Through the years………………….
I was born in 1958 in Wills Point Texas. My parents had 2 other kids at the time, Garry and Jimmy and were by all accounts thrilled to have a little girl. LeeAnn Merriweather had been Miss America a few years before I was born and my mother said that she loved that name and chose it for me for that reason. My birth certificate would list my name as first name Lee middle name Ann though no one ever called me Lee. At some point along the way I ran the names together and have used my maiden name LaFave as my middle name. I really don’t remember much about my early years. I know from stories that my family was very poor. That my dad drove a Wonder Bread truck so I’m sure that my love of donuts and all things pastry comes from those early years when those things were probably a staple of our diet. LOL I don’t remember my grandfather at all though I know from stories that he doted on me. He died when I was 3. My first real memory is of moving into a house in Mesquite, Texas when I was 5 and looking across the street and seeing this little girl about my age walking around the corner of her house carrying a giant teddy bear. That would be my friend Joni and we are still friends today. Joni and her family would become a significant part of my life for the next 7 years. In the chaos of my own home in which my dad traveled a lot and drank a lot and my mom trying to manage 5 kids on her own most of the time with very little money (because Robert and Connie had come along by then)…Joni’s house was a haven for me. When I close my eyes I can still see the fruit bowl that was always present on the counter at her house and I was always so excited when Shirley would offer me a banana. I’m not sure why we didn’t have bananas at home???, but for some reason I remember that being a real treat. I was a good student a school, but with curly permed hair, hand me down clothes that were always ill fitting and teeth that stuck out I was picked on a lot. Particularly by another neighbor girl, Tina, who is now a good friend. I was a bit of a crybaby back then. You could look at me wrong and I would cry according to my dad and so that was something that Tina, and my brothers, and some of the other neighbor kids focused on. “Let’s make LeeAnn cry” was something that I heard quite often and that I did quite often. My brothers would torture me with Cottonwood beetles, putting them in jars and saving them to haul out and torment me with. I took my refuge from the world in a hole in the floor of my bedroom that lead to a crawl space beneath the house. There I had placed a piece of cardboard and a flashlight and when life got to overwhelming that is where I’d go with my Nancy Drew book to shut out the world. I think my love of reading and writing began at an early age. It was an escape. And probably the reason I am claustrophobic now. I was not a popular kid at school, kind of a wall flower, inept at anything remotely athletic and so shy and insecure that I kept to myself. When all the other girls were having sleepovers and skating parties, I was usually at home because I rarely got invited to anything. I remember vividly one day in 2nd grade when at the end of the class day the teacher allowed a little girl to pass out her birthday invitations. One by one she went down the aisles handing out her invites to all the girls for it was to be a girls only party. When she came to me, she walked past and I remember that feeling to this day. That painful, humiliation and devastation of being left out. Years later, I would not allow my boys to be selective in regard to their birthday invites. They either invited the entire class at school, or they had a smaller party with only their closest friends. Once Andy had 32 kids at his party because we had moved at the semester and so he invited both his Hilldale and Ft. Gibson class to his party. We had to move it to the Church gym when the weather turned bad because there was no way to fit everyone into our home. Most of my memories from my childhood are blurred. I guess to sum it up I would say My dad drank and was rarely home, my mother cried a lot, my brothers fought a lot, and I just did the best I could to keep the peace. I hated conflict and to this day will go out of my way to avoid it. Some of my best memories are of days spent with Joni, making pot holders and selling them door to door. Having chinaberry fights with the neighborhood kids. Going on vacations to South Dakota in the summer where getting to stay in motel rooms and swim in the pool and eat out were amazing treats.
When I was almost 13 my grandmother died after a long illness and my dad got a new job and we moved to Oklahoma. I was devastated to leave Joni behind but excited because we were going to move to a bigger house and be able to afford things. My first day at school at Stillwater Middle School, I got off the bus, cornet in hand, wearing white jeans and a gray smiley face t-shirt. My first “friend” was Cheryl Cawley who is still a friend and you might say “family” because her sister married my brother. The first few months of Junior high were good because I was the “new girl with the funny Texas accent” and I got a lot of attention. And I discovered BOYS! I had my first kiss on the back of a band bus that year. By my freshman year, that romance was over and several other boys had come and gone. For the most part I hated High School. I never really fit in. I wasn’t popular enough to be in the “in crowd”, not smart enough to be in the “smart kid crowd”. I mostly felt invisible. I loved some of my classes, particularly Journalism because I loved to write. I didn’t really participate in many social activities and I dreaded pep rallies because I would usually sit alone. My first real heartbreak came in 10th grade but I moved on and by my Junior year was part of a couple. I had a couple of close friends that I hung out with when I wasn’t with my boyfriend but as typical for girls that age, I put far too much importance on the guy at the expense of some pretty great friendships. My home life was better. My dad was home a lot more and my mom was a lot happier. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor. My dad gave me a brand new Shiny Ford Pinto, Candy apple red for my 16th birthday. I didn’t have designer clothes but I had new things. I graduated in 1976 and went on to OSU but with no real desire or direction . I didn’t participate in a lot, though I did join a sorority at the urging of my boyfriend’s mother. By then I was being controlled by the relationship, not allowed to socialize much. Most of my friends, saddened by the way I let myself be treated, had gone by the wayside. And in spite of my family’s urgings that I not do it, I dropped out of college and got I married. My mother would later remark that her “heart broke that day” because she knew I was neither loved nor in love.
