Could my family's history be made into a book? [See ALL additional details to decide yes/no, please]?

Question

I once was told my family's history could be made into a book... or a soap opera. You, of Y!A, I am going to allow to decide whether or not this is true or false. It's a long read, though. VERY long.

Let's start with my mother, Dorothy. Her nickname was Dolly. She was adopted, and lived with an adoptive mother Viola and adoptive father John. Her adoptive parents had two children of their own, John and Eileen. They also had another adoptive daughter, Barbara.

When Dolly was 14 she started smoking 5 packs of Heavy Malboro a day. By the time she was 15, she was pregnant. Viola and John insisted she marry the man who impregnated her, and she did. This was when my mother dropped out of highschool. However, once the baby was born -- Maribeth -- my mother decided that she could not handle taking care of a child, and gave the baby over to her new husband's parents. Several weeks later, she got an anulment + divorce and their relationship ended.

It was about this time my mother met --

and became friends with -- her brother John's wife, Jackie. And, together, they both were inducted into the religion of Santeria.

A few years later, after working many different jobs, she met an Ecuadorian man named Jorge. He ended up getting her pregnant twice -- once with Margaret, and then again with Jorge. She fell in love with him, and he promised her that she could have whatever she wanted, so long as he came with her to Ecuador. She happily agreed to go.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Dolly became Jorge's slave. In an act of desperation, my mother called Barbara for help. With the help of Barbara and the U.S. Government, my mother was snuck out of Ecuador.

Again, it was a few years later, when my mother worked at JFK airport as the person who directs in planes with those weird orange things. While working there, she met a man name Luigi, AKA Louis. He was 20 years older than her, and married. He also had his own set of children. Still, they eloped, and a fe

w months later, Maria was born.

Louis promised Dolly that he would get a divorce and marry her instead. My mother was overjoyed to hear this. 2 years later, Dorothy was born.

Louis yelled at my mother, telling her she couldn't keep having children. And he was right, because she came down with Cervical Cancer after that.

Despite this, five years later, my mother became pregnant with me. Louis said that she HAD to get me aborted, and that if she didn't, he wouldn't stay with her anymore. But my mother simply told him no, and said that I was a gift, because if you have Cervical cancer, you're not supposed to have children. April 16th 1990, Louis left my mother. April 17th, my mother gave birth to me -- the only natural birth she had had, out of all of her children. All the others had been C-sections.

Shortly after, Maribeth moved in with my family.

My mother realized she was in a bind. A horrible bind. She had a total of six children, none with real jobs, living in a crampe

d, haunted apartment. So, she did a spell in order to find a man to fall madly in love with her who had enough money, and would take care of her children.

Then Margaret got pregnant by a man named Jujo, and gave birth to a baby named Angel, who was only a year or two younger than I. The apartment became more cramped. What's worse, the ghosts in the apartment were acting up, such as throwing around Dorothy and Maria. Also, Margaret had a cross hung up in her room. One day, when Margaret was bottle-feeding Angel, the cross flipped over, and red glowing lights came from each point of the cross and danced around Angel's head. Which was the point where Dolly decided we all needed to move.

So, we did. We moved into a smaller, more cramped apartment. No hot water. Not enough money for all of us to eat. So, just about each of us had to get our own sort of jobs. My sister Maribeth had to find a job working at a grocery. My sister Margaret was in charge of watching me and Angel. My brother

Jorge learned how to be an electrician, and he became an electrician... along with a drug dealer. My sister Dorothy was in charge of stealing money from kids at school. My sister Maria was in charge of buying the groceries. My mother was working 3 part-time jobs at the same time. When I got a little older, I was in charge from stealing fruit and veggies from the nearby open market.

My mother ended up meeting a man named Thomas AKA Tom. Tom worked as a bartender at a Bar where my mother worked. They ended up hitting it off, and they eventually decided to get married. Then they moved to another city, taking only Maria, Dorothy, and myself with them. Margaret moved in with her new husband -- Jujo -- and moved to Buffalo with him. Maribeth moved in with her new husband, Michael. Jorge moved in with his current girlfriend at the time, Cindy.

When they got married, it was less than a year later that Dolly came down with Lung Cancer. After all, she had STILL been smoking 5 packs of Heav

y Malboro a day. And I was there the day she actually first came down with the symptoms. She was walking me to school when I was in the first grade, and she suddenly stopped, and held her head. I asked her what was wrong, and she simply passed out onto the floor. Luckily, I was only two blocks away from the apartment. So, somehow, I managed to bring my mother back into the apartment. Then I called her doctor -- because we had the doctor's phone number in a book -- and the doctor made a house call. When my mother came to consciousness, she explained to the doctor what had happened, saying she began to have trouble breathing and saw something like the portal from Sliders.

