Feature Article
Written by: Katie Leigh Tessmer
In northeast Iowa, 1996 I was born and named Katie Leigh Tessmer. I was raised in a trailhouse for a few months along with my older brother Jacob by three years. Everything in life seemed fine at the time until my parents Lisa and Jay got into a divorce. It wasn't a nice divorce where they just signed the papers and went on with life. But they hated each other with a deep passion and my mother Lisa threw anything she could find at my father for divorcing her. My brother and I were given custody to my Jay Morgan Tessmer. Lisa moved to the Kansas, but as years went on she kept in contact with Jacob and me though calling. I would only see her every two to four years. Still a baby, my dad moved us into our grandmother’s house in the country three miles from Clermont Iowa. We were having money problems at the time but the main reason my dad moved had us move into our grandmas was to help her out because she was getting old. My dad loved his mother Marie very much and did not want to see her end up in a Nursing home. She was also in grieving and was hurting emotionally from her husband’s death a little bit ago before my parents divorce.
As i grew from a baby, toddler, child, preteen, teen and now young adult, my grandma Marie has always been like a mother to me. Until in 2013 in December, my grandmother went down hill. She could hardly breath, could barely move and was hurting painfully inside of every bone in her body. She died of old age and i even though i knew it was her time to go i felt lost without her. Now Jacob was in collage by now and i was a sophomore in high school. Jacob was away at collage while at home it was now just me, my dad and Molly my dog that i love so dearly. The summer of my freshmen year though i have started talking to my mom more and started to come to her house in December during Christmas vacation for a week, then two weeks with her in the summer time. I mom had moved back to Iowa but she lived on the way opposite side of where my dad and me lived. Every time my mom would pick me up it would be like a four-hour drive form my house to hers. But i did not mind at all, all that mattered to me was actually getting time to hang out with my mother. My brother Jacob basically told my mom that she is dead to him. I think he is just being stubborn and dumb, and so harsh to her. Everyone has a bad past, but you can’t always judge them from that. I have half brother named Michael is the oldest out of Jacob, and me for Michael is like in his late twenties.