Memoir
English 2010
Fall 2015
Cherylene Rosenvall
Memoirs of a single mother:
The beginning….
It has been almost fourteen years and yet is seems like it was yesterday.Time has a way of doing that. You think you have all the time in the world, yet you blink and it’s gone.
This has been the case in my journey as a single mother. A journey that I never thought to take. It wasn’t something I looked for or ever thought of, yet it crept upon me and became the blessing that I needed but didn’t know I wanted. This journey created who I am today and I am grateful for it.
You might stop and pause and wonder, why a 43 year old women would be grateful that she has been a single mother for the last 13 years. Why indeed? To understand that question and answer, we must go back to the way it was and why it came to be.
The year was 1990 and I was a young, beautiful 18 year old recent high school graduate. I had just started college at a local school and I was excited to get out in the world and find myself,do amazing things,and be someone who would stand out and not get lost in a crowd.
School started. I met new people and was in some great classes. I was a communications major. I wanted to do theatre but it wasn’t offered, so TV and communications was the next best thing in my mind. I was captivated by learning and the classes I was taking. Learning a foreign language, history and art was what I aspired to study.
I worked part-time at a local library and loved books, so college was exciting to me with the large text books and the learning involved.
I started making friends at school. I was never a shy person, always loud and happy, yet I didn’t have a boyfriend, but would have liked to. I had a lot of family around, so being lonely wasn’t an issue. I liked meeting people and hoped they liked meback. So, I attended activities on campus. That’s where I was too soon meet my future husband and the father of my 5 children.
Early into the semester on a cool, Autumn October night,I attended a dance at the college. I was really enjoying myself and dancing the night away. I actually had guys asking me to dance. I would have danced whether I’d been asked or not. I loved dancing, even if it was by myself. On this night at this particular dance,I noticed a young man looking at me. He was handsome, dark haired,and had seen him dancing with a lot of girls throughout the evening. The DJ had just announced thatthe second to last dance of the night was to be a girl’s choice. I was talking to my friend at the time the announcement came across and we both looked at the same guy, our intentions similar. I was quicker. I dashed to him and asked him to dance. He said yes. Little did I know this decision would change the course I had set for my college life and what would follow.
I danced the rest of the night away with the guy. He seemed nice and I thought it was pretty cool to be with this person. The dance ended.He asked me to come to his car so he could write down my phone number. “Cool”,I thought. No guy had ever asked for it before. I gave it to him, said goodbye,and wondered if I would actually hear from him.
A few days later I received a call from him. I couldn’t remember his name and he couldn’t say mine right. I’ve grown accustomed to that, since my name is spelled in a unique way. We talked on the phone and he asked to take me out. I was excited formy first college date. Plans were set and I was ready for this new adventure.
What I didn’t realize is what an adventure it would turn out to be for the next 12 years. Not always good, but still an adventure. Remember I loved learning new things, and boy would I ever learn new things due to this experience.
Two months later I was engaged at Christmas time. I look back and realize he never really asked, yet it was more of an assumption. That was the first clue I didn’t’ see.
Feb 1991- Four months and the second semester of school, a few weeks in and I dropped out of my classes. How could I get married and do school at the same time. My fiancé didn’t seem bothered by it.I look back and it was like he wanted me away from that atmosphere.
April 1991-Month 6 and my wedding was around the corner at the end of the month. Planning had been interesting. Who knew that a guy could be so involved in what the wedding was to be like. He wanted certain colors and decorations. I thought this was the stuff girls decided. Another clue into the future.
September 1991- Eleven months after meeting my husband, now married, I was pregnant with what would be a beautiful daughter. I was nineteen, married, and pregnant. I thought I was happy, years later I now wonder.
I was working at the library, my husband as an apt manager. We kept moving around to different apartment developments until one day he told me he was fired. I was overwhelmed. I’d just turned twenty, had a baby due in 3 months, and we had nowhere to live as our apartment was a perk of his job that was no more.
I don’t know where I found the strength to carry the burden of being the only employed spouse, yet I did. I found us a new place to live. Helped find my husband a job and was ready to have my child, whose due date now seemed way too soon at this point.
