It's A Shame Pt. 1
Today was his last day on this Earth. This would be the last time he was to awake. He had been waiting for this day for the last year, but in truth he’d been waiting his whole life for this day. He had just finished eating his breakfast when he picked up and began reading his bible where he had left off late last night.
Prison was not as bad as the outside world, the world that he had known at least. He was fed, warm, he wasn’t beat, and he was safe here. He had made a few friends, their stories similar to his. He had been in counseling since his time here and it had helped him tremendously, he just wished that he could have had someone to help him, someone that cared sooner. But as it was, he knew his fate and he had made his peace with God. He prayed nightly now and believed the lord had forgiven him of his sins. The love the bible spoke of was like nothing Shame had ever known before. As scary as death was, Heaven sounded like the piece of himself that he was missing all of his life. He would go to Heaven where his true Father would wrap his arms around him and love him and take every ounce of pain away from him until he could no longer remember his troubles. God is what was going to get him through this day.
There were no last phone calls, no last visits from family members. He was left to himself as it had always been. The only person who was interested in speaking with Shame was a lonely looking older lady who he had been told was a reporter for the local paper. He had shied away from reporters, but this being his last day he decided to tell his story.
Mary Rimes was led to Shame. She looked hard and unforgiving, the sort he had dealt with since his birth. She made herself comfortable in her seat and took out her tape recorder. She stared at him for a hard minute thinking to herself that he looked like her son, just a little boy. How could such a child do what he had done? What had brought him to this point?
“Can you please state your name and age,” asked Mary.
“My name is Tyler Shame Anders and I am 17 years old. Tomorrow would be my 18th birthday,” answered Shame.
“I will tell my story once to you and that will be the end of me. Not to excuse the things that I have done, my sins are between the Lord and I now, but just to tell my story. This will be my history. I did live and this was my life".
I was born to Lauren Hills on September 8, I was her only child. I was not wanted. She had tried to destroy me from the time the two lines showed up on her at home test. Drinking, doing drugs, falling down the stairs, punching herself in the stomach, etc. She did not have the money for an abortion and my father didn’t care whether or not she had the baby because he had no plans of sticking around. But, I survived and she hated me for it. For all of her trying, I was a healthy baby boy. I was named Tyler after my father and Shame to remind me how she felt about me.
My mother was 21 when she had me and had no intentions of being a mother. She liked to party, do drugs, and sleep around. I kind of ruined this for her.
With a baby my mother was able to get housing through the government, cash from welfare, and food stamps. She used to say that was the only good thing I done for her in my life. We lived in one of the poorest communities in the state, it’s as if they took all of the poor low class people and decided to put us all in one area so we couldn’t tarnish any of the good folks.
A few months after I was born my mother started to receive child support. Although I’m not sure what she did with the money because I never had the things a child needs and the lights and heat were always getting turned off.
When I turned 1 my grandmother took me to live with her, I stayed with her until I was about 4. I remember being so happy there. She would take time to play with me, she always fed and bathed me, and she would buy me toys when we went to the store.
Every year that I was with her she threw me birthday parties and always took lots of pictures. It was just always me and grandma though, maybe a few neighbors or something but mostly just us. I realized very young that I didn’t really have a family. My father had moved out of state right after I was born and even though my grandma was his mother, she still let my mother keep the child support so she wouldn’t stop her from taking me to live with her. Don’t be confused my mother did not want me, but she did want the money as it was her only source of income.
I never asked about my mother, I loved my grandma she was my mother. She made me feel safe and loved. My mother never saw me once in the years I was with my grandma. I wasn’t really sure why I had been taken from my mother until one day I overheard my grandma talking to a neighbor lady in the kitchen.
“Oh the poor boy was terrible looking when I saw him. He looked like he wasn’t being fed; he had bruises and scars all over his body. Lauren said he fell here and there and ran into this and that; I didn’t buy any of it. He had no clean clothes, they were all filthy. The house looked worse than a pigs sty. I let him unwrap his gifts from me, the only ones he got can you believe it, anyways I went to change him into one of the new outfits I got him and I noticed red marks around his neck. Well, as you can imagine I lost it and Lauren finally admitted to me that he cries all the time and she can’t stand it so the night before she tried to choke him, just a little bit to shut him out. I flew off the handle and told her at that point that I was taking the boy and there was nothing she could do about it. I told her I would get the cops, children and youth, whoever I needed to contact to get him out of her care. She agreed to let me take him easily when I told her she could keep the child support. So, since that day he has been here. I hate that women and my son is no better. It’s best for him to not have either of them in his life. I am his mother now and I love him and nothing will ever happen to him as long as I live”
Unfortunately my grandmother died not long after that statement. At 4 years old I was sent back to live with my mother.
