A story about gratitude that will make your day!
365 Grateful
Friday, June 5, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
She Blew Her Top (Revisited)
Ten years ago I wrote this entry. Reposted and edited for current year. Wow...it's been 35 years...
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She blew her top thirty-five years ago today. Man, has it been that long since Mount St. Helen's first erupted after her long, silent slumber? St. Helen's was one of those moments...you know, when you remember exactly what you were doing when it happened. I'll never forget that day, for there was a time when I wondered if I would ever see the sun again. It was a day to remember...
Unforgettable.
It was Sunday morning, and I was at softball practice, suffering from alcohol poisoning, in the worse way. Oye! But I wasn't alone, the entire women's team had been out partying the night before. And our coach was pissed at us. Doubly pissed at me because he was my father-in-law. None of us felt like practicing, at all, and it showed. Tempers were short, bases were being overthrown, and fly balls were missed or dropped. We were not in our best form, and we were the returning champions, so expectations were high. Practice sessions on this team were taken very seriously. But on this day, we just weren't into it. We were tired, tired of the pressure of always being the best, tired of the rigorous practice schedule, and so we rebelled.
We were two hours into this practice (Sunday sessions usually lasted four hours), when we all noticed ominous black clouds approaching from the west. The entire horizon was filled. Thinking this was just another nasty spring thunderstorm, the coach grudgingly gave up and sent us home. None of us had been listening to the news that morning, so we had no idea the mountain erupted at 8:32 a.m.. It was now 11:30 a.m..
Arriving home, I immediately got in the shower. The sun was shining when I walked into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I stepped out of the shower, and noticed the room seemed extremely dark. That's weird, I thought. I walked over to the window, pushed the curtain aside and looked out at a night time sky in complete and utter disbelief. I remember thinking, I wasn't in the shower that long...was I? I called out to my husband, and ran upstairs to the living room. He was here before I got in the shower, but he wasn't now. However, I knew where he was, at his mother's no doubt.
Still wrapped in my bath towel I walked over to the living room window and gazed outside. Something was falling from the sky, I thought it was snow. The street lights were on, casting an eerie light onto the now ghostly grey landscape. Whatever it was that was falling sparkled and twinkled under the street lights glow.
This is weird. Way too weird.
I turned on the radio, and that's when I learned about the mountain's mighty blast. For weeks she had been rumbling, steaming and causing a stir among the volcanologists and geologists alike. Nearby communities had been evacuated, uprooting hundreds of people from their homes, and their lives. Except a grouchy old man named Harry Truman, who owned a lodge on the shores of Spirit Lake, right in the shadow of St. Helen's. He vowed nothing could make him or his many cats leave his cherished home. Not even that mountain could budge him. I don't think they ever found Harry, or his lodge.
I got dressed and headed over to my in-law's home, where I spent the rest of the day playing Double Solitaire with Ma Bea, my husband's grandmother. Throughout the afternoon, she and I sat at the dining table, occasionally casting a worried glance out the nearby window. Every now and then Ma Bea would remark, "That sun ain't never comin' back, I tell ya. Someone's done gone and pissed off the man upstairs, and now we're all going to pay." At first I knew she was joking around, but has the hours dragged by, it almost seemed possible. Fortunately, around 6:00 p.m. we noticed some blue sky to the south, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
By the next day, daylight returned, to slightly overcast skies, still filled with ash. People walked around with masks over their face. Businesses closed down, or never opened. Life, in a way, came to a halt for a few days. And that ash wreaked havoc in our town. Cars stalled and refused to start. People with asthma had to stay indoors. Farmer's crops were ruined. And dusting became a full time job. No matter how airtight your house was, the ash was everywhere. For months after the eruption, that ash permeated every aspect of our lives, and we were on the outer edge of the plume. We only had about 3 or 4 inches dumped on us, but it was enough to cause plenty of problems. Even six years later I remember seeing ash on the sides of the highway just outside of Spokane.
In the Native American community, Mount St. Helen's is called Little Sister, while Mount Rainier is known as Grandfather. Among the Native American's there is a saying. "When Little Sister speaks, Grandfather will answer."
By the numbers:
Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic monument
USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory
Mount St. Helens National Park
8,680
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She blew her top thirty-five years ago today. Man, has it been that long since Mount St. Helen's first erupted after her long, silent slumber? St. Helen's was one of those moments...you know, when you remember exactly what you were doing when it happened. I'll never forget that day, for there was a time when I wondered if I would ever see the sun again. It was a day to remember...
Unforgettable.
It was Sunday morning, and I was at softball practice, suffering from alcohol poisoning, in the worse way. Oye! But I wasn't alone, the entire women's team had been out partying the night before. And our coach was pissed at us. Doubly pissed at me because he was my father-in-law. None of us felt like practicing, at all, and it showed. Tempers were short, bases were being overthrown, and fly balls were missed or dropped. We were not in our best form, and we were the returning champions, so expectations were high. Practice sessions on this team were taken very seriously. But on this day, we just weren't into it. We were tired, tired of the pressure of always being the best, tired of the rigorous practice schedule, and so we rebelled.
We were two hours into this practice (Sunday sessions usually lasted four hours), when we all noticed ominous black clouds approaching from the west. The entire horizon was filled. Thinking this was just another nasty spring thunderstorm, the coach grudgingly gave up and sent us home. None of us had been listening to the news that morning, so we had no idea the mountain erupted at 8:32 a.m.. It was now 11:30 a.m..
Arriving home, I immediately got in the shower. The sun was shining when I walked into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I stepped out of the shower, and noticed the room seemed extremely dark. That's weird, I thought. I walked over to the window, pushed the curtain aside and looked out at a night time sky in complete and utter disbelief. I remember thinking, I wasn't in the shower that long...was I? I called out to my husband, and ran upstairs to the living room. He was here before I got in the shower, but he wasn't now. However, I knew where he was, at his mother's no doubt.