I had my daughter that June of 1992 and was so happy. She was everything and then some that I wanted. What I didn’t’ want was to leave her and go back to work, yet I had to since my husband only had a part-time job with no benefits. I supplied the insurance and steady income. I thought this would be the hardest thing I could ever or would ever do. It was hard and I cried, yet I made it through because I now had this little girl depending upon me.
My husband after a few months finally found a full-time job with help from my mom. I wanted to stay home and be with my daughter. This wasn’t in his plan. So I continued to work, took care of my daughter, and did what was needed to keep us happy, comfortable and safe.
November 1994- My second child and first son arrived almost two and a half years after my daughter. I now at this time made the decision to quit my job and stay home to raise my children. My husband wasn’t happy, but I was. This is where I belonged.
October 1996- It’s a boy. A second son two years later. I was tired, but happy. I loved being a mom. This is who I was. My husband wasn’t that keen on having three kids. I didn’t know why, our kids were really good and my babies didn’t fuss and I saw to everything I needed to in making our home-life a happy please to be, or so I thought.
August 1998- Baby number 4 was born and she was beautiful and worth the trials of pregnancy less than 2 years after my second son. She was also a surprise, not in my husband’s plans, but she was in mine. I wanted another little girl and my oldest daughter loved having a little sister. She was my baby and I wanted to enjoy her. My husband was searching for something different. I knew I was missing something he wasn’t telling me.
In February of 1999 my husband decided he wanted to move from our home. He wanted to move up in his words to “a nicer area and home”. I loved my home. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for anywhere else. He looked for homes and found one in a new development in Riverton. The house was beautiful. I didn’t want to go inside and see it, because I didn’t want to be hurt if it couldn’t happen or if he didn’t keep his word and got my hopes up for nothing. Again, why didn’t I listen to myself?
We moved into the house, how we afforded to is still mystified in my mind-- but we did. I had four beautiful children, my husband of eight years, and now a lovely new home.
Some would think that my life was going well, I let you think that my life was going well. It was a façade. One that would soon start cracking more and more over the next 3 years. This life was one of loneliness for me and my kids, one where we were a unit that my husband really didn’t feel the need to be in, one that I let others think was good, fine, ideal.
May 2000- Life is what we make of it, or so I thought. I was a mom of 4 kids and living the life of a stay at home mom and living in a big, beautiful house with a husband always gone working or doing his activities--ones that didn’t include his wife and kids.
During the dinner hour one May evening, I answered the phone. It was the police. They asked me questions about my husband. Was he at work, did he work in a certain area, would he be driving a car they described. Yes, was the answer to all their question and being stunned I listened to them say they were on their way to pick him up for illegal acts he had done earlier that day.
Crash! Bam! Boom! Wanting to cry aloud, yet silently crying in my head as I looked at my four children, I thought to myself, “What was he thinking, what had he done and why? What do I do? What did I do?” I called him at work, told him I knew what he had done and so did the police and if he wanted to keep his job he would meet them outside the building before they came in to get him. Did he even think about me or our 4 kids? Did he even care what this would do to those little kids? Did he ever care?
Six hours later, he came home. I have no idea to this day where he went after the police arrived. All I know is he said “You made me do it”. I made him do illegal things? How was that even possible? He wanted more attention that I could give him and so it was my fault he was getting attention in ways that are illegal, he said. I looked at him and wondered to myself, “Who is this guy and where is the man, I married?”
Our lives had now changed for the worse. I was married to this man, I had made commitments, and I had four children with him. I was stuck, wasn’t I?
I stayed.
It was not the same, it would never be the same, and it couldn’t get worse, could it? Not possible I would think, yet there was more to come.
January 2002- Surprise! It’s a girl. A beautiful baby girl like her sisters. A beautiful baby girl that was a miracle, a beautiful baby girl that was defiantly not in my plans, a beautiful baby girl that was not consensually conceived by me, but she was all mine.
Yes, life was not the same. I knew after I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter that my marriage would not last past her birth. A birth that I did not want my husband present at, yet he was because no one knew what was and had happened over the last few years at home. A fifth child to take care of that was a little person who needed me, but not more than I was to find out that I, my kids, and extended family needed her.
She was to be a beacon of happiness, new beginnings, and the end of pain and heart ache. She was ours.
