Kimberly
Kimberly would like if everyone loved as much as she did. If she could write down all of the emotions in her head, they could possibly explain her life and make one of the greatest novels in the world. This story will start with explaining her history, which is her story and she wishes it on no one. Enjoy living her story as you read along about her great balloon bursting childhood and forbidden love that occurred when she was in her fifties. She was born and raised on a seventy-seven acre farm in a little two bedroom house that her parents rented from her mother’s parents. Her mother’s parents owned the small farm in Ohio, USA.
“Hey mom,” said Kimberly, “What age do I have to be when you allow me to date?” Kimberly was polite and asked her mom this question because she wanted to ask a young man she met in high school to the Holiday Dance. Her one older sister insisted that her name should be Kimmy and not Kimberly or Kim, but she liked to be called Kim, which her older siblings never respected and they called her Kimmy all the time. Kim was going to turn 14 years old and thought that she should be allowed to date. Her mom, Clarice, didn’t answer because she was busy talking to Kim’s grandmother on the phone about another wedding reception for Russ. This would be his second marriage. Clarice wanted everything just right.
Russ was Kim’s mom’s favorite child and Kim had never, in her short life so far of 13 years, got to have the full attention of her mom unless she was getting “bad” attention. Kim quickly became the lost child. Their mother would usually dump all her disappointments on Kim. Kim would search for validation and true love for the majority of her love seeking life. Even though she took the brunt of the shame and blame her mom couldn’t handle, she would manage to live a fairly peaceful, joyous life. Although, she would find out in her late fifties just how cruel and heartless people could treat others. Even your family members, can be quite manipulative toward a quiet, hurting, searching soul like she had become. It would take years for her to understand and heal from the hurt. Hurt that made the years feel like they went by slowly and fun-loving years that seemed to go by so fast. This is her story about a forbidden love she carried to her death.
Kimberly was born on a warm July evening, the ninth child of a woman who already had five daughters. Her mother wanted a boy and was highly disappointed when another girl was born. Her parents named her Kimberly after her father’s Aunt Kimberly and her middle name would be her mom’s best friend’s name - Kimberly Renee was the ninth child’s name of the highly disappointed parents who longed for another son. Kimberly’s mom went right back to work after only spending one day at home with her new baby girl.
There was no crib for Kimberly since the 17-month-old child, Judy Marie/another girl, of Clarice’s was still using the crib, so Kimberly was laid in a cupboard drawer to sleep. No new clothing would be purchased for tiny Kimberly. Her diapers would sometimes be old T-towels, until they got around to doing laundry for nine kids. Kimberly’s mom was becoming tired and bitter and she would take that out on the new infant girl in the family. When Kimberly cried her mom would not rush in the least to go see what the innocent baby girl needed. The baby quite often was not diapered for hours. Kimberly was drug around by her one older 9-year-old sister Patsy.
Kim (the name she preferred) was left unattended often and when she could walk enough to toddle up behind her mother and crab the hem of her mother’s dress, Kim was quite often left falling to the floor face first. Her mother would turn around and see that it was baby Kim grabbing at her dress and give a look of disgust while walk forward in the other direction. Thus leaving Kim grabbing for the air and falling on her tiny face. Kim would cry for momma so hard that she would not be able to catch her breath. Kim roamed around the farm lane and would pick up “already been chewed” gum in the driveway, near her teenage siblings parking area under the big cherry tree, and chew it. Nobody stopped her because nobody was around most of the time.
Kim’s mom was busy planning the food for Kim’s oldest brother’s wedding when Kim was only one-year-old and very often left at her grandmother’s (her mom’s mom) house to lay on the daybed for hours and sit on the rocking chair on timeout. Timeout was discipline for when Kim tried to climb on the kitchen table for something to eat. “Hey Clarice,” said Grandma Boyer, “How is the menu for Russ’s wedding coming along?” Clarice answered, “I am going to be serving about 200 people for his wedding and I am going to make a hot meal. The meal will consist of turkey, gravy, potato stuffing, green beans, coleslaw, pickled eggs, and dinner rolls.” Kim’s mom was more concerned about catering her older son’s wedding than paying attention to her youngest child.