Still wrapped in my bath towel I walked over to the living room window and gazed outside. Something was falling from the sky, I thought it was snow. The street lights were on, casting an eerie light onto the now ghostly grey landscape. Whatever it was that was falling sparkled and twinkled under the street lights glow.
This is weird. Way too weird.
I turned on the radio, and that's when I learned about the mountain's mighty blast. For weeks she had been rumbling, steaming and causing a stir among the volcanologists and geologists alike. Nearby communities had been evacuated, uprooting hundreds of people from their homes, and their lives. Except a grouchy old man named Harry Truman, who owned a lodge on the shores of Spirit Lake, right in the shadow of St. Helen's. He vowed nothing could make him or his many cats leave his cherished home. Not even that mountain could budge him. I don't think they ever found Harry, or his lodge.
I got dressed and headed over to my in-law's home, where I spent the rest of the day playing Double Solitaire with Ma Bea, my husband's grandmother. Throughout the afternoon, she and I sat at the dining table, occasionally casting a worried glance out the nearby window. Every now and then Ma Bea would remark, "That sun ain't never comin' back, I tell ya. Someone's done gone and pissed off the man upstairs, and now we're all going to pay." At first I knew she was joking around, but has the hours dragged by, it almost seemed possible. Fortunately, around 6:00 p.m. we noticed some blue sky to the south, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
By the next day, daylight returned, to slightly overcast skies, still filled with ash. People walked around with masks over their face. Businesses closed down, or never opened. Life, in a way, came to a halt for a few days. And that ash wreaked havoc in our town. Cars stalled and refused to start. People with asthma had to stay indoors. Farmer's crops were ruined. And dusting became a full time job. No matter how airtight your house was, the ash was everywhere. For months after the eruption, that ash permeated every aspect of our lives, and we were on the outer edge of the plume. We only had about 3 or 4 inches dumped on us, but it was enough to cause plenty of problems. Even six years later I remember seeing ash on the sides of the highway just outside of Spokane.
In the Native American community, Mount St. Helen's is called Little Sister, while Mount Rainier is known as Grandfather. Among the Native American's there is a saying. "When Little Sister speaks, Grandfather will answer."
By the numbers:
- 8,364Height in feet after 1980 eruption
123Years the volcano was inactive before 1980
660° FHigh temperature of the 1980 blast
230Square miles covered by the blast
Sources: USGS, World Book
Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic monument
USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory
Mount St. Helens National Park
8,680
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Winter, Water, and Whisky
Isn’t it funny how sometimes the most stupid thing you’ve ever done always turns out to be a really good story?
So, after the heaviness of my last story about my uncle and my dad, I’ve been wanting to share a funny story. This one has been bugging me to get out for several months. I have a lot of stories wanting out, and when time allows and my writing muse is present, I’ll share them here, with you.
Everyone has a story. I seem to have a lot. When I think about it, sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. And oddly enough, I’ve always taken it all in stride. It just seemed normal, to me.
Apparently, my experiences are, in a word, unique. I’ve seen and done things that for the most part people are always surprised to learn about. If life is intended to be lived to its fullest, I can honestly say that’s how I approach it.
Always. Sometimes without even knowing.
So, about those stories. Here’s a funny one. I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life, but this one is in the top 5. I affectionately refer to it as the night I learned a lesson the hard way, about leaving the past in the past, the outcome of which was a new appreciation for drinking whisky…neat.
It was February 9, 1986. I am 28 years old, single and recently moved back to Lewiston, Idaho after spending four years living in Sacramento, California. In making that move, I walked away from a well paying position as a full-charge bookkeeper for Legal Aid of Northern California; not the smartest decision financially, but emotionally I needed to come home. It was time to put miles, a lot of miles--hundreds of them--between myself and Sacramento.
The choice to return home had its share of good and bad. The bad being that I took a 40% cut in pay. The good being that I am home with family. To make ends meet I was holding down two part-time night shift jobs, one in Moscow, Idaho as a cocktail waitress and the other working for a friend, Linda, at her family owned pizza restaurant in Pullman, Washington. On this day in February I’d been out pounding the pavement, seeking full-time work in Lewiston. It’s been a rough week and I’m heading out with Linda for some dinner. But first she needs to stop by her parents home.
Nights in this part of Idaho during February dip below the freezing level. The same holds true for the days. So I am dressed appropriately, in a three piece corduroy suit and a goose down knee length coat. I’m feeling restless that night, and second guessing my decision to return home to Idaho. My mind is preoccupied and absorbed in several pieces of my life; I’ve been in a reflective mood of late. Burdened with the weight of worry on my shoulders, I’m feeling a distant pull and unable to focus on Linda’s conversation with Betty, her mother as we sit at the dining room table. Their talking about family matters, specifically Linda’s manic depressive brother John who she is trying to set me up with, but I’m not interested. He isn’t my type--and he’s a narcissist--the last thing I need. The two women are talking him up, but their efforts are akin to throwing a coat of the wrong color of paint on a house that isn’t even in the right neighborhood for the buyer. Doesn’t matter what color you paint it, it’s not the right house.
This kind of talk leaves me feeling jumbled up inside, and even more stressed. Unable to take any more of the hen talk, I excuse myself to step outside the back door for a cigarette. The night air is brisk and reawakens my sense of peace. I stop, close my eyes and take in a slow, deep breath before reaching into my leather shoulder bag for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Off to my left is an in-ground swimming pool and seeing it brings back many, many fond memories. I spent most of my childhood in sunny southern California, and we had an in-ground swimming pool much like this one with a springy diving board. Cigarette in hand, I walk around the pool, ending at the deep end. Standing next to the diving board, remembering all the dives I once did. In my minds eye I see each one. Swan dives, jack knives, back flips, forward flips and a little something my sisters and I called the ‘watermelon.’
