. He said him and four kids. I said no. He said okay.

Then he went and told my mother that it was okay by me, that I said he could take them. That was so not true. But, because he told her that I said he could, she allowed him to take my 12 year old daughter and my 8 year old son camping.

My mother was upset because when my brother “came back” from camping, he drove the children straight over to my ex’s house, which, was not the plan. It left the youngest son with my mother for the 4th of July when they are too old for fireworks.

So, all day I call my ex. Getting madder and madder by the minute that I can’t get a hold of them. Around 4pm on the 4th they finally call me. Seems that my ex and his wife went with my ex and my ex told me that my brother got up way before the others and left the camping area with just him and his two boys. Left my kids with my ex, not to mention all of MY camping gear that he borrowed.

So, this would make most people feel better, but not me. You see, my ex and my brother were very close during our marriage. My brother was only 13 when we got married and he lived with us for most of our married lives. I know first hand that the two of them like to get together and drink.

So, to keep the peace and explain it to my mom I give her a call back. It is at this time that she tells me that my brother told my dad he had to come back early because his shoulder was sore from shooting.

….

“Shooting what?” is my shocked response.

“A shotgun Nikki, they took a shotgun with them”

Of course, I blew my freaking top. I was screaming so loud the neighbors could hear me I’m sure.

One might think this would be the worst of it, but oh no. You see, I hung up with my mother and called my ex back, I didn’t even talk to him, I demanded to speak to my daughter.

I struggled to keep my voice calm “So, did you have fun camping?” I’m sure by now she thought I was crazy, we had just had this conversation. “Yes mommy, it was fun” after a long pause I decided to just come out with it “I heard Uncle J took a gun” I tried to keep my voice casual, calm, cool and collected. I don’t think I did such a great job because her voice became small as she said “He did Mom, and, Mom, I’m not supposed to tell you, but, he showed me how to shoot it”

No joke, I felt like the floor fell out from beneath me, even Chris could see something was very wrong and he jumped to his feet and grabbed me, forcing me to sit down. I could only stare up at his eyes and blink as I tried to get my bearings and think of what to say. The adrenaline in me was pumping so fast and hard I could see Chris lips moving but I didn’t hear anything. He shook me once really good and the concern in his face brought my words out “They let her shoot a gun”

“What about JJ?” I blink at Chris’ words and repeat the question to my daughter who gives me an emphatic “NO” and goes on to tell me that he was sleeping. I later find out that while SHE was sleeping, they did allow him to shoot the gun.

Of course, I go off on my ex. He admits they were drinking while doing all of this. So, not only have they broken my cardinal rule, they broke the second rule too?!

I have a FREAKING COURT ORDER that says no one is allowed to drink in front of my children. I did this to protect them from shit like this, from their alcoholic father.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM?!

I tried to be calm, really I did. Listening to their fucking pathetic excuses just pissed me off. He stammered some dumb shit about how sorry he was, how I was right, how he should have asked me.

I am heartbroken over this. I feel very betrayed by my brother. The one person all my life I’ve been able to count on and he let me down in such a major way. They took my children out in the middle of no where, got drunk, handed them guns, shot guns while drunk, told my children to lie to me.

I can’t even begin to describe all the damage they’ve done. I’ve spent years teaching my children to not even touch guns, now they will throw everything I told them out the window because hey, they got to shoot guns and no one got hurt, so, why shouldn’t they, they “learned how to handle guns”.

Now, if my perverted brother puts his hands on my daughter or son and tells them not to tell, they are going to think that is the right thing to do. Not to tell. I am so fucking furious, I have no words. I am going to post this and maybe I’ll come back to it in a few days.