Since Russ’s future wife was three months pregnant when they married, Clarice had her first grandchild when her youngest child was only two-years-old. Her first grandchild was another girl, but no matter, she was so special because she was Clarice’s favorite child’s daughter. When they visited, Clarice dropped everything to cradle and hold her first grandchild. “Mom, I have a question,” said Russ, “Why would my new wife want to keep going out with the girls all the time when she has a new baby to care for?” Mom answered back, “Maybe she is having trouble adjusting to being married and having a baby so soon after the wedding.” Russ thought to himself, “I guess.” But he wasn’t too sure about that answer.
Clarice, herself, married when she was a couple of months pregnant. She was expecting her favorite son Russ. She married a quiet guy who she met at an army base near her home town. Clarice’s husband wanted to live near his home town about an hour away, so they moved there with little Russ and their second baby. Clarice was homesick for her parents, so her husband agreed to move back to Clarice’s hometown. Little did he know, that for the rest of his life he would be renting a small two-bedroom house from his in-laws. Clarice’s parents bought a farm that had a larger home with five bedrooms and a smaller home with two bedrooms. Clarice’s family would rent the two-bedroom house. As each of her children would get to be old enough, they would move into their grandparent’s five-bedroom home and rent a bedroom from their grandparents. What always puzzled Kim was the fact that her mother’s parents were selfish and lived in the five-bedroom home and wouldn’t rent that to their daughter and her husband who had nine children. Kim was never nurtured properly and she would not and or could not ask a question such as that, or she would be slapped down into the dirt.
Kim was always left to run around at the places her family visited. One place they visited monthly was a local indoor auction called “Gilbert’s Auction”. Kim was about four years old when she was allowed to run around the auction. She ran up and down the aisles trying out different chairs during the auction. It is a wonder she wasn’t abducted or stolen. She must have had many guardian angels. “Hey Patsy”, said mom, “How much do you think we should bid on that set of baking pans? We could bake a lot of cookies and pies with that set.” Patsy said, “I think three dollars because there are only two cookie sheets in the lot.” Kim didn’t really understand what they were doing there, but she had fun running around the seating area.
Patsy would be taught to bake pies and cookies. Patsy even learned how to make breakfast and meals like spaghetti. Kim was lucky that she was allowed to watch the oven and take out the baked cookies or pies for her mom. Kim was always too young to do such things, no matter how old she became. Clarice wanted a boy and was a bitter woman about the fact that she had six girls and three boys. The farming needed boys and her parents were disappointed too. Kim was always told how bad she behaved and how she was “just another girl”.
To add to Clarice’s bitterness, her younger sister Bonnie could not have children and asked to adopt one of Clarice’s sons, since she had so many children. Clarice politely said no, but she was furious that her sister asked her such a question. Clarice even stopped attending church for a year and didn’t want to talk about why and never told anyone the reason. Her older children went to church with Grandma Boyer during that time. No one ever knew why she stopped going to church. She was so upset with Bonnie and her parents. Her parents suggested to Bonnie that maybe she could adopt one of Clarice’s children. It took her just about the whole year to be okay with this suggestion. She forgave, but she would never forget.
Clarice’s oldest child, her favorite son, was married about two years and would visit every Sunday with his wife and first child. Clarice loved having all of her family over for lunch and dinner on Sundays. She loved catering events and having family picnics. Kim used to love when Clarice cut up a large watermelon and serve it to all the kids that were at the picnic. Kim would run with her watermelon slice and sit on the bank near the barn. She would eat huge bites of juicy watermelon and spit the seeds down the small hill. Kim was sometimes confused by her mom’s attention at these family gatherings. Clarice would “put on the dog” for family, such as her brothers and sisters and their spouses and children, by acting like she truly loved and treated her children all exactly the same.
Clarice loved all her children, but had a favorite child. She also favored some more than others. When Kim fell off her tricycle at age four, Clarice reminded her that she had nothing to cry about. If Kim didn’t stop crying, Clarice was going to give her something to cry about. Clarice said, “You don’t need bandages on your bloody knees bad enough to waist bandages on them.” Kim ran crying into her Grandma Boyer’s house and Grandma put iodine and bandages on her knees.