In the darkness I can see the water level is lower than normal, not quite full, and the water doesn‘t appear to be very clean. Smiling as the memories of a dozen summers flow through my mind, I step up on the diving board and look out over the pool. Lost in the moment, I took one giant step forward, reliving the same steps I took on hot summer days in that one instant. Another step this time with a little jump up…because after all, what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, apparently.
Every diving board I have ever been on, without exception, is always attached to a stand. Always. And I fully expected this diving board to behave like every other diving board I’ve stepped onto. If you bounce a little, it bounces a little too.
Except this one.
What happened next took me completely and totally by surprise. Even today I can’t believe it happened. Instead of bouncing back, this diving board went out from under me and I landed into the freezing cold water with a very loud sudden splash.
That’s about the time panic set in.
I sank, fast. As Bob Segar would say, like a rock. At first the shock of the water immobilized my body. Except my mouth, it’s wide open and I take my first gulp of pool water. Gawd, what is that I’m tasting? Swim, Dona, swim…dammit! I’m sinking. But before I reached the bottom, I willed myself to swim. The weight of all my clothing and the down coat kept pulling me down, I felt like I had concrete tied to my feet and I touched the bottom briefly. Then my survivor instinct kicked in. Without thinking, I squated and with one deep knee push, propelled myself toward the surface, reaching and pushing my cupped hands first frantically, then with a swimmers rhythm, through the water until I finally felt my face break the surface and the cold night air brush my skin. Short of breath, coughing and gasping for air, I desperately reached my hand out for the side of the pool. I’m freezing and when my left hand slams down on the concrete lip of the pool, I feel a sense of relief. Momentarily. The sodden weight of my clothes keeps pulling me down.
Crap! I’m going to drown out here and no one will ever know until it’s too late!
Oh, no! Hell no!
With a fighters fury, I kick my legs and reach out for the edge of the pool again, landing and this time holding on to the concrete lip with everything I have. My arms feel as if they are tied to my side and I struggle to get my entire left arm up out of the water, impeded by my down coat and the three piece suit. Now I’m second guessing my decision to not change into something more comfortable before agreeing to accompany Linda on her visit. Hanging onto the edge, I access the situation. I could lift myself out of the water, something I’ve done hundreds of times before. Not so easy this time, since the water level on the pool is at least a half foot below normal and I‘m not exactly dressed in a lightweight swimming suit. Clinging to the edge, I look around for a pool ladder. Nope. I cast a glance at the shallow end, knowing there are steps out of the pool over there. Too far. I’m too cold. I’m freezing and my fingers are starting to get numb. My only option is to lift myself up and out of the water onto the deck. It’s the only way.
I press both my feet against the wall of the pool, and PUSH! Come on Dona! You can do this! You have to. No one is here to help you now. P-U-S-H with everything you’ve got! Straining under the weight, out of breath, I thrust my left arm up and bend my elbow, then lay my arm flat on the pool deck, heaving myself up. Pushing with my legs, pulling with my arm, until my shoulders clear the pool edge. Okay. Breather…pant…pant! My leather shoulder bag is still on my shoulder, acting like a counter weight and not contributing to my plan. I pull it off my right shoulder and fling it onto the pool deck. There! That helped, immensely. Why didn’t I do that sooner?
Okay. Push! Up. Up. With one final thrust, I set my right hand down on the pool edge while wiggling and pulling my water logged body up out of the icy cold water, banging my left shin on the concrete as I kick to gain forward momentum. It takes every bit of strength I have, but finally, I’m clear. With a grunt of exhaustion I land on my stomach, panting and groaning. Water is pooling around me, my feet are dangling out over the water. But, I’m out of the pool! Safe! Thank God! I lift myself up to my hands and knees, coughing and choking from the water and filth I swallowed during those first few seconds of submersion. And now I’m shivering. I need to get inside, where it’s warm. I stagger to my feet, grab my shoulder bag and walk back toward the house.
Shit! How am I going to explain this? I ask myself, squeezing water out of my coat sleeve. I’m drenched! Water runs like a river off the fabric, down to the cuff and then drains down to the concrete. Water logged penny loafers squish with every step I take.
They’ll never believe me. Well, okay, they will when they see me. I mean, they are going to know I went swimming. I stop and turn around, taking one more look at the pool. Seeing the diving board floating upside down like a silent sentinel on the water of the deep end, I am suddenly struck by the magnitude of what could have happened. Somehow that diving board, which probably weights at least 100 pounds, missed hitting me on the head. I shutter with the thought of how this could have played out if it had…
Shaking off that thought with an affirmation of ‘Well, it didn‘t happen and you‘re okay,’ I turn back to the house. The pool water amplifies the intensity of the cold night air. I’ve reached the back door, tentatively reach out my hand and knock. I hear female voices inside, must be in the kitchen, then Linda’s voice and her foot steps.
Here we go.
There’s a phrase in use these days, I hear it all the time. It’s gained a lot of popularity recently and perfectly describes the look on Linda’s face when she opened the door and saw me standing in front of her, looking every bit like a drowned rat. For just an instant, I literally saw her trying to wrap her brain around what her eyes were seeing. Her head tilted ever so slightly to the side before she spoke.
With furrowed brows, she asked me, “What are you doing out there?” tinged with a hint of panic in her voice. “Get in here!” She widens the door and steps aside.
“But, I’m soaking wet!” I protested.
In a rush, she stepped toward me and grabbed my arm. Water gushed out of the sleeve and onto her hand before dribbling to the ground. I heard her mother’s voice in the back ground. “Who cares,” Linda scolds me. “You’ll catch the death of pneumonia out here,” she asserted as she dragged me over the threshold.
Under my squishy shoes was beautiful slate grey Italian tile, and a few feet beyond deep pile carpeting.
