Have you ever asked your parents if you were planned or an accident? I did, and they both told me a different answer. It was only as an adult that I truly understood what they were trying NOT to tell me growing up.
When I posed this question to my mother who was full blood Cherokee Indian I got THAT LOOK. That, I don't want to have this conversation look with her black as the night eyes! She would never truly give me a straight answer and would change the subject. Now my father, being the big Stout German, in every sense of the word gave a different answer. He would proudly say.."BOTH", "You were an accident on her part and planned on mine". She would shoot him one of those looks and that would be the end of the conversation until I asked again.
I am the product of both of my parent's second marriages. I am the youngest of ten children. Yet I was basically raised an only child, unless you count my dad who never truly grew up.
My mother was raised in Harlan, KY at the foot of Black Mountain by parents who were both full blood Cherokee. My grandfather never truly worked and was considered a "barter" and a mean as snake SOB to most. The closest I ever got to him was from the backseat of our car as he stood on a porch. Mom pointed at him and said "that is your grandfather" and hit the gas. I was never allowed near him and as I grew I understood why. My grandmother had passed before I was ever born so I never had any maternal grandparents in my life. My mom helped raise her brother and sisters and left Harlan at the age of 16 to get away from her father. She moved to Cincinnati with friends.
My father was raised in Portsmouth, OH and being the only boy in the family was catered to but lived on bologna sandwich's and ran the streets. His father was a hard working Tall German baker and divorced from my father's mom by the time I was born. My grandmother was neither grandmotherly or motherly. I think the closest thing she ever truly mothered were her little tiny dogs. She was not loving or close to any of us so I had no paternal grandmother either in my life. Now my grandfather was MY HERO! In my eyes there was no one in the world like Pa-Paw. He was a GIANT and although he smelled like chewing tobacco and I had to be careful not to hurt his legs we had a love that I still feel to this day.
Now back to that question....Was I planned?
The bottom line is that my father was madly in love with my mother. After a lifetime of raising siblings and now her own four children by her first husband she had no desire for more kids. Now mind you that my father already had five kids as well by his first marriage. I'm not so sure he truly wanted another mouth to feed. But in his mind he knew my mother and he knew in the 1960s if she was pregnant she would marry him. So as the story goes according to HIM, he got her drunk and here I am!! It wasn't until I was an adult and my mother was very ill that my sister finally confirmed what I'd always thought. My mother was pregnant with me when they married. That's why I never saw a picture of their wedding and they never truly would say how many years they were married. My mom swore my sister (who was 16 years my senior) to secrecy. Positive in her mind that had I known, I would lose respect for her and feel unwanted or unloved. The exact opposite is true...I had never felt unloved by my parents. But now here I am...the baby of a modern day Brady Bunch. Having 5 brothers and sisters that I rarely saw growing up (my dad's kids), and 4 that were so much older than me that by the time I was 7 they were no longer living at home. So I was raised alone with two parents that were older than all my friends parents and had siblings that were more like extra parents.
