1 + GOD ALWAYS THE MAJORITY!

It was another New Year’s Eve. There was glistening snow on the ground, as could be seen via the streetlights. It was freezing cold outside and the wind was howling its song of solitude. Due to the severe cold, the old wood-burning stove that heated the house had just been stoked again; hopefully to burn on through the night. The three children in the house were sleeping, as the hour was late. Bio mom and bio dad, (or ‘the adults’ as I refer to them), as was their custom, were drinking the night away, celebrating the coming in of a new year. Some folks are ‘happy drunks’, while others get very cruel and mean when they drink. Unfortunately, it was the latter type of drunk that my bio father was, and his rampaging put the children in tremendous fear on a regular basis. My biological dad, Joe, was a large man, the burly type, weighing in around 240 lbs. and had a rough voice that went along with the looks. The very sight of him was enough to put fear in a person. He was gruff in his manners as well, and people knew it was to their best interests not to get on his bad side. He also was an extremely jealous-hearted individual and ruled his family with an iron fist; which only added to the already dysfunctional family dynamics. Bio mom (nicknamed Peanut-due to her petite size of 5’ 2” and weighing in at a whopping 85 lbs. soaking wet) was a quiet person, allowing Joe to ‘run ram shod’ over everyone. Not only was she tiny, but she was also physically and verbally abused by the man, and therefore, refused to stand her ground around the bully. On more than one occasion, Peanut ended up in the ER for needed medical treatment after one of his explosive episodes. This all was before I was born, (being relayed to me years later by my brother Liam), but at this time, I’m told I had three brothers who had preceded me in the birth order. I used the past tense of had because the first devastating chain of events turned out to be one of those life altering scenarios, and I never got the chance to meet but one brother. Here’s the story about that. As you remember, I had said it was a freezing night; therefore, the freshly stoked wood burning stove was blazing hot. Joe and Peanut were celebrating the New Year coming in and both were extremely drunken by this time of the night, and they were arguing, as was par for them. The argument heated up considerably and accusations were flying right and left by jealous-hearted Joe, accusing Peanut of running around on him. The crazy part about this scenario was, they both ran around on each other and both were aware of this fact, but it became an ongoing argument when they drank; as alcohol truly does loosen one’s lips. However, this night was different than all other nights, because in the heat of the argument, Joe took his whiskey bottle and threw it at Peanut. Had the bottle hit her as planned, it most likely would have killed her. In his drunken stupor, when he hurled the bottle, his aim was off and the bottle hit the wood stove, shattering it and the whiskey ignited immediately, bursting the house into flames. Joe and Peanut, in their inebriated state, totally forgot they had children in the house, and ran out of the burning house as it was engulfed in flames. A neighbor woke up to the screaming, saw what was happening and he ran to the rescue. He saw the adults outside and yelled “where are the boys?” It wasn’t until that brief moment in time that the adults realized the boys were still inside the flaming structure but were too far gone with alcohol to be of any assistance to the neighbor. The neighbor found out they were still in the burning house and he broke a bedroom window trying desperately to get them out. He was able to retrieve one child from the flames and he was badly burned. This was my brother Liam, (age one & a half). The other two boys, Sam (age 3) and Gary (a newborn) died in that horrifying fire. Had it not been for this neighbor, Liam would not have lived to tell our story. Liam received immediate emergency attention in the local hospital and then was promptly transferred to a burn unit due to his burns being so severe. He survived the horrendous ordeal but has permanent burn scars over 95 % of his body, which has been an ongoing reminder to the adults of their actions that night. Liam has had numerous surgeries to correct his physical burns sustained that fateful night. The end result of all his burns were responsible for making him ineligible for military service.