The good news is: my brother managed to send me a few pictures from when I was little (Harris' mom wanted them for a project). The bad news is: they triggered a few memories that I would've rather forgotten.
Picture number one was of me sitting on the porch with my siblings. We're all dressed in our "best" and holding picket signs. My little sister is holding that famous "pro-life" sign showing the aborted fetus. At the time, I thought that that's what an aborted fetus looked like. Later, much much later, I heard that that picture was really an eighteen week fetus that had been miscarried. I know abortion is a touchy subject and the point of this blog isn't pro-life/pro-choice - what I'm really angered about is that at such a young age, my siblings and I were made to be show pieces for the "pro-life travelling show". We would get together with other families in the area and stand on corners holding up our signs. We only knew abortion from the twisted and really black-and-white lectures we were given. On FJ, someone said that she resented people who were like us (like I used to be) because it took the decision to talk about abortion with her children in her own time away from her and she's absolutely right. Not only is she right about her child, but she's right about the children participating in the protest. ATI/QF wants to talk about protecting children from the world and keeping their hearts innocent - and then they go and shove a three year old in front of traffic and shove a sign showing a botched abortion in their hand! For the record - I was told that abortions were the result of ONLY pre-marital, teen sex, OR affairs. Because, as it was explained to me, what women in her God designed relationship would even consider turning down that blessing? I was told that the women who had abortions WOULD get some sort of cancer (breast cancer, I think) or an STD. Still- mainly- we didn't even discuss it as much as we were shoved out there to protest something we couldn't possibly understand at such a young age.
Picture number two is me holding a baby (I think I know which one but it could be one of our guests' babies). I'm smiling - but I'm looking off to the left of camera and I'm holding the baby like it has a smelly diaper or it has a contagious disease. Yep, that was my childhood and my job- the baby holder. :/
Picture number three is my older brother's "graduation" from homeschool. It's probably one of the last pictures my family ever took of me in the house. What makes me choke up isn't the picture - it's the house and the people in it. I miss my siblings so much. I miss certain things about that house. But, the pow-pow stick (labeled "Discipline" with paint) gives me chills. That came along when I was a little older, so I didn't get it as much - but some of my sisters did. And there it is in the picture of my brother's graduation - lurking in the background. WTF?
That's it though. Those are the pictures my brother could get for me - an abortion rally, holding a stinky baby, and at a homeschool graduation with the threat of discipline hanging around. Yes. My life in pictures.
Then, I look around my room here and see the pictures I have tacked around. Harris and I at his parents this Christmas. Me and a hiking pal on top of a peak. Me with a friend swimming in a mountain creek. The boys from my nanny gig and I with paintball paint on us and another of us from a Chuck E Cheese photo booth. These are the pictures I should have from my childhood.
