In the year of 1993, we moved to a townhouse closer to schools and the downtown center of Chilliwack, which also happened to be right by where my cousins lived. They lived on the reserve, but it only took minutes to walk there! I made lots of friends with the other kids in the complex, and it was a good child hood, normal for the most part. Then my mom got pregnant again, and I wished for a little brother like none other! The epitome of be careful what you wish for. My mother and I moved to a townhouse in the same complex, which was just across the street from where my grandparents still lived, so we were close, but now had our own space.
My mother gave birth to my little brother Kenneth on October 24th 1994; I had just turned 5 years old. It was great at first, the three of us, until he was old enough to crawl. Now, I have to admit that I may have been mistaken considering how young he was at that point in time, but I remember him knocking things over all the time, and my mother blaming me for it, even when I tried to explain it was him! How dare my mother not believe me… As my little brother got older, he got meaner. He thought it was fun to chase me with hockey sticks, knives, really anything he could get his hands on that might hurt me. He was so abrasive and uncontrolled and we have no idea why. Needless to say, I was kicking myself for wishing for a little brother, especially one who treated me so badly.
Can you say bad-ass?
We made some lifelong friends living there; we had two different sets of neighbors who lived right beside us, who we still talk to now. First there was Sonya, who my mom was great friends with. She has an older son, and daughter, and then another son who was Kenneth’s age, so they played and played and played. After Sonya moved out, another nice lady named Teresa moved in who had 4 kids, a son my age, two daughters around Kenneth’s age, and a brand new baby daughter, who was born right after she moved in.
There was another girl in the complex that I was friends with named Jackie; we used to run after this boy we both liked, we thought he was the cutest thing since piglets in bows, and boy did we ever run after someone the way we ran after him. Of course, because us kids were such good friends, our mothers met, and they decided to combine our households and we moved in a house by the middle school. It was huge, and really pretty, with a huge fireplace and a wall covered in a gigantic mirror. It did not last long, let me tell you. Jackie’s mom took off with her and her two siblings to Alberta, and left my mom high and dry. We moved into a tiny complex, that only had seven units, and we were in number 1.
This is where I got into a roller skating phase with the girl who lived in number 7. We would roller skate all the time, she would show me martial arts moves she learned at her lessons, and just have a general good time. Her mom was not very nice though. I remember I was at her house one time, and some social service lady drove up. Her mom pushed me out the door, and my roller skates were still in there. It was very upsetting, and I had no idea what was going on. I went and told my mom and boy did she get mad. She marched over to the 7th unit and banged on that door like no tomorrow to get my roller skates back. Her mom opened the door, and threw the roller skates at my mom! Who does that? Oh that’s right, people who are super mean, but I didn’t know that yet.
Meanwhile, my Aunt Bev’s oldest son Mark was the cause of many fights in their household, the last one being him throwing a lantern through their sliding glass door, effectively smashing it to bits. Needless to say, he couldn’t live there anymore, so he actually came to Chilliwack to live with us. The little complex townhouse wasn’t big enough for the 4 of us, so we moved to an actual house. I remember one instance before we moved, where Kenneth was doing his typical chase me with something that can hurt me, and it happened to be a big knife this time. Mark was home babysitting us, saw this, and proceeded to take the knife from my little brother, say ‘Do you know what these things can do?’ and cut his hand open. I don’t think he did it on purpose, but it kind of freaked my little brother out. He has always been attached to Mark somewhat; maybe that’s why he was so disturbed, Mark has always been a trouble maker, getting into stuff he really shouldn’t, and he had a super bad temper.
At the new house, we had lots of room, a big back yard, and we got a new cat, which kind of just came with the house. We got a black Rottweiler puppy, which Kenneth got to name Hercules, as we had the room for a dog now. We had moved far enough away from my school, which both I and Kenneth had to switch schools, which is where my story starts to go south. On that note, until next time..
A Lesser Person 