Do you remember events from your childhood? Do you have favorite childhood memories? Do you remember the good times from growing up?

If you do, that’s great. Good for you. Hold on to them; it sucks to not remember. To not be able to look back and have good memories to reminisce upon.
Don’t get me wrong, I have many childhood memories. It’s just that I remember the bad things. The worst events. Those are the things that stick out in my memory, not the good.
Did you ever go camping with your parents when you were little? I did. But it was parent. Singular. My father. I’ve never had a mom; I haven’t seen her since the day I was taken away from her by my grandmother at a year old. which I don’t remember at all. But anywho, I can only remember going camping with him one time, although I’ve been told there were other times, too.
I was five. A very little girl, camping alone with her father. Sounds like it has the potential to be some great quality father-daughter time, right? Ha. Wrong.
What you must know about my father is that he was never a good father. I was taken away from him as a baby, too. But being my grandmother’s son, she couldn’t say no to him living with us. Just like she couldn’t say no to him when he begged to take me on a camping trip with just the two of us. It was only because of my grandparents providing us with the necessities that we were able to go on this little camping trip. My father lived with my grandparents and I in a camper next to the house. He had no job; he had no income besides my grandparents handouts. The only nice thing he owned was a big black SUV with big black windows. The kind you’d see in a movie that drug dealers drive around in. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how he came to be able to afford the thing. Trading in his piece of junk old car would definitely not have been enough to get his invincible new tank..
But anyways, back to camping. We set up camp, made sure the food was locked up so a bear wouldn’t get it (we left out some snacks for later,) and then went over to some neighboring campers, whom we didn’t know. But of course, they had alcohol, and wherever the alcohol was, that’s where you’d find my father. Nothing new. I was too young to fully understand back then. I remember always being amazed by how easily my dad could make friends. I would watch him sitting and laughing with people he had only known a couple of hours, and I admired him. But I would come to learn that when it came to certain alcoholics, it doesn’t take much to befriend each other when drinking is involved. Especially if you weren’t the one who paid for the alcohol. And there was always drinking involved when it came to my father and his friends. These friends he made during our camping trip were no different.
On our first night, everything was okay. By okay, I mean we went over to the neighboring campers and stayed all night (yes there was a lot of drinking, of course.) I was just there, curled up in a chair by the fire, listening to the obnoxious chatter and shouts of intoxicated people and watching the dancing, spitting flames. Fire has always mesmerized me.
I sat there for hours, bored out of my young mind. Near midnight, I started dozing off. Then I slept. It was around two or three in the morning when my very plastered father woke me up to leave. I ended up holding his hand as we walked back; he wouldn’t have been able to make it back to camp alone. I thought he was going to fall flat on his face, but some how we made it. We both got in the tent and passed out. Some time during the night, a bear came to our site and attacked what little food had been left out; the snacks from earlier.
When I woke up, my father was out cleaning up the remnants of the bear’s visit. When he told me of our visitor, I went back into the tent and hid. I didn’t come out until my dad made promises of food and going to the beach. I loved the ocean.
That day went as it should, we both enjoyed it. We went hiking, fishing, and gooey-duck digging. (That’s a type of shellfish that look like an oblong clam with a tongue sticking out. Digging for them is  quite similar to clam digging.)
That day completely made up for the previous night. Of course, my dad still drank, but not enough to get drunk. We didn’t get back until dark, and we went to sleep as soon as we got back. Or so I thought. I did; my father did not. He waited until I was asleep, and then went over to his new friends’ campsite. Leaving me alone. All by myself. And he didn’t come back.
I woke up the next morning alone and soaked. It had rained, and it had rained so hard that it some how got into the tent. My book, my sketchpad, my pj’s…. all soaked. I was so upset.
I called for my dad… there was no reply. I yelled a little louder. Still no reply.
I got out of the tent and looked all around our campsite. I walked to the campground bathroom. There was no sign of him. I went back to our camp and waited… and waited. Nothing.
I got so scared. I didn’t like being alone at a campground. I knew bad things could happen, and I was terrified I would become one of the little girls I saw on the news, missing or even worse: murdered.. I started crying as I stumbled around the campground. I screamed for my dad. He didn’t come.
I was too young and scared to use my brain and think of going to the neighboring campground, and instead I walked around the entire campground crying and yelling for my daddy.
Now picture this; a tiny five year old girl wandering cluelessly around a very occupied campground, all by herself. That no one knew. That could have been easily tricked into a predator’s trap. I could have been kidnapped- there had been kidnappings there recently. And there I was. It could have been such an effortless abduction. No one knew -or cared- where I was.
Eventually, I climbed over a small fence, sat by a creek, and just sobbed. Someone who had seen me the day before hunted my father down, and woke him up. Of course, he had been up partying all night with his new friends. He had forgotten I existed. Literally. He forgot about his daughter. He forgot about me. The most important thing in his life, as he always told me. Yeah. Right.
All that mattered to him was his alcohol. Getting drunk. That was important. Not me.
The person told him where I was, and he finally came looking for me. He would have stayed there the rest of the day and probably the following night, if the man hadn’t came and gotten him. He acted as if nothing had happened; he acted as if nothing was wrong. He bounded up to me with booming, “Hey, Babygirl!” I was so angry with him. I couldn’t even talk. I started crying again -angry tears this time- and started walking to camp, ignoring him.
When we got back to camp, I finally spoke. “I want to go home,” I said. “Now.”
He didn’t listen to me. He’d leave when he wanted to. So, I took his phone, called my grandma, and told her to come and get me. I told her everything. She was furious. It was a couple hour long drive, but she managed to get there in an hour and a half. She had me grab my stuff and get in her car as she let her wrath out on my stupefied father. Then we left.
He never straight up apologized for that trip, or abandoning me in the middle of the night. I am weird about camping now. Going camping with less that three or four other people is now an unnerving and paranoia-filled experience. I am terrified of being left alone. Of being abandoned once again.
Although, at the same time, the experience taught me a lot, even at a young age. It helped me grow to be more independent when it came to being around my father; I learned that adults lie too, and that no one is perfect. Adults will let you down too; some more than others. As much as my child-self idolized my father, he is one of the most flawed men I know. I learned that everyone has weaknesses, and everyone makes mistakes. I learned to forgive eventually, and events like this throughout my childhood taught me that just because my father chose to go down an unwise path, does not mean I have to follow. I choose my own path.