Heather Lunsford
Bio
I am a 50 something year old mother of grown children with stage 4 breast cancer. I have been told I should write a book about my life. I am probably never going to do that, but I do want to record some of my stories, so here we go.
Stories (28/0)
My Complicated Relationship With Elvis Presley
I included Elvis in a list of things I dislike for no good reason, there is a reason I'm not sure it's a good reason but there is one. So here is the reason. The short answer is anything with him in it reminds me of my mom. But as vocal has a word minimum I will explain more.
By Heather Lunsford9 months ago in Families
Things I Dislike For No Good Reason
Ok Lets start with a big one that is always controversial, I can't stand Elvis Presley. Not as a singer, not as an actor I just really would like to avoid any mention of Elvis ever. This one probably deserves its own story at some point. There is a reason but I don't know if it counts as a good reason or not.
By Heather Lunsford10 months ago in Confessions
Some Wisdom From The Generations of My Family
When I was about 5 or 6 I encountered my first person with special needs. I asked my dad about it because kids on the bus said some pretty mean things to the boy. My dad told me that every person I would ever meet in my life would know something I didn't, it was my job in life to learn something from each and every person I met. To prove his point he asked me if I knew the boys name. I did not. Dad simply said "He does, ask him". So the next day on the bus I did ask him. And as I talked to him I found out that if you told him a date in any year in history he could tell you what day of the week it fell on. It became the game everyone on the bus played with him instead of picking on him.
By Heather Lunsford10 months ago in FYI
Stealing Cokes at the Police Station
So if you read my last story you know that I was living in foster care and not loving it much. If this is the first of my stories you are reading welcome you can read the story "The Judge Steps In". But the gist is my parents got divorced and then proceeded to kidnap me back and forth for a few years until the judge had had enough and put me in foster care.
By Heather Lunsford10 months ago in Confessions
The Judge Steps In
So lets recap 4th grade shall we? I am not actually sure how many schools I went to in 4th grade. I think I went to a couple that only lasted a few days. Then I ended up in a school that may have been the coolest school I ever went to. It had a movie theatre, and if you were a good kid you got to go to movie every Friday with popcorn and soda. It was like a real theatre with a ticket booth and a marquis telling you what movie would be playing on Friday. If you were a less good kid you lost the soda, and if you were even less good you lost the popcorn too. I never saw the inside of the theatre. In the winter I had been kidnapped by my step-father who I had never met from the playground.(see "Meet Your New Step-Father")
By Heather Lunsford10 months ago in Families
Buying Roller Skates at The Mall
Its about 1980 and I'm about 8 years old living with my birth mother and my Step Father. It's been a number of months that I am not sure of anymore since my new Step Father kidnapped me from the playground in Minnesota. My Dad and my siblings are still living in Minnesota. They are kinda living on the lamb. My mother knows the town they live in but not their address and I will never tell.
By Heather Lunsford10 months ago in Families
My Father's Mother
My grandmother was born in Sweden. Her mother never really spoke English well. When they first came to America they settled near Springfield MO. My grandmother's father died there I think maybe of some kind of sudden illness. My great- grandmother found a group of Swedish immigrants and through that network she found a man with a homestead in South Dakota and the homestead next to it was available so she staked her claim and they got married with both homesteads. My grandmother was the oldest of 4 kids. Two sisters and one brother. I never met her brother, but I knew both her sisters. My favorite was my aunt Yani. She was a sweet kind character.
By Heather Lunsford11 months ago in Families
Hold On Tight
Ok before I tell this story we are going to have to agree to disagree. If you are a young parent you are going to be tempted to tell me my father was a bad parent, and I would strongly disagree with you. On the other hand I would never under any circumstances tell you that you should be the kind of parent he was. I think we will have to agree that things that didn't seem out of the ordinary in the 1970's could be shocking today. So please dear reader take this as a story from a different time and not parenting advice.
By Heather Lunsford11 months ago in Families
An Ode To My Grandfather. Top Story - July 2023.
My Grandfather was born on his parents homestead in South Dakota, he died on the same land some 100 years later. In between he lived an entire life on this land. It was a rich life full of family and fun and lots of hard work.
By Heather Lunsford12 months ago in Families
Summer Days
The little girl was home for a whole month. She had to live with her mother and her step father, but that wasn't home. Home was here in the woods with her brothers. And the judge who made her live with her mother said she got to come home every other weekend and for a month in the summer. She was very happy to be with her brothers, their sister had moved out but they were happy to be together. Her oldest brother was 16 and her other brother was 13. She thought they were practically grown ups. She felt safe with them and she had so much fun. She knew when she turned 12 she was going to tell the judge that she wanted to live with her dad and them all the time and he would have to let her then.
By Heather Lunsford12 months ago in Fiction
Why I Was Never Teacher's Pet
So let's start by saying that I desperately wanted to go to school. I am the youngest of 4 kids and I am 5 years younger than my nearest sibling. So from as long as I can remember all my siblings got up and went to a majical place called school while I was stuck with my mother. She was not an incredibly fun person to hang out with and I desperatetly wanted to go to school with my siblings. I was all set to go to kindergarten and then my mom derailed that plan. We lived miles from pavement and so the bus stopped at the end of the dirt road and the school was a long bus ride away, we were the last stop. The school district only ran the buses twice a day so if I was going to go to kindergarten she would have had to drive to the school every day either to drop me off or to pick me up because kindergarten was a half day. She was not willing and kindergarten was not required so I didn't go.
By Heather Lunsfordabout a year ago in Confessions
Down in Mississippi and up to no Good
I think I was in second or third grade, so 1978 or 79 ish. I was living with my mother but my dad had secured visitation rights. So I was on one of my regularly scheduled visits. My sister had driven to pick me up and when we got close to home she told me we were not staying home, we were going on a trip. I was very excited, I loved trips so I asked where we were going, her answer filled my mind with visions of a magical place called Mississippi.
By Heather Lunsfordabout a year ago in Families
