MY LIFE: CHALLENGES, CHOICES AND INCREDIBLE LOVE
by ISAIAHKACYVENSKI
My story begins in the small, blue-collar town of Endicott, New York, nestled between the Susquehanna River and the Adirondack mountains near the Pennsylvania border. I was born in Syracuse and was the youngest of five children. My parents both experienced broken childhood lives in and out of orphanages, neither really having a positive figure in their life to emulate. For my entire adolescence my family lived well below the poverty line. With my mother staying at home with us kids and my father armed with just a high school education to support us, money was never around. Regardless of this lack of money, my mother created an environment for us kids that oozed with love. She protected us from the ugliness in life as much as she could, including the volatile mix of anger, abuse and alcoholism that had seized my father during me and my siblings formative years. It was my mother whose character, gentleness and love prepared me not only to reach for my dreams, but how to be me.
I remember fighting through winter nights with no heat, teeth chattering and blankets bundled. I knew I wasn’t alone though. I had my brothers and sisters. My mother would rock me to sleep and sing into my ear to comfort me. I remember times with no electricity and no television and huddling up to the battery-powered radio to listen to the Super Bowl. I remember my friends calling me on a pay phone because our telephone line was shut off for failure to pay the bills. I remember being forced to move for failing to pay rent. I remember living in a cramped tent for a whole summer. I remember living in that same tent for a frigid month in the fall. Sometimes I would wake up--cold and afraid--but all I had to do was to look over and see how strong my family was being and it comforted me. Food stamps couldn’t come fast enough as the cupboards were emptied by the end of each month. I remember the feeling of extreme embarrassment as the clerks at the store seemed to giggle as we flashed our food stamps as payment. I remember the points when food stamps weren’t enough, when we relied on church baskets. When we relied on the "defects" from grocery stores - food that they would throw into the dumpster in the back that was slightly defective.
By the time my parents divorced I was nine years old. It never really bothered me. I think even at that young age I realized that the weight of my father’s abusive alcoholic behavior towards my mother and us kids was too much to bear any longer. My mother took us to live with her in a cramped apartment that was suited for three people instead of six. We struggled, but we were loved. I remember walking three miles to school and back every day in second grade because I was afraid to change schools. I remember assisted lunches in schools and the funny looks my schoolmates would give me because my clothes remained grass-stained...
-03-01-2007, 04:20 AM
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not until Saturday ( I'm at my parents ) but i'm way to excited to see it!
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