The box I was curious about? It�s a bunch of movies I ordered last week: �Scooby Doo�, �Big Daddy�, �Enough�, �Grease�, �ET� and �Bringing Down the House�. I didn�t expect them to come so early, so I was pretty happy.
I also bought �BeetleJuice� this weekend. Of course Hollywood Video didn�t have it on VHS, so I had to buy the stupid DVD. I don�t like to pay $19.99 for any movie. Sigh. Jackie and I love the movie, so I guess it was worth it.
We watched the movies this weekend. I talked a lot on the phone. I guess today I�m feeling like I don�t want to be bothered. Isn�t that horrible? I just feel..prickly..today.
Part of it�s probably because I got some news about my sister Shenana this weekend that made me really upset. I became upset enough to cry, to want to cuss her out and call her bad names. I was furious. And to top it off, I�m not supposed to know what I know so I cannot let this information slip when I talk to Shenana or when I talk to other family members. I�m so mad at her.
Once upon a time, my sister Renee (also known as Shenana) was married for some years to Dom. They met at 18 years old and Dom was Renee�s ticket out of my Aunt Frannie�s house, so they fell in love and moved in together.
Dom and Renee had two little girls. Dom was a good man in the way that he worked hard for a living and to provide for Renee and the children.
Dom was a bad husband in the way that he didn�t help with the kids, didn�t please Renee in certain ways, and eventually, he committed the big no-no by hitting Renee.
They moved to Tennessee. Gee, that solved their problems.
Renee decided that she didn�t want to be married anymore. This I do understand. �Get your divorce girl,� I told my sis.
Instead, Renee started fooling around to make Dom really sorry for hitting her and not being a better husband. Renee met this guy, Jerry Wayne Hoses. Not only was he a snaggle-toothed paroled felon, he also drank lots of moonshine, dabbled in some illegal substances, and generally raised hell anywhere he went. Renee didn�t notice these bad things; in fact, she started doing some of these bad things herself. What I thought really sucked is that this man admitted he was in the KKK, like it was something to be proud of. I wanted to smack the last few teeth out of his head, but I settled for saying, �Only ignorant and uneducated people are racist� and I drifted out of the room.
He is a dog. A worthless piece of crap, yet, she loves him.
Jerry sweet-talked her out of her pants, marriage and eventually, had her so hooked on that illegal crap that she didn�t even think original thoughts. Everything became all about Jerry.
In the meantime, things at the Sheetz home generally started going to hell. Renee�s daughters witnessed fights between their parents, fights with the momma�s boyfriend (oh yeah, that�s a great example for your kids, I told her), and they had front row seats to their momma�s transformation from a Mom to a hoochie. My sister thought nothing of letting it all hang out in the way of tank tops and short shorts.
I was appalled. And yet, I didn�t know what to say. My sister asked me for advice many times, and I had told her, �If you�re not going to be with Dom, do it the right way. Get a legal divorce. At least then, there won�t be anything to hang over your head.�
Instead, Renee began openly inviting the pig named Jerry Wayne Moses to her home when Dom was at work, and didn�t hide it a bit from her husband. Dom became furious, and on her birthday, he gave her a nice little concussion. Did she get a divorce then? No, she ran right into Jerry�s arms. Even though she was confused, I believe she professed interest in her husband and her boyfriend at the same time.
�What about the kids?� I would ask. After all, these babies were 4 and six years old, and they needed their parents more than ever.
�They�re fine,� she�d say. And then she would start talking about something sweet or funny that Jerry had said.
Inwardly, I steamed. I felt like my sister was putting other people before her children. I was mad that she was living out a �Jerry Springer� life. I was mad that she was thinking about her sex life and putting her lust first instead of her kids.
I don�t know what happened, but one day, Jerry lost his temper with Renee. He pulled her by her hair and shoved her into the wall.
Gee, that might�ve been the signal for my departure, but Renee promptly forgave her and accepted that his violence was caused by something she did and if she wouldn�t push him he wouldn�t have snapped like that.
I couldn�t believe that she accepted the blame for this incident. Two months later, he started following her everywhere she went, started calling her all hours of the night, started showing up at her home when Dom was home, started threatening her if she tried to leave.
She got creeped out and started to avoid Jerry. He tore down all her Christmas decorations and called to say he was going to blow up her house and kill her, her kids and her husband.
One night, he snuck up on her porch and ambushed her while she was smoking a cigarette. He delivered numerous blows to her face and body. He pulled her hair and snapped her head sideways. He busted her lip. The police were called, but he wasn�t arrested that night.