After a while, my mother did end up getting CAT scans and MRI's. She had cancer. And it was spreading fast. They told her she had less than a year to live. They expected her to die by September 1997. However, my mother said defiantly, "I refuse to die before Christmas!"

Eventually, the cancer spread to all of her

body. My mother became bald, and she became bed-ridden, and got a broken hip from the cancer. Things didn't get better. She eventually ended up in the hospitial, and slowly began to lose the ability to do much anything. First to go was smell. Then moving. It got to a point where I would go to see my mother, and all she could do was blink and wheeze. She had loads of needles stuck in her, too. The week of Christmas, I went to my Grandmother's house with Dorothy and Maria.

The day after Christmas, I woke up at about noon, crying... but I didn't know why. Later that day, I went home with my sisters. Our tree was set up. Maribeth and her son Michael and her husband Michael were there. Margaret was there with Angel and Jujo. Jorge was there. They all smiled sadly and greeted us warmly, giving us extra-long hugs. Tommy ushered me and Maria and Dorothy into his room... that now lacked the hospital bed that used to be there. He looked at us, and said simply, "She's gone." I didn't understan

d at the time. I was only 7, after all.

When we went to the wake -- open casket -- I saw my mother, and immediately ran over to her and hugged her. And I remember what I said, too. "Mommy! I missed you so much! Why are you laying there? Come on, we have to go home! Why are you so cold, Mommy? Ohhh... you're asleep." And I had to be brought away from the Casket and closed it. I remember yelling at Tommy because the room didn't have on the heat, and I didn't want my mom to be too cold.

When they finally got the casket in the ground, it still didn't hit me. I thought they had just put in an empty casket, and I just smiled, and went on with my life. Maria did as well. Dorothy, however, didn't, and became a wretched mess, skipping school having sex... all at the age of 12. By 13, Dorothy started smoking as well, and tried to stay home away from school as often as possible.

For a few months, I would come home from school, and call out that I was home, and would wait by the window fo

r my mother to come home. Every day, Tommy would come home and watch me do my homework. After those few months were up, it hit me. My mother was dead.

Then things went downhill. I couldn't go to other kids' houses because their parents "didn't know my mother". Kids would refuse to play with me because they thought if they did that their moms would get cancer, too. One day, I was made fun of because my mother was dead, in the lunchroom of my elementary school, and yelled, "IT'S NOT FUNNY!" And I karate-chopped the lunch table in half. The school security guards came in, and I put up quite a fight... til they knocked me out. When I came to, the principal and I made a deal. I didn't tell on them, they wouldn't tell on me or write it in my permanent record.

Shortly after, Louis finally counted me in on his Saturday visits to our house to take out Dorothy and Maria for breakfast. Now I could go along, too.

By the time I was in 4th grade, things had gotten rough for me. Nobody wante

d to be friends with me. And I was getting picked on. A lot. So, I told Dorothy one day... and the next day, she came to school with me. Two boys spit at her. She did the same thing the next day... except this time, she was wearing all black... and pulled out from her right boot a huge knife. Later that day, she was sent off to LIJ's Adolescence Pavillion.

By the time I was in the 7th grade, Dorothy was in a Residential School, only coming home on the weekends for her behavior. She was notorious for lying, stealing, smoking, and fighting. She was also part of the Bloods AND the Crips. In the 7th grade, I began to have Near Death Experiences... repeatedly. Namely, I would be minding my own business, and would start to cough and wouldn't breathe, and then would throw up this black stuff... that turned out to be blood. My doctor did X-rays of my chest, said I was fine... til he saw me throw up himself. He said something about it being in certain religions a calling. Eager, I looked it

up online and learned about Shamanism.

For a week, I was a follower of Shamanism. No NDE's. Then I stopped. They came back. So I went back to being Shamanistic, and the problem was gone. Is yet to come back, too. Tommy wasn't alright with this, though. For a year or two, he would hit me, and yell at me, telling me he was going to throw me out of the house, and that I was going to go to Hell, and that I was damned.

8th grade, Dorothy became pregnant with Samantha. We didn't know at the time, but, it was only to get out the Residential school. And she DID get out. Along with her boyfriend. Maria moved out of the house at this point as a proud Atheist, looking to get away from the mania.

By the 9th grade, she was pregnant again, with Xavier. In the 9th grade, though, I became very VERY depressed by everything. In my Highschool, I had no friends at the current, nobody would talk to me, really. And I felt like life had no purpose. Which is when a certain boy online whom I talked to

stopped me from doing so. We talked for 3 hours that day. I had been in love with him for a long time, but never told him about it. Or anyone, for that matter. But the fact I knew he didn't love me and still helped me made me love him more. I ended up dating him and meeting him IRL... and I'm still dating him.