Her mother, Betty, appeared in the breakfast nook with a exclamation of first shock and then concern. “Oh my! What happened?” she asked.
Linda wasn’t stopping to allow any answers as she dragged me through the house, regardless of my protestations. Mom would never have allowed me to drip like this on our carpet. Okay, I’m not dripping, I’m gushing! Just around the corner was a bathroom and we reached it in a matter of seconds. Linda’s mom grabbed my purse, still filled with water, and with a look of shocked bewilderment, set it inside the sink. Linda turned on the shower and both women helped me peel the clothes off my body. Once, when I glanced up and looked in the mirror, I noticed a string of green algae hanging from my hair. Oh great! Wonder how much of that I swallowed? Bleh! Just as I was reaching up to pick the offensive green slime off my head, Linda noticed it too and deftly plucked it between her thumb and forefinger before flicking it into the trash. All the while, Linda was shaking her head and her mother was clucking her concern over the state of my being.
If I had an qualms about being naked in front of these two women, this was no time to worry about such modesty. They were far too consumed with concern about getting my body warmed back to normal. Their constant observations about my ice cold skin prompted a heightened sense of rush in their movements.
Questions hung in the air like a child’s mobile hanging from the ceiling. I’m sure they both wanted to know what happened, but that answer would have to wait. In a flurry of activity they got all my clothes off, then ordered me into the hot shower. I stepped into the steamy wonderful warmth of the hot water just as Linda’s mom scooped up my soggy clothes to deal with drying them out. I heard the bathroom door shut and all was quiet. My leg hurt where I smacked it, my fingers and toes ached from the cold, but the heated water began to bring the blood back. I turned the hot water up just a little more and parked my shivering body under comforting flow of heat. Hot water never felt so very good. I closed my eyes and let the water flow all over me before setting about to clean myself of a winters share of gunk, slime and dirty pool water.
Within minutes I had washed my hair, watching with horror as the bits of green slime dropped to my feet and then down the drain. Ugh. That’s just nasty! I finished up my shower, and dried off. Linda had left a white terry cloth robe to wear and I wrapped it snuggly around me. About that time I started to worry if anything had fallen out of my shoulder bag while I was in the pool. Stepping over to the sink to check the contents, I noticed it was still full of water. When I grabbed the bottom to tip it over, more green slime spilled out into the sink. Gawd, it’s everywhere! My stomach started to roll. Yeah, no doubt I have plenty of that in me right now. I wrinkled my face in disgust. Ewww.
What was I thinking? Why did I do that?
Having verified that all personal items belonging in the purse were in fact still in the purse, and satisfied that there was nothing left to do but face the music, I opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom. The house smelled homey, with the warmth of cinnamon and apple. I heard voices in the breakfast nook just past the foyer, and I guiltily joined Linda, her mother and her father, Gene, at their wooden table. I had met Gene many times at all three of the family owned restaurants. He was a typical middle-aged Italian man; large frame rather wide in the middle, salt and pepper hair set over a rather plump face with thick bushy eyebrows. Dark olive tone skin and dark brown eyes.
Without a word, Gene stood up, walked around me and stepped into the kitchen. I was staring at the wood grain tabletop and my hands, feeling both embarrassment and gratitude. That was a close call. I could have drowned. What would I tell them? And how did that diving board get loose?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a rocks glass being set firmly down in front of me, followed by a large hairy masculine hand holding a fifth of Crown Royal. Another large hairy hand appears and removed the cap, then I watched the faceted glass bottle tip as it’s golden contents slowly poured into said glass.
“What’s this for,” I ask quietly.
“For you. Drink it!” a gruff voice commanded as he walked past me, recapping the bottle. “It will warm you up from the inside.”
Timidly, I looked up from the glass and into his deep set brown eyes. “Can I have a little ice and some 7-up in it?” I ask.
Crown Royal in hand, he stopped on his heels and whirled around to face me. “No! You’ll drink it just as it is. The ice will make you cold and you don’t need no 7-up!” he growled, setting the fifth heavily down on the table with a wooden THUD!
Okay, fine. He’s a big Italian guy, so I’m not going to argue with him.
I never liked straight whisky, and I always drank it over ice with either 7-up or coke. Mom once gave me a sip of her scotch when I was a teenager and the taste just didn’t agree with my palate at the time. One sip then was all I wanted. Tentatively, I brought the glass to my lips and took a small sip, half expecting the whiskey to bite me back. It didn’t. I let the golden liquor linger in my mouth, savoring the slight tang before allowing it to slide down my throat. Wow! That was pretty good. And it felt good. This isn’t so bad without the ice or 7-up after all.
Languishing in the electric buzz caused by the whisky, I felt the weight of three pairs of eyes on me. Coyly, I glanced up from the glass. I smiled slightly. I felt like I was sitting in front of an interrogation squad. Linda and her parents were seated together at one end of the oval table, and I was seated alone at the other.
About the time I was thinking I would have loved to been a fly on the wall in this room while I was in the shower, Linda broke the silence. “What happened?” she asked as she folded her hands together on the table.
Oh, this should be interesting. “Well,” I began, “I was outside smoking--”
“We know that!” her father interrupted. This emitted two narrow eyed stares from two female faces that effectively shut him up. He shrugged it off.
The women both looked at me as if to say…go on. I gathered up my courage. “I was walking around the pool, thinking back to when I had a pool.”
Three faces waited. How in the world am I going to explain this?
Gene asked, “So did you fall in?” His wife cast him a disapproving look and shook her head.
“Not exactly,” I slowly replied. Oh gawd, this is just too embarrassing.
It was Linda’s turn now. “Did you trip over something?” she asked.
I shook my head and replied meekly, “No.”
Pause.
Silence.
“Well! What the hell happened?” Gene demanded as he sat back in his chair, crossing his large hairy arms in front of his chest. His eyes were alight with an intensity that told me if I didn’t answer and soon, I would regret it.
“I was on the diving board--”
This time it was Betty who interrupted me. “Diving board?” she asked. Puzzled, she looked at her husband, then back at me. “The diving board was out there?”
This didn’t make sense…of course it’s out there. It goes with the pool. “Yes,” I confirmed. Why is she asking that? “Anyway, I was thinking back to when I used to do all kinds of dives and I stood up on the diving board. I took a couple of steps toward the end, then next thing I know I’m in the pool!"
This elicited a deep sigh from Gene, who looked his wife straight in the eye and asked, “You said John came by today and put the diving board in the garage.”
Now they’ve lost me. Diving board, in the garage? Wha---?
Seeing the bewilderment on my face, Linda chimed in. “John came by today and Dad asked him to put the diving board in the garage for the rest of the winter,” she explained. “We take it off the base every winter for safety reasons, to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Well, that was probably a great plan, until I came along.
“Oh,” I nodded. “I see. Didn’t know people did that.” Sipping the whisky, I’m running everything that happened back through my mind. They must think I’m a fool. Who else in their right mind would get up on a diving board and bounce around on it? On a cold winter night.
That would be me.
I cast a furtive glance at Gene, and I see a measure of worry on his face. He’s struggling with something, and I know what it is.
Leaning toward him, I made eye contact. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to sue you. It’s my own damn fault for what happened,” I assured him.
With that, he released a deep sigh. Oh society, you’ve made us all so leery of everything, what with all the ambulance chasers looking for any excuse to throw the burden of culpability on to the innocent rather than holding people responsible for their own choices and subsequent actions. Clearly, this was my fault. I wasn’t hurt or maimed in any way. And I had learned a very valuable lesson. Winter in Idaho is not an ideal time for outdoor swimming. And stay off the flipping diving boards.
The heaviness that followed me into the house slowly vanished and our conversation turned to lighter topics as Gene plied me with a little more whisky. Every now and then, I joked about the diving board, Gene cussed under his breath at his son’s absence of helpfulness and every one breathed a collective sigh of relief.
My clothes were soon dried, but the goose down coat was another matter and required dry cleaning. I returned to the bathroom to dry my hair, Betty loaned me a heavy coat for the drive home and we took our leave. Stepping outside Linda and I both stopped momentarily. The sodden path I had taken from the pool loomed at our feet, casting a dark reminder of what had just transpired only an hour before.
Linda broke the silence. “What were you thinking?” she asked as we walked toward her car.
Still feeling embarrassed, I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I was just reliving some moments from my past. Thinking back to better times,” I replied with a wistful tone.
“Well, I hope you learned your lesson. Still, this never would have happened if John did what he was supposed to do. Luckily, you didn‘t get seriously hurt,” she observed.
True. Somewhat. I survived the ordeal with a little bump on my right shin, but when I slammed my left hand onto the pool edge, I injured my index finger somehow. By the next day, the finger swelled and I couldn’t bend it at all; any movement proved painful. I spent the next couple of months driving around town, with that finger extended above the steering wheel. People must have thought I was telling everyone I am number one because I couldn’t wrap that finger around the steering wheel to drive; it literally stuck straight up in the air. And when softball season started, I batted with that finger still extended straight up, which really bothered the umpires. But the rule books said nothing about a player having to have all ten fingers wrapped around the bat so I was left alone. It would take weeks of physical therapy to finally get that finger to move and bend. To this day I still can’t completely curl it down like my other fingers, too much scar tissue developed on the knuckle.
I have to admit, anytime I see a pool with a diving board, I do smile. For all the memories and dives I’ve made off those boards and into many pools…planned and otherwise. That’s the thing about life. There will be days when you dive in head first just as you planned it. And there will be days when you take a step forward only to find the solid footing beneath you disappear.
And sometimes, you just got to laugh at yourself. For those who can laugh at themselves are the ones who can give of themselves freely with an open heart and mind. There’s a true sense of freedom in that.
They understand everything, better than anyone.
8,430
So, after the heaviness of my last story about my uncle and my dad, I’ve been wanting to share a funny story. This one has been bugging me to get out for several months. I have a lot of stories wanting out, and when time allows and my writing muse is present, I’ll share them here, with you.
Everyone has a story. I seem to have a lot. When I think about it, sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. And oddly enough, I’ve always taken it all in stride. It just seemed normal, to me.
Apparently, my experiences are, in a word, unique. I’ve seen and done things that for the most part people are always surprised to learn about. If life is intended to be lived to its fullest, I can honestly say that’s how I approach it.
Always. Sometimes without even knowing.
So, about those stories. Here’s a funny one. I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life, but this one is in the top 5. I affectionately refer to it as the night I learned a lesson the hard way, about leaving the past in the past, the outcome of which was a new appreciation for drinking whisky…neat.
It was February 9, 1986. I am 28 years old, single and recently moved back to Lewiston, Idaho after spending four years living in Sacramento, California. In making that move, I walked away from a well paying position as a full-charge bookkeeper for Legal Aid of Northern California; not the smartest decision financially, but emotionally I needed to come home. It was time to put miles, a lot of miles--hundreds of them--between myself and Sacramento.
The choice to return home had its share of good and bad. The bad being that I took a 40% cut in pay. The good being that I am home with family. To make ends meet I was holding down two part-time night shift jobs, one in Moscow, Idaho as a cocktail waitress and the other working for a friend, Linda, at her family owned pizza restaurant in Pullman, Washington. On this day in February I’d been out pounding the pavement, seeking full-time work in Lewiston. It’s been a rough week and I’m heading out with Linda for some dinner. But first she needs to stop by her parents home.
Nights in this part of Idaho during February dip below the freezing level. The same holds true for the days. So I am dressed appropriately, in a three piece corduroy suit and a goose down knee length coat. I’m feeling restless that night, and second guessing my decision to return home to Idaho. My mind is preoccupied and absorbed in several pieces of my life; I’ve been in a reflective mood of late. Burdened with the weight of worry on my shoulders, I’m feeling a distant pull and unable to focus on Linda’s conversation with Betty, her mother as we sit at the dining room table. Their talking about family matters, specifically Linda’s manic depressive brother John who she is trying to set me up with, but I’m not interested. He isn’t my type--and he’s a narcissist--the last thing I need. The two women are talking him up, but their efforts are akin to throwing a coat of the wrong color of paint on a house that isn’t even in the right neighborhood for the buyer. Doesn’t matter what color you paint it, it’s not the right house.
This kind of talk leaves me feeling jumbled up inside, and even more stressed. Unable to take any more of the hen talk, I excuse myself to step outside the back door for a cigarette. The night air is brisk and reawakens my sense of peace. I stop, close my eyes and take in a slow, deep breath before reaching into my leather shoulder bag for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Off to my left is an in-ground swimming pool and seeing it brings back many, many fond memories. I spent most of my childhood in sunny southern California, and we had an in-ground swimming pool much like this one with a springy diving board. Cigarette in hand, I walk around the pool, ending at the deep end. Standing next to the diving board, remembering all the dives I once did. In my minds eye I see each one. Swan dives, jack knives, back flips, forward flips and a little something my sisters and I called the ‘watermelon.’
In the darkness I can see the water level is lower than normal, not quite full, and the water doesn‘t appear to be very clean. Smiling as the memories of a dozen summers flow through my mind, I step up on the diving board and look out over the pool. Lost in the moment, I took one giant step forward, reliving the same steps I took on hot summer days in that one instant. Another step this time with a little jump up…because after all, what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, apparently.
Every diving board I have ever been on, without exception, is always attached to a stand. Always. And I fully expected this diving board to behave like every other diving board I’ve stepped onto. If you bounce a little, it bounces a little too.
Except this one.
What happened next took me completely and totally by surprise. Even today I can’t believe it happened. Instead of bouncing back, this diving board went out from under me and I landed into the freezing cold water with a very loud sudden splash.
That’s about the time panic set in.
I sank, fast. As Bob Segar would say, like a rock. At first the shock of the water immobilized my body. Except my mouth, it’s wide open and I take my first gulp of pool water. Gawd, what is that I’m tasting? Swim, Dona, swim…dammit! I’m sinking. But before I reached the bottom, I willed myself to swim. The weight of all my clothing and the down coat kept pulling me down, I felt like I had concrete tied to my feet and I touched the bottom briefly. Then my survivor instinct kicked in. Without thinking, I squated and with one deep knee push, propelled myself toward the surface, reaching and pushing my cupped hands first frantically, then with a swimmers rhythm, through the water until I finally felt my face break the surface and the cold night air brush my skin. Short of breath, coughing and gasping for air, I desperately reached my hand out for the side of the pool. I’m freezing and when my left hand slams down on the concrete lip of the pool, I feel a sense of relief. Momentarily. The sodden weight of my clothes keeps pulling me down.
Crap! I’m going to drown out here and no one will ever know until it’s too late!
Oh, no! Hell no!
With a fighters fury, I kick my legs and reach out for the edge of the pool again, landing and this time holding on to the concrete lip with everything I have. My arms feel as if they are tied to my side and I struggle to get my entire left arm up out of the water, impeded by my down coat and the three piece suit. Now I’m second guessing my decision to not change into something more comfortable before agreeing to accompany Linda on her visit. Hanging onto the edge, I access the situation. I could lift myself out of the water, something I’ve done hundreds of times before. Not so easy this time, since the water level on the pool is at least a half foot below normal and I‘m not exactly dressed in a lightweight swimming suit. Clinging to the edge, I look around for a pool ladder. Nope. I cast a glance at the shallow end, knowing there are steps out of the pool over there. Too far. I’m too cold. I’m freezing and my fingers are starting to get numb. My only option is to lift myself up and out of the water onto the deck. It’s the only way.
I press both my feet against the wall of the pool, and PUSH! Come on Dona! You can do this! You have to. No one is here to help you now. P-U-S-H with everything you’ve got! Straining under the weight, out of breath, I thrust my left arm up and bend my elbow, then lay my arm flat on the pool deck, heaving myself up. Pushing with my legs, pulling with my arm, until my shoulders clear the pool edge. Okay. Breather…pant…pant! My leather shoulder bag is still on my shoulder, acting like a counter weight and not contributing to my plan. I pull it off my right shoulder and fling it onto the pool deck. There! That helped, immensely. Why didn’t I do that sooner?
Okay. Push! Up. Up. With one final thrust, I set my right hand down on the pool edge while wiggling and pulling my water logged body up out of the icy cold water, banging my left shin on the concrete as I kick to gain forward momentum. It takes every bit of strength I have, but finally, I’m clear. With a grunt of exhaustion I land on my stomach, panting and groaning. Water is pooling around me, my feet are dangling out over the water. But, I’m out of the pool! Safe! Thank God! I lift myself up to my hands and knees, coughing and choking from the water and filth I swallowed during those first few seconds of submersion. And now I’m shivering. I need to get inside, where it’s warm. I stagger to my feet, grab my shoulder bag and walk back toward the house.
Shit! How am I going to explain this? I ask myself, squeezing water out of my coat sleeve. I’m drenched! Water runs like a river off the fabric, down to the cuff and then drains down to the concrete. Water logged penny loafers squish with every step I take.
