Getting to know my father

I was born in October of 1972. My parent's divorce was final one month later. My biological father, Frank, left my mother when she was six months pregnant with me. He was Her second  husband. Mom remarried when I was two years old. My stepdad, Earl, was good man. He adopted me and my two sisters (from mom's first marriage) and loved us like we were his own. I didn't know who my father was until I was 11 years old. My mom sat me down and told me about him. I didn't believe it until she showed me wedding pictures. I had actually met him a couple of times before at my aunt's house. My Aunt Lola is his younger sister and she has two daughters my age. The girls called him Uncle Hairy Bear. They told me he wasn't my uncle but I could call him that if I wanted. It was really weird finding out he was my father. We started visitations soon after that. I would go and spend weekends once a month or so with him and my stepmother, Linda. I was really shy with him for quite some time after we started visiting. He would put his arm around me and I'd bend over and duck backwards under his arm. It took me a long time to get comfortable with him. He worked for the Amarillo newspaper as a pressman. I visited his job once and he showed me how he prepped and put the printing plates on the press, how he loaded the ink and the paper. It was really interesting and he always wore this funny paper hat that he folded. He would go to work around 8 pm and be home sometime between 3 and 5. He would wake me up when he got home and take me to Denny's. He'd get breakfast while I sleepily drank hot coco and we'd talk. He'd tell me stories of his life.

Welcome Post

Hi, welcome to my blog. My name is Melinda Kay Hobgood. Most people call me Mindy. The below poem was written by me at the age of 15. It's about something that happened to me when I was 10 years old. I had no idea at the time that worse things were going to be happening soon. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. This is my journey through my memories of my childhood and teen years. I won't be posting events in chronological order, but I will tag posts with an approximate time frame. Some names may be changed to protect the innocent. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, it isn't going to be easy.