Money means more!!

It was 1970 and I was 12 years old. We lived on the 13600 block of Lemoli Ave in Hawthorne, CA.

There was my mom, step dad, (Benny Allen Kirkland) and my sister. We moved here from a one bedroom apartment in Torrance, CA. (To learn why we all lived in a one bedroom apartment, follow this link, "A broken Household" ) to a 3 bedroom court type of house. My sister didn't live there long, as she became pregnant at age 16 and moved away.

Here we were at age 15 and 12. This was just about one year before my sister became pregnant and a little over a year before she got married and left our house.

I suppose the reason my sister got pregnant at such a young age, was to get away from our sexually and emotionally abusive, step dad. We never talked about it, but I figured it out later on in life.

I hated everything about my life. I hated living in the ghetto. I hated the way I looked. I hated living with our step dad. I hated moving again and hated the way I felt around my step dad Ben. It wasn't until this age that I realized what Ben had been doing was wrong and sexual toward me, even though it made me feel uncomfortable and weird. I decided one day to gather up enough courage to tell my mom that he had been making me feel very uncomfortable in sexual ways and that I didn't want him to continue.

I remember walking into the kitchen where she was cooking at the stove. I remember the washing machine was in the kitchen next to the stove. I walked up to the washer and stood next to her. I told her that I wanted to talk to her about something. I said that Ben had been doing things to me that wasn't right and I wanted him to stop. She asked what kind of things. I told her touching me in my crotch. She turned to me and said, "I don't believe you!" This is the exact moment that I know, I lost all trust, what little I ever had, in my mom or anyone. I was lost, numb, hurt, angry and confused. I didn't have anyone on this earth to protect me, but her. My sister was gone, my dad wasn't present in my life, I had no relatives, they were all in Japan. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, no cousins, no friends, no adult figures that I could turn to for help. I only had my mom and she just turned her back on me. Money meant more to her than protecting me. She didn't want to leave him and have to support me by herself. After all, she had just been out on her own raising two daughters by herself a couple years before this and I guess she didn't like it.

Here is my mother and me just before I decided to tell her about my step dad. I was a strong kid, with strong emotions and a strong personality. I suppose that is why my mother never paid me no mind. It had always been that way all of my life. By her not leaving him to protect me, was kind of the same feelings I had always gotten from her. Me or my feelings didn't mean much!!

Bitter wife, bitter ex, bitter life!!...... Part 2

Back in about 1984, just after our second daughter was born, I was living with my husband, not happily, but married nonetheless. We had, had much trouble in our marriage, (as documented in Part 1) and had been married for about 4 years, with two daughters.

We lived in Lakewood and I became friends with our mail carrier. (I know, I know) He was very nice and we talked almost on a regular basis. I worked hours at work that I would come home around noon, so there was always a chance that I would be home when he delivered our mail. I remember a bitter cold, rainy, stormy day and he was drenched and shivering. I knew he would be soaking wet when he came by and I made him a cup of hot chocolate. When he came, I offered it to him and he gladly accepted. We talked as he stood on the porch, dripping wet and we talked for quite some time. We talked personal stuff as he had been experiencing difficulties in his marriage as well. (at least that's what he told me) As the days went on, we talked. We exchanged phone numbers as offerings of communication, when we were going through difficult times with our spouses. His wife found my number on a piece of paper and called my husband. She asked him if he knew that I was having an affair behind his back, etc. etc. We really weren't, but that's what she told him. He confronted me and I tried to explain that it was a friendship, but he didn't buy it. Well, at least he said that he didn't. This started the bitterness between me and my carriers wife. Her because she thought we were having an affair and me because she called my husband to tell him about what, she thought was going on.

We remained friends and talked each other through hard times, fighting, drinking, etc. He eventually told me that he left his wife and moved into his moms house. She lived nearby and had extra rooms, as she lived alone. He lived in a room in the back of her house. We continued to talk and the bitterness between my husband and I grew. Every time I went to the store or anywhere, he would question me. I was not having an affair!! Lew called the broker/real estate man that sold us our house and told him that we didn't want it anymore and couldn't keep it. We owed way more for it, than it was worth. He told him that if he didn't take it back, that we were going to walk away from it, so all papers were signed for him to take over the house. (lucky us) We decided to separate and I moved and got an apartment with my two girls in Huntington Beach, CA.

As I lived in Huntington Beach, CA with my two daughters, Lew would visit and we would go out, occasionally. I guess you could say, we were seeing if things would or could still work out between us. He started dating (openly) a few different women from our work. (trashy, I may add) In the meantime, I was also talking to my ex-mail carrier, as he was separated from his wife and getting a divorce. (so he told me) As my husband was deciding that he didn't want to try and reconcile, I too was deciding that I felt more for my friend/mail carrier than I had thought. My husband filed for divorce from me and we decided amicably, all the details of our divorce. My husband was to pick the girls up every weekend, but that proved too much for his dating life, so it became less and less. He asked to take them on vacation to Ohio to visit with his family and I agreed.

He took them for a week and this is when he met up with Sharon, someone he knew in Jr. high school. They went on a date and the rest was history. He spent the whole week with her and my girls stayed with their grandma Clay. Nice vacation for them, they thought they were spending a week with their dad!! No such luck!

We definitely were not getting back together this time. I thought for moments that we could make it work and then there were times that I knew we couldn't. I was now dating Charlie, my ex-carrier. I thought and felt that we were exclusive, but was I in for the shock of my life! This is where my bitterness came in toward him.

I had talked with his mom on occasion when I called her house to speak with him. She informed me that she was so upset as she was just informed that her son, Charlie and his wife were expecting a baby. They both knocked on her door and when she came to the front door, they both told her. She said she was so mad, as they were separated and he was living with her. He moved back into his place with his wife and that was that. When I did speak with him, he professed his misery and stated to me that he didn't want to stay and that all this was the biggest mistake that could happen. He again, moved out and to his mom's house. We would see each other on occasion and he professed his love to me. He told me that they were continuing with their divorce even though she was pregnant, I believed him. I know it was wrong and if I could ever turn back time, I would. This would have never happened. I can look back now and just cringe. She eventually gave birth to a boy and was planning on raising him by herself. (Mind you, all of this is what I was told, as I never spoke with her directly to get her side of the story.) As a result of our love for each other, I became pregnant also. We were together throughout my pregnancy and I gave birth to our daughter, Michelle Leigh on Sept. 5th, 1986.

We moved into a house in Lakewood and his older son, by a previous marriage, came to live with us. He eventually divorced (finalized it) but nothing was ever right or was it ever, bitter free. She never forgave him and made his life a living hell for as long as she could. We all felt bitter. I felt bitter toward him and her, she felt bitter toward me and him, and he felt bitter toward both of us. I think because he didn't handle the situation properly from the start, we both felt that he wasn't truthful to either one of us. She felt betrayed by him as he was lying to her and I felt betrayed by him as he wasn't truthful to me either.

Here is a picture of him and I with 3 of our 5 kids. Missing was his son Andre' and our daughter, Michelle. We were dropping my two oldest off to their dad in San Francisco.


This was all such a terrible time in all of our lives. If it were to be done all over again, it would've been done very differently.

Poor choices

How far do loved ones go in hurting others, in their journey to find happiness? Where is the line drawn? Does it matter?

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..........