Chapter One
Where My Story Began
I was born on December 19, 1977, at Highlands Regional Hospital in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.
From the moment I entered the world, I was already part of a large family with a long history.
My father, Roy Calvin Gipson, was forty-three years old when I was born.
He had been born on April 18, 1934, and had eight children from a previous marriage.
My mother, Goldie Gipson, was thirty-four years old.
She was born on March 8, 1943, and also had eight children from a previous marriage.
Together, they had already raised sixteen children before my brother and I came along.
I never learned how my parents met. It's one of those family stories that disappeared with time. Like so many things from that generation, no one thought to write it down, and by the time I was old enough to ask, the people who knew the answer were gone.
When I was born, my parents weren't living together. My father lived on his mother's property at the last house in Short Fork Hollow—what we simply called “the holler.” My mother was renting a place somewhere in Salyersville, though I never knew exactly where.
Before I was even old enough to understand, my existence became the subject of family doubt.
My grandmother, Mamaw Media Gipson, didn't believe I was my father's child.
Her doubts were strong enough that my mother had a paternity test done.
The results proved that Roy Calvin Gipson was my father, and Mom made sure Mamaw Media saw those results herself.
The stories I heard about Mamaw Media described her as a woman with very strong opinions. Some people even called her hateful. I never had the chance to decide for myself because she passed away in 1979, when I was still very young.
Sometimes I wonder if, before she died, she ever looked at me and simply saw her granddaughter. I hope she did.
When I was about six months old, Mom moved in with Dad on the family property in Short Fork Hollow. The house was large and white, almost as if two homes had been joined together into one. Beside it stood a huge wooden barn, and the land seemed to stretch farther than my little eyes could see.
In 1978, my parents married and officially began their life together.
Dad often said he didn't want any more children. But in June of 1981, my little brother, Calvin Gibson, was born. Mom loved telling the story that because he shared Dad's name, I became confused and called my baby brother “Dad” for a while.
Life in the holler was beautiful, but winters were hard. Getting to the school bus meant walking all the way to the mouth of the holler. Eventually, Mom and Dad made a difficult decision.
They would leave the place Dad had called home his entire life.
At the time, none of us knew it would be the first of many moves our family would make.
And my journey was only beginning.