We never knew any other way

I lived in my house and no place else. We visited family. My grandparents and other relatives but other than that we never went to anyone's house. Not when we were little anyway. How could a little kid know what normal was for anyone else?

My mothers parents were sweet and kind and made us feel important to them. My mom's siblings were also kind but they lived so far away. When we visited we had our cousins to entertain us. We were close in age and had a blast together. Because we were so far away we didn't see Mom's family more than once or twice a year. They had rules we had to follow when we were there but their rules were easy to follow. We were always on our best behavior when we visited anyway.

My fathers family was a little different. His parents were kind too. My grandmother tended to be serious, a little strict and a lot quirky but my grandfather made up for that... he made us laugh. My uncle lived with my grandparents and he was the one to watch out for. He had Down Syndrome (but they didn't call it that back then.) My uncle was unpredictable in some ways and very predictable in others. He never liked us to touch or move anything, not even a throw pillow. It was like visiting a museum. We had rules there too and if we strayed my uncle would get very mean very quickly.

There was the family friend that my mom stayed with when she was pregnant with me. We would go there from time to time. They had special toys just for us. They watched us play, gave us sandwiches, cookies and juice. At their house we were allowed to be kids, laugh and get loud. We built towers of wooden blocks, played with the wooden train set, dressed up the doll and played make believe. We could be a whale or a alligator or a gorilla or a bat if we wanted to. The setting was relaxed and when we were having that much fun there was never any time to be bad.

When we came home life was more unpredictable than it was with my uncle who had Down Syndrome. We had rules but the rules changed. Until we did something new that upset our father we didn't know there was a rule about that behavior. He would fly off into one of his rages and if we we caught on quick we could hide.

When he was at work we knew we were safe. As safe as we could be. We could get a little loud and laugh when we played. We could play dress up, pretend to be cowboys or pirates (I was a tomboy) and build forts out of blankets & furniture. We loved those times when it was just us. We helped make lunch and dinner. Sometimes when we did we sang and danced around the dining room table. Our favorite was the baby elephant walk. We'd drop our bodies forward and make our arms hang in front of our faces to imitate a trunk. We would swing our "trunks" back and forth to the music that is forever in my heard.

When he came home everything changed. Everyone would be on the edge. We could each feel the tension in the house. Everyone was afraid someone would mess up and get us all in trouble. We usually went to our rooms where we played very quietly until we were summoned to his presence. We never knew what was in store for us when that happened. Was it dinner, did he want us to entertain him, rub his back or feet, put something away or suffer some humiliation or other kind of torture.

This was our normal. We never knew any other way.