The Coldest Night Ever

Six years ago today,
While the world went on with business as usual, I lost my life as I knew it.  It was the day that my landlord hired his workers to remove us from our home, in hopes to preserve my life for the future of my children.  I had already lost my career with Starbucks and had to cut my businesses.  After living off of my investments for a year, court fees against my exhusband, and medical fees left my bank account penniless.    

Little did the landlord know that we would have no place to go, for the shelters had been filled up, pending the blizzard in Philadelphia.  Only three days after my oldest son' s eighth birthday and two weeks after my daughter's fourth, I went with my children all day to find a place to sleep that night.  

The time was 2pm  on February 16th and we still had a whole afternoon to figure it out.  With uncertainty in tow, we went to one of my foster sister's houses and she was able to feed us.  She had a house full of people  and no room, but since she often slept in the living room, she told me to go rest with my children in her bedroom that night.  I guess she and her sister talked about our situation and decided that they did not want to help us, in fear that my exhusband would show up, but furthermore, they did not want to put up with my youngest who was only 5 months old.  So at 11pm, before they went to bed, she called me downstairs to tell me that we had to go.  

It was -10 degrees outside with a wind chill of -32 and we had no money or gas to go far.  The roads were covered in ice and everything was shut down until further notice.  I got the kids up from their slumber and carried them out of the house one at a time.  She gave me three dollars and a blanket, and told me not to come back until my exhusband was in jail.  

There was no point in calling anyone else, for I had been without family since I was a girl, and the rest of my world was fast asleep, snuggled under their blankets in the comforts of their heated homes.  The kids cried, it was so cold, and my daughter vomited across the back seat of the car.  We parked on the side of a 24 hour gas station and I used the brown roll of paper towels to sop up most of the vomit. I had to leave the rest how it was, for the chill of the cold night air was making all three kids cry and it took everything out of me to hold back my tears as well.  I didn't have a winter coat and felt as though I could shatter my body if I simply bumped into something hard enough.  I drove with the heat on in the car, until the kids fell out, then I parked in front of our old house, wondering if we could sneak in there for the night.  To my surprise, the locks were already changed.   At this point,  the gas needle was in the warning zone and we could go no further, so this was it for the night.

The time was 1:22am on February 17th and both the baby and my little girl were crying again.  They were cold and we were running out of gas to keep them warm.  I put all three kids in the front seat with me and we shared the only blanket.  I did my best to sing a lullaby, but kept choking up, making my daughter cry harder, and now my oldest had awakened again.  After calming everybody down, I went to a known drug house down the block, where I knew people would still be awake getting high.  When I told them of our situation, they fixed me a cup of coffee and gave me another four dollars and seventeen cents for enough gas to make it through the morning.  We went to the nearest gas station and put the modest amount in the tank.  

After driving for another hour, fighting back tears, I confirmed the kids to be asleep again and pulled back up to my old house, for lack of a safer place to be.  Sitting in front of my house, absorbing the memories, both good and bad, I cried and cried.  How could my exhusband do this to them?  Why would he succumb his children to such suffering, over his anger toward me?  Why was he angry with me, when I gave him so many chances to get it right?  He always said that he would do anything for my love, but all he had ever done was make life worse with his drugs and street life.  The landlord put us out of the house because he kept coming back to try to kill me.  Why would he want to kill the mother of his children?  Why would he want to kill the woman he claimed to have loved so dearly?  

It was now 3:45am and I had to start thinking of where we would go and what we would do today.  Our options were extremely limited, given the state of emergency in our area with the cold winter storm.  The kids were crying in their sleep and I turned on the radio to disguise my tears of frustration.  Avril Lavigne was at the rise in her career and the radio station was airing her latest single for the first time - Keep Holding On,  as I prayed to God to deliver us from this mess.  Leilani had awakened and we listened to the song while holding each other for warmth.  She asked me why would God let us go through this and if we would die in the cold, if her daddy loved her so much like he said he did, why was he always trying to kill her mommy?

I could not answer any of these questions, rather could only tell her what the song said - to keep holding on.

We talked about what it would be like when we left to find our people, and how things would be in Hawaii.  We talked about when she would go to the Kamehameha school and learn about who she was. I told her that since she came from humble beginnings, that it only meant that God was with her and would make the rest of her life amazing.  She didn't care about herself.  She wanted to know if we would be okay, and if God was going to make our lives amazing.  

I didn't have these answers and held back the tears for my own life, in which I wasn't telling my kids about, but I feared that I wouldn't be around to make their lives as amazing as I knew their lives would be.  My life never was.  I wasn't sure if it would.  The post traumatic stress disorder was making my body attack itself and I was in and out of the hospital.  I had already outlived my said expiration date, and all doctor's expectations.  I didn't want to lie to my baby and build dreams, for I was afraid she would be traumatized if I didn't make it.  So I kept the focus on her.  She was the one who needed the strength at the moment.  She had just turned four, Shawn had just turned eight and Phoenix was barely a year old.  Of all that I had ever been through, this was the single coldest night ever.

Kahala Lei

copyright 2013

please read while listening to song:    http://youtu.be/iBi3iltquH4