The Life of a Single Mom

I was born in Pennsylvania in November of 1982 to my wonderful parents. At the time of my birth, my parents were living with my grandparents in their basement that was fixed up as an apartment. I spent a year and a half there with my parents when they wound up pregnant again. That's when my brother was born in July of 1984. About a year later, my parents started having problems due to my father cheating on her. He did everything he could to turn us against her, and it worked for a little while as well.

A month or so later, we lived with our mom at our other grandparents house. At that time, my dad had moved his new girlfriend/fiance into his basement apartment. During this time they were fighting for custody of my brother and I. Of course, my mother won. Come 1986 I believe it was, was when I started school. I went to school in Pennsylvania up until the 2nd grade.

At that time, my mom took us with her to Florida where we stayed at our aunt's house with her and her family. This was a terrible idea, but at the time it was our only choice. My mom worked at a gas station for a while there. Our cousins were terrible to us. They were always trying to get us to do stuff we didn't want to, do their chores, and anything else that they knew would get us into trouble. After so long, everyone started catching on to what was going on, and that's when my mom wanted to start looking for a place, but then I came down with the chicken pox...lol.

That Christmas when it came time to write our letters to Santa, I put down that I wanted a new home for my family so that we could get away from my aunt's family, a new car, and a couple of presents. I didn't think it would happen, but it was worth a shot. A week before Christmas we got a letter in the mail addressed to us from the North Pole. We were surprised. My mom opened it and pulled out the letter. It read: