Teresa McRae

First, let me say sorry for the lapse of a couple days and second, let me say, I don’t know why I get on Ancestry. It just pisses me off anymore. There, rant over.

Ok. Where were we. I had met my mother, Jackie in the women’s prison in Miami and she had told me about my brother, Michael.

Michael and I became good friends over the 11 years I knew him. I was with him when he married his first wife. I was with him when he was married to his third wife. I did not live in Miami, so we would see each other when I visited, which was often. Michael was first mate on a fishing boat. He had lived on the boat or in a old run down hotel near the boat since the age of 14.

Jackie had given me up for adoption as well as the two siblings she had after me. With Michael, she just dumped him with a friend. She was a drug addict and a drunk. I think children got in her way. I’m not bitter, this is fact.

I had a fortunate life because she gave me up. Michael was not so lucky. My adopted mom and dad remembered seeing Michael when they came to pick me up from Jackie’s apt. They told me, it was obvious we had been neglected and that often I was left with only a 2 year old to care for me.

At any rate, Michael and I knew each other, as I said, for 11 years and then I was with him when he died of AIDS in 1987. I moved into his hospital room, slept on an awful couch, helped the nurse when I could and held Michael’s hand. Michael never had a chance. He was illiterate. I don’t think Jackie ever sent him to school. He was left to fend for himself from the age if 14. He became a heroin addict during one of my year long absences from Miami. I heard he was dying from a friend of his. I got a call out of the blue one day from someone, I don’t remember his name, informing me of Michael’s impending death.

I loved Michael very much. I wished I had more time with him. I wanted to teach him to read. I wanted to make up for his childhood. I never got the chance.

We had a memorial on the ship he had worked on for 17 years and scattered his ashes to the ocean.

Next time, more on Jackie and how I met my other siblings and my biological father.

Sorry, finding it difficult to go on right now. I will put a picture of Michael on my next post.

Thanks for reading.