Where were we? Ah yes. My mother and Ron are married. My mother at this time is 16. As I don't know how old Ron is, I'm only guessing he was in his early 20's. On my mom's 18th year, Ronnie is about 8 or 9 and Chris is 5 or 6. In August I am born. For reasons unknown to me, at 9 months old my parents divorced. From what was told to me, Ron was left living in his trailer with his two boys and hardly a thing. Ron was also going to college. My mother takes me, and to my knowledge, moves about an hour away to Gretna.

There she meets Mike and his two girls. How they met is unkown. As I was too young to remember, and no one has ever told me too much; we will skip ahead a year or two. At some point my mom had told Ron that since her and Mike were to be wed, and that they are comfortable financially, that Ron doesn't have to pay child support.

Now, around the age of 2 or 3, my mom calls Ron and tells him he has a choice. He can eithr pay two years worth of child support at once, go to jail, or give me up for adoption to Mike. The reason't for this are completely unclear. It could have been that Mike was between jobs. It could have been because I was about to have heart surgury and they needed to put me on Mike's insurance.

Whatever the cas was, Ron was put in a very awkward position. He was living in a trailer, raising 2 small boys, and going to college. He couldn't afford to pay that much in child support in a lump sum. He couldn't go to jail, who would take care of his kids? He really had no other choice. Ron agreed to let Mike adopt me on the condition that he would still be in my life and known to me as my godfather. Mike and my mom had my little brother Sean in '81.

Sometime between the ages of 3 and 4, we moved to Alabama, where Mike worked for Intergraph Corp. I remember still seeing Ron, Ronnie and Christopher, as well as Ron's mom (Momo Lois).

Life was pleasent and sweet. Living n a small town. Going to church every Sunday. Hell, I was even a brownie, about to cross the bridge to be a girl scout. In '85, Mike was transfered to Wellington, NZ. Ron, in fear of not seeing me for years, asked my mother if he could have me for 2 weeks. He would come to Alabama to pick me up, and take me back to Louisiana. Mike and mom would be able to pick me up on thier way to Houston when they said good-bye to Mike's family. It was agreed to.

Then, my mother overheard me talking to Momo Lois on the phone. She didn't hear a scared little girl not wanting to leave her country and friends. She heard a little girl, her daughter asking if she could live with her grandmother.

Let me explain a bit more.

I was around 7 years old. I didn't want to move to another country. I was Scared. Upon talking to my grandmother, I told her that I wanted to move in with her. My mother heard me, and got scared. (I suppose of my biological family taking me away from her.)

Well, needless to say, we left the country early. Ron showed up in Alabama to pick me up, and the house was empty. Upon asking the neighbor, he found out that we had already gone. Ron called Mie's family to findout where we were, and they didn't tell him. For 8 years, Ron had a private investigator looking for me in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.

The last time I had seen Ron was when I was 5 years old. Eventually, I forgot about him and my 2 brothers.

We lived overseas for a few years, and then came back to the states. I was very sheltered as a child. It was a good thing though. I got to be a kid for a while. I wasn't sheltered to the point where I didn't know about sex and violence. There are things that happened in my life that exposed me to them in a very personal way. We won't go into these things for the protection of myself and those involved. We moved around a bit, and that helped.

At the age of 12, things in my life changed dramatically.

To read about those things go to Ages 13 and Up