In the end, Renee had to have the assistance of a local women�s shelter to sneak her out of her home in the middle of the night. She came to my house. She was terrified.
This man left threatening messages on her machine, saying, he planned to finish her off the way her mother was killed. Planned to beat her head in and strangle her. I heard them all, and they made me sick to my stomach.
You can say a lot of things to me, but there are some places you don�t go. One is what happened to our momma and us. For God�s sake, we were 4 and seven years old when that man killed my mom and tried to kill us. Now this redneck hillbilly is threatening to kill us the way our mom was killed? Unforgivable in my book.
My sister and her kids stayed with me for a month in December. That first week she was so terrified he�d come all the way from Tennessee to Missouri and find her at my house and hurt us. I had a hatchet next to the front door that said otherwise, but she was terrified.
Even Dom told Renee to stay in St. Louis to be safe.
Jerry was picked up for the assault and put in jail for it. He was sentenced to a year. Turns out he�s got a 10-page rap sheet for assaults on mainly, women. Turns out he had his first wife framed and got her thrown in jail, and then, he took the child, a boy, and raised him.
Oh, yeah, he�s a real winner.
I really thought Renee was going to stay in St. Louis for good because she talked about Dom getting a job here and them moving all of their stuff down here.
Then, my sister started feeling funny. I went and bought a pregnancy test for her. It was positive. She believed it was Jerry�s not Dom�s.
In the end, she went back to Tennessee because she �missed her home�. I was devastated. I cried like a baby because I knew if she went back that eventually, she�d probably go back to Jerry as soon as he got out of jail.
Well, she filed for divorce from Dom as soon as she went back. She said she was done with men for a while. I really believed it and I was really hoping it was true. Whenever I asked her about Jerry, she acted like she hadn�t heard anything. However, these past few months she�s been acting evasive and vague when I ask about Jerry still being in jail.
I got a nice Christmas box together for my sis. I got two 4 gifts each for my nieces, and the family in Kansas sent two gifts each. I did some shopping for my sister, and I also bought the new baby some clothes. Grandma Lou gave me $40.00 to send too.
I send this box off knowing that my sis will be so happy when she gets it. Usually, she�d call me right away and say �Thanks� and tell me what she thought of its contents.
Instead, I call her after waiting 2 weeks and she says that �yeah,� she got it and can she �call right back?� She never called me. That was weeks ago.
My sister Mindy called me Friday night, saying it was imperative that I pick up the phone. �That�s weird,� I thought, because she never says I HAVE to answer the phone. So, I answer, and she tells me that she called Dom because she can�t get Renee to answer the phone. Dom says, that maybe Renee�s phone is turned off because her old man turns it off.
�Old man?� Melinda asked, puzzled.
�Terry�s there; he got out of jail in the beginning of December..�
So, we�re not supposed to know. I�m not surprised because Renee went back to Jerry after he hit her for the first time. It probably doesn�t occur to her now that no cop is going to side with her if the man who abused her and served a jail sentence for her is living under her roof now!
She�s probably forgotten all the evil crap he did to her, but I did not! I know how he beat her up and scared the crap out of her. I know the threats he made against her, and I know how he followed through on those threats. I know the tears I cried because my baby sister was scared. I know how terrified I was that what happened to our momma could happen to her. I know how distraught I was that my sister was so scared. I remember how affected her little girls were by their mom being scared.
I don�t know what to say to her now.
She knows that I will not have anything to do with Jerry. Hell, I hardly even talk to Dom, and he�s the father of my nieces. Does my sister even understand that she�s burned her bridges with us? The family knows what Jerry did to her, how could she think that we will ever give him the time of day?
And what happens when their little honeymoon is over? I give it until, April tops, and he hits her again. What scares me is the severity of the last beating.
I wonder how one�s self esteem can be so delicate, and warped as to think that your abuser could change? I�m sick over it.
I want to cry because I know Jerry will hit her again. That�s the kind of beast he is, he gets off on making my sister cower in fear. The old me would drive my car to her home in Tennessee and whoop her ass and his. That wouldn�t solve anything. I think he will feel vindicated. I told him I wasn�t afraid of him, and that he was a wuss because he liked to hit women.
I worry about the girls. They are going to grow up seeing abuse and thinking it�s normal. What kind of men are they going to look for? Am I going to end up raising them because you will be dead, at Jerry�s hands?
I�m so upset.
I was watching �Enough� the other night. I remembered that Renee said it was that movie that gave her the strength to leave Dom. I think, what will it take this time for you to leave Jerry for good? Will you be able to walk away this time? Why are you betting on something so dangerous?
11:25 - Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
%%older_entries%%
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