A journey through addiction

I will start this story from the beginning, but it will take more than one post to finish. I grew up in the Foothills of the Appalachians. We were dirt poor. In that kind of poverty, addiction is something that takes a hold of a lot of people. I believe the root cause is the hopelessness that poverty can make you feel. Many of the men became addicts. They felt the responsibility of providing for a family, but had no means to do so. They watched their children go hungry, their family go without healthcare of any kind, their cars break down again and again, and any hope of a better life dwindle away into the night sky.

When I was little, I was always told we were poor. I wouldn't get Christmas presents like the other kids because we were poor. Sometimes we had very little to eat because we were poor. I couldn't do activities some of the other children got to do because we were poor. I didn't go to the doctor when I was injured because we were poor. I didn't feel the poverty. I ran in the woods and played in the creek. I picked wildflowers and laid under the stars at night. The nights would be so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. If they stars were covered by clouds, you couldn't tell if your eyes were opened or closed.

To me, it was a magical life. I helped chop wood with my little hatched. I knew how to build a fire. We often cooked on a fire outside in the summers. It was too hot to cook inside. The well water we drank was always cold and prefect for a hot day, with a taste better than any water I have ever tasted. Fiji water, move aside!

We heated with wood. My parents would work on getting enough wood all year. The wood stove could make our little trailer very warm. I remember waking up and feeling so cold. My parents would stoke the fire, and it would soon get warm again. The floor would be icy in the mornings, though. I remember taking a bath, and then running to get under the covers with my dad to warm back up.

My parents were both college graduates. When they were lucky enough to find work, they often worked for minimum wage. None of the jobs down there offered healthcare. They didn't have to. People were so desperate that most jobs had applications from in from all the surrounding counties.

I remember that I loved my dad, but sometimes he got scary and mean. It happened occasionally. My mom and I would sometimes leave and visit friends, and then when we would return home, everything would be ok again. What seemed like a sometimes thing, an annoyance, grew into something much bigger, especially after we moved so my parents could find better jobs.

My long lost great grandfather.

My grandmother never met her father. She searched for him her whole life, but died never know what happened to him. We were simply told that after my my grandmother was born, during the Great Depression, her father decided to leave and go looking for work. For a while he sent letters and gifts, but then he stopped. The line from the family was that he just disappeared and they never knew what happened to him.

I decided that, with the internet, I might be able to find him. I had found my grandmother's baby book, thankfully, after she had died, and it had a small amount of information in it. Armed with that, and my mother's small amount of memories of whispered stories about him, I went to the genealogy department of the local library. Between researching at home and having them help me when I hit a road block, I was able to discover him after weeks of searching. The sad think was that he had died in 1968. My grandmother was still searching for him in the 90s, hoping he would still be alive so she could meet him. That made my heart sink.

Luckily, he still has one living brother, and a handful of kids and grand-kids. We have made contact and I am just thrilled to pieces. This actually happened a while ago, but today it all popped back into my head, and I wrote the following:

It is so strange, the things that pop into your head. My great-grandfather Jack Settle came back into my head today. Honestly I obsessed over finding him for so long, and after I did, and found a whole new branch of the family, I was in shock. But now that the shock has passed, I just feel sadness. And after speaking with some of our newly-found family members, I wish I could piece together what happened. I wish someone would have told the story before they died. Why was this such a big secret? One detail I wish I knew more about, and I might ask around and see if anyone has any info on it and if it is even true, we heard a hushed rumor in the family that Jack Settle had returned to the farm to visit my great-grandmother. I can only imagine he wanted to check in on his daughter. My great-grandmother sent him away. I don't know what year this was, but we are guessing, from what we have been told, this was only shortly before Jack Settle died. I have been missing my grandmother terribly. She had her own problems, but I felt a connection with her. I think she was witty, sarcastic at times, smarter than anyone gave her credit for, and had an amazing ability to befriend animals. I think she was also creative but she suppressed that side of herself for some reason. When I found the Settles, it really struck me to see these people who are into photography, make things with their hands, and from speaking on the phone with some of them, are also witty and sarcastic. I immediately felt like this was my family, and felt a connection to my grandmother. I feel like I have stuff in common with them. My mother and I have always loved art and music, and we love animals and the outdoors, and we have always been the oddballs. I guess we are all searching for our place in this world. When you come from a family that is so terribly different from yourself, it is hard to know why you are different, and why you are treated like an outsider. If unconditional love and acceptance aren't there, the differences create a gulf, and the "black sheep" feel a pain, a sadness, and a loss. But now I feel like I can go out into the world and know where I come from. We aren't freaks. We do have a place in this world. My only regret is that I wasn't able to do this while my grandmother was still alive. I want so badly to talk with her. Since I can't, I will light a candle for her, mourn her loss and mourn that she never met her family, and keep moving forward. I think my next step in this journey is to visit the graves.