Graduation Day Without Me....

by MJNewell

I didn't make it to graduation with my class. I got married at sixteen. I would recommend staying in school, not because it didn't work for me but because it did. And chances are it would never happen like that again...

I loved school, hated going home. Home on our farm was yelling and screaming, beatings for minor infractions, a constant battle and from the time I was a very small child- I learned to run and hide.
I spent most of my first sixteen years out in the woods or riding my pony in the fields. I had plenty of hiding places when the old man got home so he wouldn't beat me. But even then,. I got the belt or his fist on a daily basis. I grew up thinking all fathers were like him.

I remember when mother brought the new baby sister home from the hospital ( I was four) ..
The old man came in the dining room, pulled the blanket down off the baby in the bassinette, yelled at my mother..
"That's not mine! It has black hair!" ( my mother has black hair) Then he kicked the bassinette and the baby flew across the room..thankfully my mother caught the baby. A few days later, the doctor was at the house. He worked the bones on the baby's head ..they were all shifted to one side. The old man said she came home from the hospital like that..Now, looking back, I think it happened when he kicked her out of the bassinette.

When my older sister was sixteen the old man caught her out on a date..He beat her with a rubber hose..She was black and blue all over.
When she married and left home, it was my turn and I became the subject of his tantrums and beatings. I wanted out of that house desperately..

I remember thinking of ways to kill him, before he killed me. He beat me unconscious many times , choked me until my tongue hung out and my throat swelled. . Made me pile four foot lengths of wood all night long, knocking the pile down and making me do it all over again.. ( I was a tiny girl, 5' 95 pounds.)

Then I met my future husband ..We got married (eloped) when I was sixteen. We had four children and our family life was totally different than what I grew up in. My husband never raised a hand to our children or me. We were poor , but we worked hard and gave our children all we had. They grew up and graduated from high school and one even went to college. They all married and were great parents.
I have been going to school ever since I got married. . I must have at least forty years of schooling under my belt by now. I passed my GED, went to nursing school, took writing courses in college and I still feel uneducated and lacking in knowledge.

This year we will be celebrating out 49th wedding anniversary ..I would really like to get my high school diploma for my fiftieth...

I never regreted getting married so young, the only regret is that my education suffered because of it.
mamie

Article submitted Thursday, May 22, 2008 & read 125 times.

Mary Jane Newell has been writing for the last ten years or more. Many of her stories have been published online and in small magazines. Her stories are sometimes fraught with horror, but her poems are hilarious!
Mary Jane is also known to be a pitbull when she finds abuse of any kind, political, the elderly, children..animal!

Leave your comments through Blogz:

» left by Teresa Ortiz (3 years 254 days ago.)

Wow! Thank you for sharing such a personal story. I'm so thankful your life changed when you married. I married young as well, and it's great that you are encourageing young ones to stay in school. My mom Got her high school diploma at age 58. She married young and dropped out of high school as well, but it didn't work out for her as it did you. Though you suffered at the hand of "the old man", it sounds like you have had a blessed life. Happy Anniversary and many more!!!!

Respond to this comment

14-0-0-0-1-ADSO