(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Patchworked: The first years [1] ['Thom Hartmann', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Chloris Creator', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Kelli Anne Busey'] Date: 2026-07-01 The forgotten years: Not my memories I don’t really remember anything prior to going to the boarding home, the events coming up here, are stories I was told by my aunts or others, once I started asking questions about my past. My Father tried to kill me : One aunt told me how one day my mother showed up on her doorstep in New York, with me barely 6 months old and my toddler brother in hand, sobbing hysterically because my father had tried to kill me with a knife, she had grabbed me and my brother and ran out. This was the day she left him for good. Another aunt told me that one day (I’m guessing around the same time) my father furious that my mother left him, got into her side of the closet and defecated on her clothing. My mother has her own traumatic story, and while I may call her the eternal teenager, it doesn’t mean I hate her, or don’t understand how she turned out the way she did. But that’s her story. My father also has his own horror story, there’s a reason he was exiled and ended up in the US. He witnessed the executions of his brothers. So I’m not judging them as harshly as folks might think. This is just my story. Aunts tried to adopt me Two of my aunts, one on each side of my family said they wanted to adopt me, but my mother wouldn’t agree to it. She’s kind of possessive that way. My godmother also wanted to take care of me, no one mentioned adoption so I’m guessing she didn’t go that far but she wanted us to stay with her. Grandmother was a beast My mother’s mother was very old fashioned the don’t spare the rod type from what I hear. I always hated onions, I didn’t know why but a family member told me the story of how once, when I was around 3, I refused to eat onions my grandmother was feeding me, she forced them in my mouth, made me swallow, I threw up, she proceeded to scoop the vomit and make me eat it. Now I can’t eat onions, feeling anything akin to the texture of onions in my mouth is enough to invoke a strong gag reflex. As I was saying the first years of my life are a mystery to me, I know I was born in NY, spent some months in Canada, passed by California, but by the time I was 3 and my brother 4 we were in Haiti. And there we find my first real memory, why is it only the bad ones that leave such a long lasting imprint? I have no visual memories per se, I have emotional ones. It’s a memory of waking up during the night and cockroaches had invaded the room where my brother and I slept on the floor. Sometimes I think it may have been a nightmare, but I can still see this image to this day in my head. We lived for a few months with my grandmother; this is where I think I started to notice that my brother was lighter than me. Leastwise that is when I think, I started hearing the phrase, she’s so dark and also why can’t you be more like your brother. My brother is a very social person, he likes people, likes to talk etc… my brother is also fiercely protective of me. They tried to pit us against each other it never worked. My legs were crooked, I wore these boots with metal frames that went up to my waist for a couple of years as a toddler by the time I was in the home I didn’t have the boots anymore, but I still have the scars to this day and I guess that is why I remember the crooked legs. I don’t know how long we spent less than a year with my grandmother I suppose. Soon my brother and I were placed in a home, not an orphanage mind you but sort of a boarding home for kids whose families were not in Haiti. Yes, I was 3/4 and he was 4/5. And there we spent the next 5 or 6 years. Again I have no idea why we were sent to the boarding house. I was actually told it was my grandmother’s idea to put us in there, but I have no clue why. I actually do have a few pictures of me and my brother with our grandmother, we do not look happy in any of them. Muriel Vieux Boarding home The boarding home people were nice from what I recall, the staff was also nice, but a boarding home is a boarding home and with around 30 children or so, none of us got any attention, unless we were sick. The most common of illness in the home was “Maladi pen griye” or Toasted Bread illness, when one was sick you were given the treat that was toasted bread. Again, I don’t remember much from this period except for a few incidents. Most of the parents usually picked up their kids for any kind of holiday, not us. All the boys went to the same school, and all the girls to the same school, except me, yes even in a boarding home I was set apart, maybe that’s why I’m a loner. The reason I was placed in a different school, was simply because my mother insisted as it was they school she had gone to. It was a catholic school, almost across from the boarding home so all I had to do was cross the street and boom there I was. The home was also a chicken farm type thing. They raised chickens, killed chicken and sold chickens and eggs. I recall the long metal thing with spaced funnels, slice the throat of the chicken put it upside down in a funnel to drain it, dump it in boiling water, pluck it and then put it on ice. Repeat. Books were my refuge, I hunted them down in school, in the home, I read the older kids school books, the caretakers magazines, and the owner’s sons comics… I would read anything and everything. I had no friends except for my brother, wasn’t anything wrong with the other kids mind you, I was just in my own world and wasn’t interested in the stuff kids were interested in. If I played I did so with the boys; soccer mostly. But really I was usually found in some corner with some “borrowed” book in my hands lost into another world. In school I was an anomaly as being the only girl from a boarding home, in the boarding home I was an anomaly for being the only girl in a different school. My brother was spared that fate, he went to the same school as the other boys. Also my brother was a very social child (as stated before), with a sunny disposition, which he still has to this day. The nuns took pity on me, upon discovering I liked to read, they loaned me books from the library freely and thus I learned the life of every saint in existence, since that was basically the only reading material available along with the bible of course. The story of Fatima was my favorite. I never had any problems in school really, I like to learn, so classes were a breeze once they stopped expecting me to “recite by heart” which is the preferred method in Haiti. Once I showed I could explain what I had studied, they left me mostly alone. Notice how people are always leaving me alone? It’s a recuring theme in my life, I’m easily forgettable. In one incident, there was a huge girl in our dormitory, she was tall! She took a dislike to me, one day again I don’t remember why but we got into a fight and she punched me in my chest knocking the wind out of me. I was punished for fighting, that’s the day I started hating injustice. I got my first memorable ouchie in the home, I went to feed a dog, the bone fell just outside of reach (it was chained) being the helpful person that I was I nudged the bone with my foot, the dog lunged, missed the bone and closed its jaws around the back of my ankle. I didn’t cry until they poured salt water and lime on it to disinfect it. Then I howled! My second ouchie came from a boy who liked me, and did as boys are taught to do when they like a girl, he started fights with me all the time, so much so my brother started dogging my steps to defend me (still overprotective to this day), anyways one day he tried to grab my hand and I pulled away, he left 3 deep scratches on the back of my hand, again didn’t shed a tear, but then they had to put mercurochrome on it and discovered I was allergic to the stuff, have you ever had an itchy rash on the inside of wounds? Hell! Again no pictures of me and my brother in said home, no birthday pics, no other memorable events either, like my first communion that occurred while I was in said home. Do you know how hard it is to retain a memory without a prop like a picture? I was 8 or 9 when I got Hepatitis, it was around January, the only reason I recall is because I was in front of the gate of the home and we were watching a Sunday carnival parade and I fainted. I was taken to the dr. and after some test I was diagnosed with Hepatitis, I was isolated in the boarding home, yes even then I stayed in the boarding home and was laid up for the rest of the school year, come to think of it, it must have been worse than I realize as a child. I remember growing tired of jello and plain boiled rice which are the two things I was allowed to eat. But then summer came… and my life changed. #TheAmericanHaitianPoet Muriel Vieux – June 30th, 2026 – ©All rights reserved Paypal.me/murielvieux [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/1/800063590/community/patchworked-the-first-years/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/