Pieces of Eight

By Patricia Burns

This book takes you on a journey with a single mother of five children and how she grows her family grows to the pieces of eight children and survives them all.  There is heartache and happiness along with tears of joy and sadness sprinkled throughout these stories.  She finds good from every bad situation, sharing her wisdom with her pieces of eight throughout the book.  Discover how she finds love and happiness in a near tragic encounter with the man she will spend the rest of her life with. This nonfictional collection of adventures takes you on a trip down memory lane with highs and lows and twists and turns.  This book will take you on your own personal trip down memory lane and helps to relive childhood memories.  I enjoyed the trip and I hope you do to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raised Bridges
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223916253

Book preview

DEDICATION

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to my mom, Barbara Britt, a single mother of five who survived her children and the circumstances of her life.  She found a lesson or something good in every situation she encountered, including finding love in an unusual circumstance.  After remarrying and adding three more children, she had completed the pieces of eight.  From the highs to the very low, she never lost faith and continued to stay strong, wise and positive.  My mom’s famous line, I must have had a screw loose for having so many kids, is something my siblings and I heard repeatedly throughout our life.  I hope my siblings can take their own trip back down memory lane as they read this collection of adventures we shared with our mom.  It took 66 years and my mom’s passing to finally discover where that loose screw has been the whole time.  I just hope that I can be half the woman my mom was and make her proud by following in her footsteps of positivity and wisdom, but not the kids. 

COVER ART BY:

Danielle Comeau

PUBLISHED BY:

Raised Bridges, LLC

PIECES OF EIGHT

GROWING UP IN A BIG family is not for the faint of heart, because there are many ups and downs, twists and turns, heart aches and joyous times.  As one of eight children, I would not change a thing about my family.  Our life’s experiences have shaped each one of us into the caring adults, we have all become today.  I am referring to my family siblings and me as the pieces of eight.  Eight children from oldest to youngest Bill, Steve, Scott, Patty, Brian, Laura, Arthur, and Angie.  My mom, Barbara, would always say that she must have had a screw loose for having so many kids, and as I recall all the experiences throughout my life, I am beginning to believe her.  My family experienced some situations that some may feel were not appropriate to share with children.  But we used our experiences as lessons in life and those brought us closer together.  As an adult you don’t realize just how much your childhood and all those life experiences shape you into the person you have become.  My childhood had wonderful times and not-so-great times.  I think back now and wonder if things had been different, who would I be today? 

Every experience in our lives helps to build the framework of compassion towards others and how we behave as adults.  Growing up poor did not harm me, because it made me appreciate all the little things in my life.  My family’s struggles taught us to be more empathetic and caring towards others and their struggles, giving us the desire to help others in similar situations.  I can speak for my siblings when I say that we feel much better about giving to others than receiving from them.  We have become the adults we are today because of the blueprints of our childhood, and I would not change anything about how I was raised.  It would have been nice to have both of my parents together, but sometimes not having them both is how things turn out, which was the best scenario in our case. 

My mom is the real hero of this whole saga of our lives and all the adventures we experienced.  Her sacrifices, trials and tribulations have proven her strength to endure hardship, and her wisdom to turn every bad situation into a valuable lesson in life.  As a single parent trying to raise five children alone in the beginning, especially boys, made her a strong-willed, independent woman.  She had to be mom, dad, and disciplinarian for us all, while trying to feed, clothe and keep a roof over our heads.  She seldom would ask for help from anyone, even family living only a few miles away.  She gave us a great life and I have no regrets.  When I think about it, if I could change one thing, I would change is the amount of stress she endured trying to do it all alone without allowing us to see her pain. 

This is a story of memories throughout the lives of the eight pieces of my mom, along with her struggles along the way.  My mom was a friend when needed, the firm hand of discipline when necessary, a laugh when you were sad, the hand that helped you back onto your feet, the ear to listen without judgement, and most of all my best friend.  This story is an account to the best of our recollection of growing up in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and even into the twentieth century. I am sure many people can relate to and possibly awaken some of their personal memories for them.  My mom’s famous line which she often said, I must have had a screw loose for having so many kids, is something I have heard hundreds of times growing up, and often wondered as a child where that screw was.  When this story closes the final chapter of her life, you will know precisely where that loose screw was and is today, because it remains with my mom.

Oak Avenue

I AM THE FOURTH CHILD of eight and grew up in Massachusetts on Oak Avenue back in the early 60’s, in a small apartment with my mom and my four brothers.  Our apartment was on the third floor and had three small bedrooms.  My mom’s room had pale green paint on the walls and white laced curtains, and a small closet that fit what little clothes and shoes she had.  The second bedroom was for my two middle brothers, Steve and Scott.  They had separate twin beds side by side, with a small table between them covered with Lego block buildings and matchbox cars.  The last bedroom was more like a small hallway with a bunkbed on one side and a crib on the other. 

