bzcutah
20th January 2005, 10:11 PM
My brother Justin
I grew up in home with 9 kids in and out of the home. 5 step siblings, and 3 blood siblings.
I had 2 blood brothers, 1 blood sister and 5 stepsisters.
My family had some rough times when I was growing up, as a result of having so many people in and out of the house. We often took my cousins in also. So at any given time there could have been 9 or more people in the house.
My father worked for one of the worlds largest construction company, as a project manager for a large dam project and a nuclear power plant in California. Supporting his family very well.
My father while on his way to work one day, was a very bad car accident, breaking nearly every bone in his body. He was in a comma for 3 weeks. Finally regaining consciousness, he was not able to walk, or even talk very well for a good part of the next year to come. He lost his job, and was disabled for a few years.
We moved to a much more humble home in Utah, in Fountain Green Utah.
Our heat came from a wood-burning stove. So did our hot bath water.
Food and resources were scarce.
Finally, when my father regained his strength, we moved to Salt Lake City. Where my father started at the bottom of another construction company. Times still hard, were now improving again.
This is where my youngest brother Justin was born.
I was 8 years old.
I remember them bringing him home. He looked just like me. He was so peaceful, so small. This was the first sibling that I can recall being born, because I was very young during the birth of the rest of my siblings.
Justin and I were always close from that day on.
It wasn't long after Justin was born, that we moved to Utah County.
We moved around there a few times, and after changing schools 6 times, I left home at age 14.
After that, I didn't get to hang out with my siblings much. I was traveling, sometimes I would come back to stay. But usually I was under the guise of staying with my grandma, so that my parents wouldn't worry, and I would be off traveling with my cousins.
Eventually one of my cousins started dating a skinhead dude.
He was trying to be real hard by giving himself tattoos. I thought it was cool, and I got some myself.
We all moved in together right before my 16th birthday. I started paying rent, anyway that I could. Tried tattooing for a living, and some other things that would be a bad example to my siblings.
So my mom tried to keep me away from the family. I didn't get along with them much, and I complied as best as I could. Sometimes I would try to come over and bum food.
I would get to hang out with my siblings when I would come to bum food. Sometimes I would stay for a month or two so that I could have a roof over my head while I found a new place to live.
I would stay in the camp trailer so as not to get my family riled up with my careless lifestyle.
Justin always looked up to me. I found this out while reading his diaries recently.
Eventually, I moved to Seattle, Sun Valley, Santa Cruz, Minneapolis, SLC, and all around between there. There was about 3 years when I didn't see my family at all.
When I was 21 years old. I gave my life to Jesus, after a group in Seattle had introduced me years before and prayer for me while I was on the streets. They were New Horizons ministries. A good group a helpful and caring people that outreach to youth in Seattle.
After reading the book of Romans in the Bible, I decided to turn myself into the law in Utah. As it was, I had a lot of marijuana tickets in Utah, and that’s why I ran from there in the first place.
So I turned myself in, did a few months of jail time, paid my fines and quit smoking pot.
In little surprise, I found that my siblings all used marijuana and alcohol too.
My youngest brother Justin, and I partook a lot of philosophical and theological discussion. I was very concerned for him.
He explained to me a few of the problems he had in life.
One of the biggest things that he was suffering from was depression.
He had attempted to OD a few times, and he told me that the reason that he felt so isolated is because our parents smoke.
I asked him if he had ever smoked. He said only once.
This was the same things that I had experienced.
I would go to school, and I would be questioned by the teachers if I smoked. I would seemingly convince them that I didn't smoke.
But the kids in school, namely the ones who were very active in the LDS church would gang up on me, and beat me up.
I was very polite. I was even a Teachers Assistant for my English teacher, and I had fairly good grades.
But just because I didn't hang out with these kids in seminary as it seemed, they picked on me.
Justin's experience by his own admission, and his own personal writings conveyed the same thoughts.
Justin often used the internet to vent. I remember that he would go to LDSchat.com and get banned there once a day.
It was perfect. He could speak his mind, and not get beat for it.
He went to church with me twice also. Which gave him a challenge, which he accepted and continued with. He asked me a lot of questions, and this is where most of our time was spent together.
We took a trip to Washington State once, so that I could take care of a traffic ticket there. Him, my mother and myself took a week and spent it together up there. It was a good time to get reacquainted.
My brother also expressed himself musically, and was becoming a master guitar player.
I used to hang out with bands in Seattle, and we had a lot in common from what I learned during the discussion on that trip.
So eventually, my mother got him a prescription of Zoloft because he still had a sever depression as my mother thought, because he was always speaking his mind on the internet (something that sempt unstable to her)..
It wasn't long after he got that prescription that he took a few of them, and a few cold tablets, and didn't wake up the next day. This was January 2002.
So I keep Justin's memory alive, by trying to change the same things that he tried to change.
Which is, bigotry by LDS people of those who don't follow the "Words of Wisdom". and the ideal LDS lifestyle.
To keep his memory alive, and to help me cope. I have started this message board (http://www.behindzioncurtain.com).
I realize this is a bunch of ramblings. Very rough and simple, nothing elegant.
I've never been an elegant writer. Just someone trying to sand out a few rough spots in life.