They’ll never believe me. Well, okay, they will when they see me. I mean, they are going to know I went swimming. I stop and turn around, taking one more look at the pool. Seeing the diving board floating upside down like a silent sentinel on the water of the deep end, I am suddenly struck by the magnitude of what could have happened. Somehow that diving board, which probably weights at least 100 pounds, missed hitting me on the head. I shutter with the thought of how this could have played out if it had…
Shaking off that thought with an affirmation of ‘Well, it didn‘t happen and you‘re okay,’ I turn back to the house. The pool water amplifies the intensity of the cold night air. I’ve reached the back door, tentatively reach out my hand and knock. I hear female voices inside, must be in the kitchen, then Linda’s voice and her foot steps.
Here we go.
There’s a phrase in use these days, I hear it all the time. It’s gained a lot of popularity recently and perfectly describes the look on Linda’s face when she opened the door and saw me standing in front of her, looking every bit like a drowned rat. For just an instant, I literally saw her trying to wrap her brain around what her eyes were seeing. Her head tilted ever so slightly to the side before she spoke.
With furrowed brows, she asked me, “What are you doing out there?” tinged with a hint of panic in her voice. “Get in here!” She widens the door and steps aside.
“But, I’m soaking wet!” I protested.
In a rush, she stepped toward me and grabbed my arm. Water gushed out of the sleeve and onto her hand before dribbling to the ground. I heard her mother’s voice in the back ground. “Who cares,” Linda scolds me. “You’ll catch the death of pneumonia out here,” she asserted as she dragged me over the threshold.
Under my squishy shoes was beautiful slate grey Italian tile, and a few feet beyond deep pile carpeting.
Her mother, Betty, appeared in the breakfast nook with a exclamation of first shock and then concern. “Oh my! What happened?” she asked.
Linda wasn’t stopping to allow any answers as she dragged me through the house, regardless of my protestations. Mom would never have allowed me to drip like this on our carpet. Okay, I’m not dripping, I’m gushing! Just around the corner was a bathroom and we reached it in a matter of seconds. Linda’s mom grabbed my purse, still filled with water, and with a look of shocked bewilderment, set it inside the sink. Linda turned on the shower and both women helped me peel the clothes off my body. Once, when I glanced up and looked in the mirror, I noticed a string of green algae hanging from my hair. Oh great! Wonder how much of that I swallowed? Bleh! Just as I was reaching up to pick the offensive green slime off my head, Linda noticed it too and deftly plucked it between her thumb and forefinger before flicking it into the trash. All the while, Linda was shaking her head and her mother was clucking her concern over the state of my being.
If I had an qualms about being naked in front of these two women, this was no time to worry about such modesty. They were far too consumed with concern about getting my body warmed back to normal. Their constant observations about my ice cold skin prompted a heightened sense of rush in their movements.
Questions hung in the air like a child’s mobile hanging from the ceiling. I’m sure they both wanted to know what happened, but that answer would have to wait. In a flurry of activity they got all my clothes off, then ordered me into the hot shower. I stepped into the steamy wonderful warmth of the hot water just as Linda’s mom scooped up my soggy clothes to deal with drying them out. I heard the bathroom door shut and all was quiet. My leg hurt where I smacked it, my fingers and toes ached from the cold, but the heated water began to bring the blood back. I turned the hot water up just a little more and parked my shivering body under comforting flow of heat. Hot water never felt so very good. I closed my eyes and let the water flow all over me before setting about to clean myself of a winters share of gunk, slime and dirty pool water.
Within minutes I had washed my hair, watching with horror as the bits of green slime dropped to my feet and then down the drain. Ugh. That’s just nasty! I finished up my shower, and dried off. Linda had left a white terry cloth robe to wear and I wrapped it snuggly around me. About that time I started to worry if anything had fallen out of my shoulder bag while I was in the pool. Stepping over to the sink to check the contents, I noticed it was still full of water. When I grabbed the bottom to tip it over, more green slime spilled out into the sink. Gawd, it’s everywhere! My stomach started to roll. Yeah, no doubt I have plenty of that in me right now. I wrinkled my face in disgust. Ewww.
What was I thinking? Why did I do that?
Having verified that all personal items belonging in the purse were in fact still in the purse, and satisfied that there was nothing left to do but face the music, I opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom. The house smelled homey, with the warmth of cinnamon and apple. I heard voices in the breakfast nook just past the foyer, and I guiltily joined Linda, her mother and her father, Gene, at their wooden table. I had met Gene many times at all three of the family owned restaurants. He was a typical middle-aged Italian man; large frame rather wide in the middle, salt and pepper hair set over a rather plump face with thick bushy eyebrows. Dark olive tone skin and dark brown eyes.
Without a word, Gene stood up, walked around me and stepped into the kitchen. I was staring at the wood grain tabletop and my hands, feeling both embarrassment and gratitude. That was a close call. I could have drowned. What would I tell them? And how did that diving board get loose?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a rocks glass being set firmly down in front of me, followed by a large hairy masculine hand holding a fifth of Crown Royal. Another large hairy hand appears and removed the cap, then I watched the faceted glass bottle tip as it’s golden contents slowly poured into said glass.
“What’s this for,” I ask quietly.
“For you. Drink it!” a gruff voice commanded as he walked past me, recapping the bottle. “It will warm you up from the inside.”
Timidly, I looked up from the glass and into his deep set brown eyes. “Can I have a little ice and some 7-up in it?” I ask.
Crown Royal in hand, he stopped on his heels and whirled around to face me. “No! You’ll drink it just as it is. The ice will make you cold and you don’t need no 7-up!” he growled, setting the fifth heavily down on the table with a wooden THUD!
Okay, fine. He’s a big Italian guy, so I’m not going to argue with him.
I never liked straight whisky, and I always drank it over ice with either 7-up or coke. Mom once gave me a sip of her scotch when I was a teenager and the taste just didn’t agree with my palate at the time. One sip then was all I wanted. Tentatively, I brought the glass to my lips and took a small sip, half expecting the whiskey to bite me back. It didn’t. I let the golden liquor linger in my mouth, savoring the slight tang before allowing it to slide down my throat. Wow! That was pretty good. And it felt good. This isn’t so bad without the ice or 7-up after all.
