Our mother crossed the line (in my opinion) to find her happiness or what she thought was her happiness. She chose what she was used to, rather than what was best for her and her children. People make poor choices all the time, but common sense is common sense, no matter what you are used to. Make a mistake the first time, okay it's a mistake. Make the same mistake again, that's not a mistake, that's a choice. Does it matter? Hell yes it does. It's the difference between your children having a happy, successful life OR a life of hate, distrust, pain and misery.
I understand her first choice to marry a young, handsome man serving in the Army. He was stationed in Japan, during the Korean war and immediately swept her off her feet. They met while she worked at the PX. Against my grandparents wishes, she married Fred William Kendall. He left to come back home to the US, while she got things in order to come here to live a happy American life with my dad. So she thought!
She had to take the 2 week boat trip to the US by herself. When she arrived, he was no where to be found. Here she is, in a foreign country, left her family and all of her loved ones, to come here to be with the man of her dreams!! So much for that, this was the first sign that she should have listened to her parents. He didn't have a house, a good paying job, (in fact he had no job at all) or anything that he told her, he had. This was the beginning of a 5 year hell for her and me and my older sister, Diana.
He was a party animal, loved his alcohol and cigarettes!! He was a very popular man, nice looking, knew many Hollywood figures and was a womanizer. He took her to Hollywood parties where they danced the evenings away. They were quite the lookers and she enjoyed all the fun and attention!!
The abuse started shortly after arriving here in the U.S. in 1953. It always revolved around money or the lack of. My sister was born in Aug. 1955 and I, in Jan. 1958. My mother was offered a job as a waitress from a Chinese lady. She had seen her pushing us in a stroller and started asking her questions. Soon, my mother was earning some much needed money for food and rent. As she worked, my father was watching us. When my mother would come home from work, expecting to find him watching us, she would find us with a babysitter. The babysitter would need to be paid, so she paid with her tip money. My father would come home late, drunk and very abusive. He would riffle through the clothes, hanging in the closet to find her tip money. She had hidden this money from him to buy groceries and milk for my sister and I. She would go out to his car and would find empty, used McDonald's wrappers thrown behind the seat. The straw had lipstick on it and she then knew that he was secretly dating someone.
After time had passed, she found out who this "other" woman was. She walked and walked with my sister and myself in the stroller. She stood on a corner and could see the house of his mistress. There was our car, parked out front!! On the corner, there was a phone booth. She called her house and her mother answered. Mrs. Johnson was her name. My mother asked for my father and she calmly said that he wasn't there! My mother could see his car parked out in the front of her house and then she soon saw my father running out of her house to jump in his car to go home.
The mistress........Carol Johnson, now known as Carol McClure was her name, she was 16 and she was pregnant by my father. Is this why Mrs. Johnson was lying for my father? To protect the man of her future grandchild? Yes, my dad was going to father a child with a 16 year old child, although we had no food or money or anything!! My mother shared a Chef Boyardee boxed pizza with her best friend, Pat Guthrie and her two kids. There were 2 adults and 4 children sharing one box of Chef Boyardee pizza. What a piece of shit!! The little tip money that my mother made went to taking Carol to the movies and to McDonald's. Yes he was a womanizer alright! What kind of mother would let her 16 year old daughter sleep with a married man? Better yet, if she didn't know, why would she let her "minor" child date a married man? Trash, I tell you!
Soon after "the" incident, my mother and father divorced. He then married Carol and had to have her mothers consent! You wonder why my mother hadn't divorced him sooner? Japanese did not believe in divorce, it meant you failed in life. That in addition to, her parents trying to dissuade her from marrying him, she couldn't admit her failures. Also, she had no means to support herself and two kids. He had no job and therefore no money to give her for child support. Where to go, what to do, how to survive?
To be continued..........
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