What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? Yeah, fine. Whatever.

Hm? Oh, I said no more personal posts. True dat. I did add an exception. It had to be about this blog. And it is. I am going to talk to you about the one situation. One incident. That changed who I was drastically.

I’ve talked about how I was inspired to created DALANEL. And here, in the birthday celebration, it’s only fair to me, you, and…uh…I guess just us to find out the event in my life completely changed me up.

Many people that know me personally think I’m funny. Very funny. If only they knew. The worst moment in my life pushed me to let loose my sense of humor.

People tell me how kind and nice I am. If only ya knew, babe. It was because of the worst moment of my life.

Why do I not care about dying? The worst moment of my life.

I’m only 22 years old. So, it’s safe to say that what happened to me is the worst thing so far. Still, I anticipate it will always be a top bad moment of my life.

I’m going to tell you the details. It’s risky because it involves family. Plus, not too many members actually know what happened. Quite frankly, I happen to know barely anybody in my family reads this blog. Even if they did, I ain’t scared of the backlash I’d probably get. Sure, the names will be changed to protect the people involved. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a long time. Oh, I’ve touched on it. Here at DALANEL. My book. Two chapters in there, “Tale of Forgiveness” and “Let It Go” both go hand in hand, and you can kinda guess why.

But, I never actually went blow by blow publicly. But, as I keep saying, this particular time in my life, while it happened seven years ago, directly ties into my goals for this blog. It’s in three parts because it’s actually too long; even the short version.

I will also be offering my own interpretation. My mom doesn’t think that some of the events I will be talking about have anything to do with it. I beg to differ.

The story starts off a little funny. My father’s sister married my mom’s first cousin. I know. I’m sure I’m not the first to experience this. My aunt was my cousin and my cousin was my uncle. They ended up with a nasty divorce. It was hard on me and my sisters. We were the only people related to both people involved. There was no picking sides. The struggle was real.

The divorce, in my opinion, started the spiral of events that lead my family left to be homeless. More on that later.

I know that I’m not the first person to have family back stab you. I won’t be the last. I’m not asking you to pity me. I’m not saying my situation is special. I’m just hoping you understand where DALANEL came from. Keep that in mind.

Now, my aunt has been moving around. Apartment after apartment. She got married and things seemed to be looking up. I won’t tell you how the divorce went down. None of my business. It happened. This part is still unclear to me but, because of that divorce, my aunt ended up needing a place to stay.

Insert my family.

The house we lived in was left to my dad and his two siblings. So, technically, my aunt had a home. And she’s lived with us for a long time before. So, my parents offered her to move back in. She declined. Fine.

Now, let me explain the house. My dad’s mother owned the house. She died when I was a baby. According to relatives, she loved me more than my mother. I wish I could’ve gotten to know her. Anyway, when she died, my aunt was still a minor but, the will stated that the house be left to the three siblings once they were over age 18. The will also stated that the house be left under my great grand mother’s name for the time being. When my aunt turned 18, then they would sort things out.

Fast forward to age 18, whenever that was. Apparently, my dad and his siblings didn’t do anything with the house. My great grandmother was still alive. By the way, my aunt is the youngest and only girl. My great grandmother died in 2007, in her late 80’s (Lord knows I forgot how old she was).

Here we go.

With her gone, my aunt must’ve decided it was time to deal with the house. And my dad and uncle seemed on board. At first, it was agreed that my parents would buy my uncle and aunt out. Cool. But, my aunt then backs out. My parents had pulled a second mortgage. UGH.

Even now, my emotions. I’ll keep then in check; I promise. I’m over it but, going back to the events stings a bit.

Alright, so then my aunt decides we should sell the house. Split the money three ways from the sale. Sounds fair to me. So, we had people come by. appraisal people. My aunt didn’t agree with what a few folks put our house value as. She even sent her own people. Nope. I guess she wanted more.

I didn’t want to move. I grew up in that house. I was born in the town. In fact, the hospital eventually closed down the maternity part so I was “the last of his kind” if you will. Not many people can say they were born there. anyway, I wasn’t happy with it; but I understood the situation.

That’s when things get a little…hostile.

My aunt started putting the pressure on for us to leave. I took it as she needed money and she needed it now. She has no kids. She’s on her own. Sometimes I wonder if being used to looking out just for herself led to some of her actions.

We had to leave at a certain date; and no, it didn’t matter if we had a house to move into. We were packing before we even found a place. My aunt wanted us out!

The Nelson’s were left to be homeless. And in the next part, I’ll let ya know exactly how things played out and the terrible events that took place after.

-DALANEL