My husband’s, not so much. He was not wonderful, quite the opposite in fact. Mean, hurtful, selfish, not what I had signed on the dotted line for. Not what I wanted for my kids. Not what we deserved. We deserved better and I was determined that we would have better than him. Little did I know that better would be my five kids and me as a new unit, a unit of strength, happiness, and love.
Over the next six months of 2002 I turned thirty years old. I made plans of preparation on how I could accomplish the wonderful opportunity of raising these children on my own. I put myself in situations of learning how to cope solely by myself with my kids, so I knew the how, why, and what I was capable of doing on my own.
You may ask what my husband was doing during this time. He was living a double life, being someone at work and being a different person at home. He was my own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Seeing this gave me stamina and strength in knowing that what was ahead of me was the right thing to do for my children and myself.
August 2002- Late one night in mid-August, I had a heart to heart with my husband. I wanted this talk after finding materials on his computer that were hurtful to me and harmful to my children if they should find it. Slowly to this point in time I was being made aware of his double life and decided to ask him for a separation. We had discussed this a few times as a possibility. I wanted him to go from the home so the kids and I could find a sense of peace and
safety. I wanted him to really decide if he wanted his family, his wife of eleven years, and his five kids. That was a decision he had to make and one that I could not make for him.
As we talked we made the decision that he would in the next few weeks indeed leave and take the time to decide what and who he wanted. I thought all was well and decisions were made. I went to bed and he went to his computer in the basement.
The next morning I arose with every intention of getting my kids ready for church. He didn’t get up, he laid there looking odd. I asked if there was a problem.He got up, got dressed, and then informed me he was leaving that day when we went to church. I was stunned. Had we not talked about this the night before? Where was this coming from?
I got the kids dressed and had them eating breakfast. I went back upstairs to find him packing a bag. I asked him if he was really doing it this way. I said, “If you are following through on your threat, you need to do it the right way. Don’t run away while we are at church. Tell your children you are going. They knew all wasn’t well in the home and I thought this way they will be able to cope better than finding him gone when they returned home.
He went downstairs, while I waited and fed the baby upstairs. I then wondered what was happening down stairs as I could hear weird noises. I went down the stairs to the bottom and stopped to stare at the scene if front of me. My husband had all the kids bawling and a few had their arms wrapped around him. My five year old stood away from him and had his arms closed. The three year old was reacting to the seven and ten year old who were crying. I asked what was going on and the kids proceeded to tell me they were telling their dad goodbye because their mother, me, was kicking him out of the house.
Was I in the right house with the right man at this moment? No.Wherehad that come from? I was kicking him out of the house and telling him to go live with their uncle in Layton. What was going on? This was the other personality of my husband in true form.
How could my children not realize what was going on? I knew it was because they only wanted to believe in the good and happy things.
Yet, there was one child that could see as well as I what was happening. A silent, sullen, little five year old. Dressed in his Sunday best and cowboy boots standing apart from the scene that was his father and siblings. A little boy who knew better and let his father know. A strong five year old who then walked up to his father and kicked him in the knees, trying to be strong and trying to protect himself from being hurt, and trying to set things straight and seeing through lies. A little boy who kicked his father with his favorite cowboy boots, who looked at him, after his father yelled at him for being kicked, and said to him, “Go, leave, and don’t come back.It’s not like you’re ever here anyway. I don’t care if you’re gone. It makes no difference to me.” A little boy who didn’t cry as I ushered the children into my car to get them away from the house so they wouldn’t witness their father getting into a car and leaving.
I then came back into the house and went up to my husband. There I hugged him goodbye. I hugged not the man that was there standing in front of me, instead I hugged goodbye the man he used to be, the man that I had met at a dance and had fallen in love with, the man he no longer was anymore.
As we drove away and while I was crying,I decided to not take them to church but to Grandpa and Grandma’s house, a place of happiness for us. There I wondered if I really could do this on my own.
Thus after 12 years of marriage and five children I started on the journey of being a single mom, a mom who from that day on learned of secrets that children kept hidden while dad lived at home, a women who needed to go back to that spunky girl I once was and take control of my life, a mother who would learn to be both parents to these children and who would fight for their safety in court for the next 10 years to keep them safe, gave them the chance to grow up and normal as possible.I saw them become productive, wonderful adults. I became the mother that would stand behind them in everything they tried and accomplished. I would be their champion and I wouldn’t change anything,because of who they have become today.