Rachel’s Gift is an 8 part series until December 23. To listen to the audio backgrounder from CHRI radio, click: Rachel’s Gift episode 2
“We moved a lot, especially from the time I was nine until sixteen. I counted, and we moved thirty-eight times in those seven years. Just one step ahead of eviction some of the times, mostly we got the eviction itself. It was hard to live like that.
I didn’t do well at school. Even though we moved, there always was a party at our house. And drugs. Lots of drugs. Drug dealers, users and all kinds. Cocaine, heroin and mixtures of drugs I didn’t even know.
I know I missed a lot of school, ‘cause my mom was always hung over. We moved a lot and with the partying, we never seemed to have any money. I used to always wonder why we were always broke, and didn’t really find out until later in life. The pattern was always the same: somehow scratch up the first and last month’s rent, take one month for the eviction to take place and we were on the move again.
I left school when I was sixteen, no actually before that, ‘cause I never really went to high school it was just the way it was. There was a guy that lived with us, tried to raise us or whatever – he used to beat my mom up a lot. We ended going out to Calgary, but the pattern kept with us – we were only there for three months. Life at home was pretty hard, but I made it through. Whatever.
When my mom went back to Ontario for grandma’s birthday, she met someone new and decided on the spot to marry him.
I was 15 at the time. We moved back east, and into this guy’s house. It wasn’t long before I was kicked out of the house. I can’t really remember where I stayed then, when I first got kicked out. I eventually moved back in with them – it was a disaster. There was more partying and the guy ended up cheating on my mom. The guy was charged with assault and he had to leave. More partying and then more – it got to a point where I couldn’t handle It anymore. I had a boyfriend at the time, so I moved out.”
Next Week: The first time I used Crack Cocaine, evicted again, dealing drugs and then jail.