Era 4
The Day the Door Closed
“That was the day I split in two: the girl who obeyed, and the girl who watched for the exit.”
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Content Warning:
This piece reflects personal experiences involving childhood trauma, substance use, grief, and loss. It is written from my lived experience for healing and reflection. Some parts may feel heavy. Please read with care.
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Still Grieving
Living under the Whites was hard, but it wasn’t just because of the rules or how they treated me. They didn’t start hurting me right away.
But it was the start of it…
The truth is… my days didn’t move like normal days.
There weren’t “mornings” and “nights” the way people think.
There were just moments — heavy, stretched-out, confusing.
Time didn’t come in clean pieces.
It didn’t feel like “a week ago” or “yesterday.”
It felt like everything was happening all at once, or not at all.
Some days were a blur because I was focused on the now — on what was happening in the room, on what I needed to do to stay safe, on who was watching, on how to remain invisible or small.
Fear made everything blur. Fear blended into silence. Silence turned into watching, and watching turned into waiting. And waiting… became survival.
I realized that it was. And it felt like no one saw it. No one stopped it.
At the same time, I was still grieving.
Mamaw had just died. I was 10 years old and completely heartbroken, and my sister Rose was 8.
Every time I looked up at the sky, I would cry.
Sometimes it would hit me out of nowhere.
A song, a smell, a memory—and suddenly I’d be in tears all over again.
I thought about her constantly— the good times and the bad.
Her voice. Her chair. The way she held our family together, even when things were messy. Our late nights staying up watching America’s Got Talent or The Voice.
I missed her so much.
And I was deeply vulnerable.
I felt lost.
But no one under that roof really saw that. The Whites heard me crying…but they didn’t truly listen. They didn’t comfort me. They didn’t hug me or try to hold me.
They just… existed around my pain.
And in a time when I needed someone the most, I had no one.
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The Truth About Mamaw
I didn’t know the full truth when I was 10.
All I knew was that Mamaw died in her sleep on March 6, 2012.
They told me it was a heart attack.
They got rid of her chair.
They said she peed herself when she passed.
But when I first moved in with Margaret and Thomas, I asked how Mamaw died.
She wouldn’t tell me.
She said, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Like grief had an age limit.
Like, I didn’t already feel the weight of her being gone.
It wasn’t until I was placed at KidsPeace that I began to put the pieces together.
I reached out.
I asked questions.
I connected the dots.
And the truth hit me harder than I was ready for—but I needed it.
As time went on, the truth showed itself…
Anna didn’t mean for Mamaw to die. But her actions were part of what led to it.
She gave her own mother Oxycodone—something Mamaw was already vulnerable to.
And Mamaw was already so sick.
And Mamaw was already so sick and had an addiction problem.
She had COPD.
She couldn’t even lie flat to sleep; that’s why she stayed in her reclining chair in the living room.
She had ischemic heart disease, possible sepsis, depression, and a history of IV drug use.
She was only 53.
According to the medical examiner’s report, she had even attempted suicide in 2010 using Xanax.
Before she died, the family said she was super depressed.
Mumbling to herself.
Shuffling through the house.
She had a chest cold.
And it felt like nothing was done.
The truth is, the family had already started falling apart before she passed. However, when Richard entered the picture, things worsened. It felt like his presence brought more drugs and harmful choices into the home—things that made everything worse.
At one point, there were serious drug-related activities happening in the house. That’s how far things had gone.
Even now, I understand more than I did back then.
I understand why Mamaw and Papaw didn’t sleep in the same room. Her health made it hard. And I do believe my grandfather tried to love her the best way he could.
But I still carry frustration toward him.
Because I asked him—and he admitted it.
He knew she wasn’t okay.
And he didn’t take her to a doctor.
Didn’t fight to get her therapy.
Didn’t push for medication that could’ve helped her cope with her depression the right way.
Even if she was going to take something, it should’ve been from a doctor—not street painkillers passed to her by her own daughter or medications from medicine cabinet.
Mamaw made her choice.
I’m not blind to that.
She chose to take those pills.
She chose to run from the pain instead of facing it.
But Anna…
She was the one who gave them to her, from what I came to understand.
Knowing that Mamaw was already sick.
Knowing what depression and drugs had already done to our family.
That didn’t feel like just carelessness. It felt deeply wrong.
As a person, and as her biological daughter.
I still carry anger toward her for that.
And the rest of the family?
They followed Papaw.
It felt like what was happening was seen, but not addressed.
One choice after another, until it created a domino effect that, in my understanding, led to her death—and left pain behind for everyone, including my siblings and me. I still think about it. Because this wasn’t just something that happened. This was something that, from where I stand now, feels like it could’ve been stopped. This was the truth I had to find on my own. And I carry it every day. I went to her funeral.
I remember seeing her at her funeral—not alive, but still.
Her body was cold to the touch.
The smell of death hung in the air.
And the emptiness…
It wasn’t just in the room.
It was in me.
Because this wasn’t the Mamaw I remembered.
The one who used to sit in her recliner, watching us, still trying to hold the family together.
This was what was left—
After the damage.
After the silence.
After everyone’s choices had caught up.
And though I stood there, looking at her one last time, what I really saw was all the pain that brought us there.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account.”
—Hebrews 4:13