10th grade was somewhat uneventful, except for the fact it became a conscious fact Dorothy had been doing drugs. And she was doing it when she was pregnant, and even before then, we discovered. And then Children Services got involved with my family. I told them all the things Tommy had done to me before -- the sexual harrassment, the hitting, the screaming, the threatening, and how he would do it to Dorothy as well. I wanted to go into Foster Care. My boyfriend and people I knew supported me, whole-heartedly. And it was almost done.

Then Tommy offered me that he would pay for my college, drivers lessons, drivers license, and first house if I stayed. So, I decided to drop th

e thing with ACS.

In the 10th grade, I also discovered that my mother was B+ and Louis was O+. However, Dorothy -- who I look like -- was AB-. And that simply could not work out. Louis wasn't Dorothy's father. And most likely not mine either. Which meant my mother had been sleeping around with multiple people. I lost most sense of who I was at that point.

Then I learned Dolly's cancer wasn't from smoking... nope... it was onset by the smoking. But, in truth, it was GENETIC.

By 10th grade Summer Vacation (which is ending for me on September 5th), Dorothy left her husband and children, who live with Tommy and I in the apartment. She is now dating another man, who she is engaged to. Hasn't gotten a divorce yet. And she's pregnant. Also, very recently we found out her children both have Autism.

So, tell me. Is this story or soap opera worthy?

Answer 1

well its sure not a boring story! I say go for it!

Answer 2

It's very dramatic. I'd definately read it if you sent me a copy when it became a book :) It's very tragic, and event after event happens, so it would be like a soap opera, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I found myself sympathizing with the characters, and at certain points your story seems to focus on certain characters, like a soap opera and novel would do, kind of like story lines. And you're a pretty good writer, too. Your family's history is a lot more interesting, dramatic, and event-filled than most people's. In fact, mine's nowhere near as interesting.

Go for it and make it into a book. I'd be interested in buying a copy :)

Answer 3

Quite a life, it sounds as if it would make a good book and movie. It has a continuing storyline with all the characters, and twists you don't expect. I know it's your real life, it's sad, but I think it's an interesting book plot. At least after all of it your head is on straight, and looking to the future. Good Luck!

Answer 4

As I'm the boyfriend in Megami's story, you'd have every right to consider me to be biased, however...I MUST respond to one user's answer: Her life is NOT like "a million other people's".

Every day, I have to deal with not being able to completely accept that she is even telling me the truth regarding the story. Her life is so strange, and so "eventful", you could say, that I, with my relatively average life, drive myself insane debating myself.

One side (back when I was a materialist and atheist and didn't accept the existence of anything odder than a funny coincidence, and never saw anything odder, before I met her) would rather consider her a liar or mentally unsound rather than sacrifice the idea that other peoples' lives, on the whole, are as ordinary as mine, and that if you can't see it yourself or prove it repeatably, it is FALSE. The other side of me is willing to accept, but it's a slow wait.

If it wasn't for the fact that I love her, and having successfully used magic (the paranormal variety, not the stage kind) four times so far, and a variety of odd coincidences, and my good friend learning astral projection (as of yet, he's still just doing spontaneous, accidental projections, but he's working at it) , I wouldn't even be TRYING to accept it.

I'm sorry for the long rant, but that answer angered me. It's so eventful, so crazy that I, her boyfriend, have trouble believing parts of it, that to call it boring just gets under my skin.

Answer 5

Wow hunny, your so very young to have gone through all of this stuff..
I would buy your book any day, and a soap opera would be good too i guess, but i don't watch them, so i would say book..
Good luck to you in your travels, you sound like a very strong WOMAN,
You can e-mail me anyday if you need some advice on anything..
Take care of yourself, and by the way,
your boyfriend sounds like a great guy, your lucky to have him in your life..
In life we have to realize that we can pick our friends, and have no choice when it comes to family, you do the best you can do to survive!!
Take care..

Answer 6

oh HELL definite! JK is likely considered one of the richest women human beings alive in accordance with books sales and picture sales. Warner Brothers had to purchase the rights to Harry Potter, that's owned by JK Rowling. i'm particular she additionally makes a **** ton of royalties.

Answer 7

Alex Haley did the very same thing in his novella "Roots"....and I see you too have journalistic potential. I don't see why not--go for writing the epic novel about your family's history....work in libaries, wherever they take you to....and pour into the investigation.

This is an extremely HUGE project that surely will take years to finish.....and is still a work in progress. Good luck with your success in this endeavor.

Answer 8

Drawn out, this really could be a book, soap opera, or decent length drama series. I'd say more, but after reading all that, I'm tired and I want a nap.

Answer 9

You had me going there until you said you "karate chopped the table in half" in the lunchroom at school. That's a very dramatic story, definitely book-worthy, hey, maybe even a movie!

Answer 10

It could be a PSA on what NOT to do with your life. Its like a 6 hour Jerry Springer show.
If she's Santeria, why did she care so much about Christmas?

Answer 11

There is no doubt that you should write a book. I'm sure in time it would become an excellent film, too. Good Luck!!