My older brother Bill had the top bunk, and I had the bottom one, and across from it was the crib where my baby brother Brian slept.  We shared a dresser and the closet with our other brothers, because this hallway bedroom had no room for any extra furniture.  The kitchen was bigger than all the bedrooms together with an older model fridge and an old gas stove.  It even fit our washer that had two rollers you had to feed your clothes through to squeeze the water out of.  The bathroom was small with a toilet, sink and bathtub, where an adult could easily hit their knees while sitting on the toilet.  As a kid I thought that was a great feature because I could wash my hands before, during and after using the bathroom.

There was a small porch right off the kitchen with high railings and a few ropes strung across as a clothesline.  There was a flowered cloth bag on a wire frame hanging from the ropes full of wooden clothes pins.  The living room was small but cozy with white linoleum and plain gray painted walls.  The ceiling sloped down on the right side where the building roof matched it because we were on the top floor.  We spent most of our time in this room watching TV and eating on the floor in front of the TV because our table was too small to fit us all at one time.  The best part of that apartment was a good size closet off the living room that had been converted to a playroom.  That was where me and my friends, my dolls, would play for hours because this was my safe space.  That apartment is the first memory of my childhood at the age of four, because I have very little memory before that place.  My real dad lived in that apartment with us for only a short time, because of his horrible behavior towards my mom and his kids.  My last memory of my real dad and my mother together was not a good memory.  I remains so vivid in my mind over 50 years later. 

Oak Avenue was a dead-end road with several houses on it and families with children that we all got to know quite well.  There were all boys and one girl, much older than me in the neighborhood, so I had to either play by myself or learn to get along and play like the guys.  I guess that is the beginning of me learning to be a somewhat tomboy.  I learned to fish from my brother Scott at a little pond that was overrun with goldfish, and what we caught we always returned to the pond.  My brothers and the neighborhood boys taught me to throw a football and play baseball, which I enjoyed.  There were times when I chose to be very girly and dress up pretty and walk up and down the street in my white gogo boots.  I felt like I was a model, but never really had anywhere to go but just to parade around.  I also learned to ride a bike on that street, a tricycle then on up to a two-wheeler with training wheels. 

The neighbors up the road were Greg who was my age, and a family with five kids of various ages that my brothers could hang out with.  Bill was closest to his friend Steve and Alan and spent nearly every day together.  Their siblings Johnny, Judy and Billy played with everyone too, but they always were the ones staying closest to home.  Wherever you saw my brother Bill you would often find his friends Alan and Steve.  They were both very tall with short clean-cut hair, and my brother Bill always had long hair and vowed to grow a beard when he was able.  One afternoon I saw Bill running from a man down the street yelling for my mom to help him. On his heels was Phil, Alan and Steve’s dad chasing him down the road with a pair of scissors in his hand.  He had been telling Bill he was going to cut that pony tail off and make him that clean cut boy that he felt he should be.  I was told back then that hippies wore their hair long, wore bell bottom and hip hugger pants and smoked pot.  I guess Bills appearance made Phil feel that he was a hippy, and he was going to change that with his pair of scissors.  Bill has had long hair his whole life, except during the marines, but he still sports that long hair look today.

I had a huge imagination and learned to be adventurous from my brothers, so I decided to try out my bike riding skills down a set of stairs, which did not go so well.  It was the day before Easter, and I brought my tricycle up the stairs to the second-floor landing.  I hopped on and attempted to ride down the flight of stairs.  I stayed on the bike right up to the moment the outside door opened, and I went headfirst into the lead pipe railing next to four concrete stairs  My mom freaked out over the egg on my forehead, but I felt great that I had accomplished my goal. 

The next morning is when I woke up with two beautiful black eyes, the same day we were going to take easter pictures in our best clothes.  My brothers all thought my black eyes were cool on my four-year-old face, but mom thought differently.  My mom gave me bangs that were just barely above my eyes and had to put makeup under my eyes to cover those shiners that I was so proud of.  That was my first-time wearing makeup, and although it was only so our pictures didn’t reveal my black eyes, I felt grown at that very moment.  I still have that photo today and my mom did a great job hiding them.

My brothers and I were good kids, but some choices we made did not always come with the best consequences.  Me for example, I was a very strong-willed child but did as was I was told most of the time.  Well, there was one time I made the choice to do what I wanted rather than what I was told, and for me the consequences were horrible.  I had a plastic pool down on the grass that still had water in it and my mom asked me to dump it out, because we were expecting a cold night and it would probably freeze.  I am not sure if I just forgot or made the decision not to dump it out