Clarice hated that she had to name Kim after her husband’s Aunt Kimberly. She wanted her named Renee after her best friend. Clarice named one of her girls after her Grandma Walters, Grandma Walters was Clarice’s mother’s mother. She named one of her other girls after Grandma Boyer’s only sister. These children had “special” attention and nurturing as infants and young girls from the women they were named after. Kimberly would never meet her dad’s aunt that was named Kimberly. Too bad.
Clarice reminded Kim later of how terrible it was for Kim’s siblings when one of them was bit by a dog, one fell and had a gash that needed stitches in her top lip, one had suffered with a collapsed lung and was hospitalized for a while, one fell off the hay wagon and broke her arm, one was in a bad car accident, and one fell off a horse. Clarice forgot to remind Kim about the two children she also treated badly early in their lives because they didn’t behave up to her standards. The one child that fell out of the car and the one that was hit by a truck and both survived. Clarice talked about the son that was born at home and how she saved his life by pulling the sac off of his head, as he was born with a sac from the placenta around his head. She reminded Kim that she was bad and still wet the bed and could not stay at any friend’s house until she stopped wetting the bed. Three more grandchildren would be born before the conversation that changed Kim’s life forever would take place. For the worse.
When Kim was seven years, old her oldest brother Russ showed up at their small two bedroom farmhouse in tears. Clarice and her husband and eight other children rented this small house from her mother and father. All but two of the children rented rooms from Grandma Boyer since she had a five bedroom house at their 77 acre farm. The two children still living in the two-bedroom house were Judy Marie, named after Grandma Walters, and Kimberly Renee whose first name was named after her dad’s aunt. Kim never had the privilege to meet Aunt Kimberly. Clarice didn’t really like the name Kimberly, but agreed to name her youngest child that to appease her husband. Kim suffered the most for it though. When Clarice was in a fit of rage and screaming at her, she would say, “Kimberly Renee come here this instance, or Kimberly Renee you will do this or you will do that!”
Clarice asked her favorite son, “Why are you here at this time of day and what is going on?” Russ started to explain that his wife of six years was cheating on him with multiple partners. Russ tried to make things work, but was now going to file for divorce from his wife. Russ was distraught and explained that he was afraid that his four children, three girls and one boy ages five, four, two, and nine-months, would have to go to foster care. None of this was told to his youngest sister Kim, until many years later.
Kimberly, only seven years old, came down the steps and was bluntly told by her mother that Russ and his four children would be moving into their two bedroom house. Clarice and Kimberly’s dad would sleep in the living room and Russ would get their bedroom for his youngest to have room for her crib and his bed. Kimberly, Judy, and Russ’s other three children would share the other bedroom with two double beds and a set of bunk beds. Kimberly, immediately shouted out that she did not want them to move in. Clarice immediately slapped Kim across the face and told her that she had no say. If Kim keeps up the rebellion, then her dad was going to punch her in the puss. Kim cried herself to sleep that night and believed she was a nobody in the house. At a very young age of only seven, Kim believed that in order to be loved she must conform. She would need to be seen and not heard forever. She was only going to be loved for what she could do. She would conform and become her mother’s “yes” child.
Kim would keep her mouth shut 99% of the time and show no emotion, as her mother wished. After months of holding her feelings of worthlessness down she would explode in a range of emotions. Kim screamed, “I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.” Russ’s kids would mock Kim and say her butt was too big for “their” dad’s car and that Kim was taking up too much room. When Kim and Sally, who was Russ’s oldest daughter, would argue during the car ride, Russ would pull over and threaten to let Kim out at a scary part of town. He would threaten to make her walk the rest of the way home. This traumatized Kim. She was afraid to walk alone in that scary area.
Kim would learn fast that many of her siblings spouses were “cheaters” and she grew up around infidelity and did not trust anyone to love her, much less fall in love with her. Kim was a small girl with light blonde hair and was quite often commented on how pretty she is, but never told she was good at anything. In fact, no matter what she asked her mom to help her learn to do, her mom laughed and said, “You can’t do that”.