I grew up in home with 9 kids in and out of the home. 5 step siblings, and 3 blood siblings.
I had 2 blood brothers, 1 blood sister and 5 stepsisters.
My family had some rough times when I was growing up, as a result of having so many people in and out of the house. We often took my cousins in also. So at any given time there could have been 9 or more people in the house.
My father worked for one of the worlds largest construction company, as a project manager for a large dam project and a nuclear power plant in California. Supporting his family very well.
My father while on his way to work one day, was a very bad car accident, breaking nearly every bone in his body. He was in a comma for 3 weeks. Finally regaining consciousness, he was not able to walk, or even talk very well for a good part of the next year to come. He lost his job, and was disabled for a few years.
We moved to a much more humble home in Utah, in Fountain Green Utah.
Our heat came from a wood-burning stove. So did our hot bath water.
Food and resources were scarce.
Finally, when my father regained his strength, we moved to Salt Lake City. Where my father started at the bottom of another construction company. Times still hard, were now improving again.
This is where my youngest brother Justin was born.
I was 8 years old.
I remember them bringing him home. He looked just like me. He was so peaceful, so small. This was the first sibling that I can recall being born, because I was very young during the birth of the rest of my siblings.
Justin and I were always close from that day on.
It wasn't long after Justin was born, that we moved to Utah County.
We moved around there a few times, and after changing schools 6 times, I left home at age 14.
After that, I didn't get to hang out with my siblings much. I was traveling, sometimes I would come back to stay. But usually I was under the guise of staying with my grandma, so that my parents wouldn't worry, and I would be off traveling with my cousins.
Eventually one of my cousins started dating a skinhead dude.
He was trying to be real hard by giving himself tattoos. I thought it was cool, and I got some myself.
We all moved in together right before my 16th birthday. I started paying rent, anyway that I could. Tried tattooing for a living, and some other things that would be a bad example to my siblings.
So my mom tried to keep me away from the family. I didn't get along with them much, and I complied as best as I could. Sometimes I would try to come over and bum food.
I would get to hang out with my siblings when I would come to bum food. Sometimes I would stay for a month or two so that I could have a roof over my head while I found a new place to live.
I would stay in the camp trailer so as not to get my family riled up with my careless lifestyle.
Justin always looked up to me. I found this out while reading his diaries recently.
Eventually, I moved to Seattle, Sun Valley, Santa Cruz, Minneapolis, SLC, and all around between there. There was about 3 years when I didn't see my family at all.
When I was 21 years old. I gave my life to Jesus, after a group in Seattle had introduced me years before and prayer for me while I was on the streets. They were New Horizons ministries. A good group a helpful and caring people that outreach to youth in Seattle.
After reading the book of Romans in the Bible, I decided to turn myself into the law in Utah. As it was, I had a lot of marijuana tickets in Utah, and that’s why I ran from there in the first place.
So I turned myself in, did a few months of jail time, paid my fines and quit smoking pot.
In little surprise, I found that my siblings all used marijuana and alcohol too.
My youngest brother Justin, and I partook a lot of philosophical and theological discussion. I was very concerned for him.
He explained to me a few of the problems he had in life.
One of the biggest things that he was suffering from was depression.
He had attempted to OD a few times, and he told me that the reason that he felt so isolated is because our parents smoke.
I asked him if he had ever smoked. He said only once.
This was the same things that I had experienced.
I would go to school, and I would be questioned by the teachers if I smoked. I would seemingly convince them that I didn't smoke.
But the kids in school, namely the ones who were very active in the LDS church would gang up on me, and beat me up.
I was very polite. I was even a Teachers Assistant for my English teacher, and I had fairly good grades.
But just because I didn't hang out with these kids in seminary as it seemed, they picked on me.
Justin's experience by his own admission, and his own personal writings conveyed the same thoughts.
Justin often used the internet to vent. I remember that he would go to LDSchat.com and get banned there once a day.
It was perfect. He could speak his mind, and not get beat for it.
He went to church with me twice also. Which gave him a challenge, which he accepted and continued with. He asked me a lot of questions, and this is where most of our time was spent together.
We took a trip to Washington State once, so that I could take care of a traffic ticket there. Him, my mother and myself took a week and spent it together up there. It was a good time to get reacquainted.
My brother also expressed himself musically, and was becoming a master guitar player.
I used to hang out with bands in Seattle, and we had a lot in common from what I learned during the discussion on that trip.
So eventually, my mother got him a prescription of Zoloft because he still had a sever depression as my mother thought, because he was always speaking his mind on the internet (something that sempt unstable to her)..
It wasn't long after he got that prescription that he took a few of them, and a few cold tablets, and didn't wake up the next day. This was January 2002.
So I keep Justin's memory alive, by trying to change the same things that he tried to change.
Which is, bigotry by LDS people of those who don't follow the "Words of Wisdom". and the ideal LDS lifestyle.
To keep his memory alive, and to help me cope. I have started this message board (http://www.behindzioncurtain.com).
I realize this is a bunch of ramblings. Very rough and simple, nothing elegant.
I've never been an elegant writer. Just someone trying to sand out a few rough spots in life.