By my early 20s the marriage had taken a turn for the worse and I was in constant emotional pain. Trapped in prison of my own making. My only solace from the “storm” was work and I loved my job. It was there that my true personality began to emerge. I had friends and co-workers who liked me, who thought I was really funny and I began to “shine”. My sense of humor, long suppressed, began to emerge but only for the short time I was at work. At home, I was under duress, trying to keep up the pretense of a marriage gone very wrong. Had it not been for the “get your shit and get in the car Pizza Hut incident” as it would come to be referred to, I would have probably been dead by now. Or in prison for killing someone. As it turned out, that very public humiliation, being slapped around while my co-workers looked on horrified, would turn out to be the catalyst for me to remove myself from the situation and make a vow to myself that I would never allow myself to be mistreated again. Later, I would marry one of the co-workers present on that night and have 2 sons and 18 years of what I felt was a great marriage before the walls came crumbling down. I would say those years from 25-30 were some of the happiest in my life though I didn’t like everything. Living in Houston for example was awful. I hated it. But those years as a new mom to Chris (1985) and Andy (1988) were priceless. If I had to go back to a period of time in my life the time when the boys were toddlers would be what I would choose. My mom was alive and we became bonded on an entirely different level..mom to mom. Mike was happy, I was happy, the kids were happy. It was an idyllic period of time in my life.
By my 30’s with young boys now participating in scouts and baseball and soccer and karate, birthday parties and church camp and all the activities they loved. Life was good. We bought our first home. We went on lots of family vacations. We moved to Muskogee in 1989 and that was both good and bad. Good from the standpoint that Mike was really happy with his work but bad because my mom was heartbroken when we moved from Kingfisher. The boys loved school and I was blessed to have a job that allowed me to work from home. I was PTO President, homeroom mom, cub scout leader, all those fun things. The boy’s activities became our “life” but I truly loved that life. The soccer games, the baseball games…going to Church as a family. We also moved to Ft. Gibson and living in the country was a whole new world for all of us and I loved the peacefulness of it. As my 30’s ended I looked forward to what the next years would bring.
Unfortunately, they brought a lot of heartache and sorrow. My marriage fell apart and that was probably the singular most devastating event in my life. Even though my mom’s death a few years later would affect me profoundly, there was a big difference in the sorrow. Divorce I think is much harder, especially when its something you don’t want. Because in that instance the person you love has chosen to leave you, unlike a death where they had no choice. Looking back on my 40’s three significant losses come to mind. The end of my marriage, my mothers’ death and the end of a long term relationship. Both the marriage and the relationship ended with a betrayal and those losses were perhaps the hardest to bear because of that. When you love someone deeply and they let you down there is no greater heartache. Still my 40’s had some pretty amazing accomplishments and happy things as well. For one thing, my boys both graduated from High School and went on to college. I went back to college and got my degree which was a life changing experience both in personal satisfaction and income potential. My son Chris go married and brought Juliet into my life and that was a great blessing. My wounds healed, I found out what I was made of, I began to realize that life is what you make it, not what others do to you. I became a woman of strength and grace, independent but caring and pretty happy with who I was.
And now in my 50’s I have found a happiness that defies words . I woke up one day and realized that no one was keeping me from doing what I wanted to do except me. And I started doing my comedy. And I started writing again. Funny how a simple thing like blogging can be so fulfilling. I have been blessed to see my two sons become self sufficient amazing men. I have been blessed to reconnect with friends from long ago. And then there’s Joe! Amazing, wonderful, awesome Joe. Someone that loves me just as I am. Someone who thinks I’m pretty wonderful. Someone I pinch myself sometimes to see if I’m dreaming because I am so incredibly happy to be married to this wonderful, caring man.
Tomorrow is my 54th birthday. Last year at this time I was falling in love. Last year at this time I was super excited about performing at my class reunion. Last year at this time I was happy at my job. Last year at this time I was overwhelmed with debts and a house much to big for me to take care of.
And now, on the eve of my birthday I am happily married, using my talents whenever I get an opportunity, unemployed but out of debt, living in an RV that I absolutely love and feeling like I’m on vacation every time I step outside and see the trees and the riverwalk and the skyline of downtown Tulsa. I am feeling pretty blessed these days. I look around and realize there is no one I’d rather be than me. I’m good. I love my life. I have so much. I have so many friends that care about me and I have an amazing family that still gets together a couple of times every year. I used to dread birthdays, dreaded the thought of getting older. Not anymore. Time passes and life brings new challenges and new blessings. And that’s how it should be. I am looking forward to seeing what lies ahead.
Happy Birthday? You bet. How could it be anything but? Blessings abound. I am happy! I am loved. What could be better than that?
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