Raised by Wolves

CHAPTER 1: TOO MANY PUPPIES

Lynwood, California: July 21, 1969. In a Catholic hospital north of Compton, my mother gave birth to her fourth child.  Derrick Lael Thompson was put on the birth certificate, and I arrived on the earth oblivious to what life had in store for me.  I was a towheaded blonde kid with big, blue eyes ready to take whatever life threw at me.

My father, Theodore, or Ted as he liked to be called, was from South Carolina and became a convert to the Mormon Faith around the time he was eighteen. For one reason or another, he found himself in Utah, going to church. He met his future wife, Wanda, at their local church ward where they began their courtship. She was already engaged at the time, but I think her fiancée was on a mission for the Mormon Church and not around. From what I’ve been told, this did not deter Ted.  He eventually won her over and the two became engaged. Their engagement was not long; and Wanda was married at the young age of eighteen to somebody ten years her senior.  With that union, the right forces had combined to create a life of pain and suffering for everyone, inside or around this family unit.

Mormons are taught to populate the earth with as many of their own kind as they can, so freshly into her marriage, Wanda was pregnant with my oldest sister, Rachel, and at the young age of nineteen, gave birth to her first child. With a new baby in her arms, my mother was happy and filled with the hope new babies bring. Wanda showed a lot of love to her first child, and they formed an early bond together. When Rachel was about two, my oldest brother, Brad was born, and one day shy of a year, my sister Alicia arrived on the earth bringing the total head count in our family to five.

My father was a student during these times, and my family moved to California so my father could finish his degree. He was wrapping up a Masters Degree in Physical Education and still had a couple of years to go. I don’t know if Wanda was pregnant with me at the time of their move or if I was conceived in California, but I do know that I was born within the first year my family was in California.  My parents were barely getting by financially at this time, and I believe somebody from my parents’ church worked at the Catholic hospital, and this person informed someone of importance at the hospital of my family’s money situation, and the hospital let me come into the world - free of charge. Being the first and only child in my family “born free,” gave me a pretty good start receiving attention from my parents. I remember my father mentioning it all the time when I was very young, and I enjoyed hearing him tell the story of my free birth.

From the Hospital, I was taken home to meet my new family. I took up residence where we all lived in a small apartment in Anaheim while my dad finished school. Two years later Ted received his degree, and my first of many moves took place. I have always referred to this move as our “Mormon migration”. Ted could have made more money with his education in California, but he and Wanda wanted to live in the “promised land” so off to Hunter, Utah we went. Almost as soon as we arrived in Hunter, my youngest brother, Kelly, was born. This brought the head count of our family to seven, and my mother was barely in her mid-twenties.

The kindness and love my older siblings had been experiencing from their mother was fading with the arrival of each new child. The more children that Wanda gave birth to, the farther she would detach from all of the children.  Mormons, from what I understand, are usually married at very young ages and give birth to several children in a short amount of time. Some young women can cope with this very well, others cannot.  I feel that Wanda was one of those people whom could not handle this new life that was thrust upon her.  My mother’s mental state was, probably, somewhat normal back when her first three children were born, however, my mother is a very selfish person by nature, and the more Ted impregnated her, the more she detached from her family. My mother’s mental condition was starting to be put to the test and her grades as a mother were bound to get worse.

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