Languishing in the electric buzz caused by the whisky, I felt the weight of three pairs of eyes on me. Coyly, I glanced up from the glass. I smiled slightly. I felt like I was sitting in front of an interrogation squad. Linda and her parents were seated together at one end of the oval table, and I was seated alone at the other.
About the time I was thinking I would have loved to been a fly on the wall in this room while I was in the shower, Linda broke the silence. “What happened?” she asked as she folded her hands together on the table.
Oh, this should be interesting. “Well,” I began, “I was outside smoking--”
“We know that!” her father interrupted. This emitted two narrow eyed stares from two female faces that effectively shut him up. He shrugged it off.
The women both looked at me as if to say…go on. I gathered up my courage. “I was walking around the pool, thinking back to when I had a pool.”
Three faces waited. How in the world am I going to explain this?
Gene asked, “So did you fall in?” His wife cast him a disapproving look and shook her head.
“Not exactly,” I slowly replied. Oh gawd, this is just too embarrassing.
It was Linda’s turn now. “Did you trip over something?” she asked.
I shook my head and replied meekly, “No.”
Pause.
Silence.
“Well! What the hell happened?” Gene demanded as he sat back in his chair, crossing his large hairy arms in front of his chest. His eyes were alight with an intensity that told me if I didn’t answer and soon, I would regret it.
“I was on the diving board--”
This time it was Betty who interrupted me. “Diving board?” she asked. Puzzled, she looked at her husband, then back at me. “The diving board was out there?”
This didn’t make sense…of course it’s out there. It goes with the pool. “Yes,” I confirmed. Why is she asking that? “Anyway, I was thinking back to when I used to do all kinds of dives and I stood up on the diving board. I took a couple of steps toward the end, then next thing I know I’m in the pool!"
This elicited a deep sigh from Gene, who looked his wife straight in the eye and asked, “You said John came by today and put the diving board in the garage.”
Now they’ve lost me. Diving board, in the garage? Wha---?
Seeing the bewilderment on my face, Linda chimed in. “John came by today and Dad asked him to put the diving board in the garage for the rest of the winter,” she explained. “We take it off the base every winter for safety reasons, to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Well, that was probably a great plan, until I came along.
“Oh,” I nodded. “I see. Didn’t know people did that.” Sipping the whisky, I’m running everything that happened back through my mind. They must think I’m a fool. Who else in their right mind would get up on a diving board and bounce around on it? On a cold winter night.
That would be me.
I cast a furtive glance at Gene, and I see a measure of worry on his face. He’s struggling with something, and I know what it is.
Leaning toward him, I made eye contact. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to sue you. It’s my own damn fault for what happened,” I assured him.
With that, he released a deep sigh. Oh society, you’ve made us all so leery of everything, what with all the ambulance chasers looking for any excuse to throw the burden of culpability on to the innocent rather than holding people responsible for their own choices and subsequent actions. Clearly, this was my fault. I wasn’t hurt or maimed in any way. And I had learned a very valuable lesson. Winter in Idaho is not an ideal time for outdoor swimming. And stay off the flipping diving boards.
The heaviness that followed me into the house slowly vanished and our conversation turned to lighter topics as Gene plied me with a little more whisky. Every now and then, I joked about the diving board, Gene cussed under his breath at his son’s absence of helpfulness and every one breathed a collective sigh of relief.
My clothes were soon dried, but the goose down coat was another matter and required dry cleaning. I returned to the bathroom to dry my hair, Betty loaned me a heavy coat for the drive home and we took our leave. Stepping outside Linda and I both stopped momentarily. The sodden path I had taken from the pool loomed at our feet, casting a dark reminder of what had just transpired only an hour before.
Linda broke the silence. “What were you thinking?” she asked as we walked toward her car.
Still feeling embarrassed, I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I was just reliving some moments from my past. Thinking back to better times,” I replied with a wistful tone.
“Well, I hope you learned your lesson. Still, this never would have happened if John did what he was supposed to do. Luckily, you didn‘t get seriously hurt,” she observed.
True. Somewhat. I survived the ordeal with a little bump on my right shin, but when I slammed my left hand onto the pool edge, I injured my index finger somehow. By the next day, the finger swelled and I couldn’t bend it at all; any movement proved painful. I spent the next couple of months driving around town, with that finger extended above the steering wheel. People must have thought I was telling everyone I am number one because I couldn’t wrap that finger around the steering wheel to drive; it literally stuck straight up in the air. And when softball season started, I batted with that finger still extended straight up, which really bothered the umpires. But the rule books said nothing about a player having to have all ten fingers wrapped around the bat so I was left alone. It would take weeks of physical therapy to finally get that finger to move and bend. To this day I still can’t completely curl it down like my other fingers, too much scar tissue developed on the knuckle.
I have to admit, anytime I see a pool with a diving board, I do smile. For all the memories and dives I’ve made off those boards and into many pools…planned and otherwise. That’s the thing about life. There will be days when you dive in head first just as you planned it. And there will be days when you take a step forward only to find the solid footing beneath you disappear.
And sometimes, you just got to laugh at yourself. For those who can laugh at themselves are the ones who can give of themselves freely with an open heart and mind. There’s a true sense of freedom in that.
They understand everything, better than anyone.
8,430
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Moments in memories
Went in a different direction with writing this weekend. This moment in my life wouldn't leave me alone.
I've been thinking about writing this for weeks. Another memory hidden deep, prodding me from within. Wanting out, boiling in my mind. I know what to do when words boil in my mind. Only release will ease the pressure of their presence. Never before have I shared this with anyone, until now.
Today (Aptil 19) would have been my uncle Dick’s 81st birthday. I miss the sound of his belly laugh.
The last night my father was alive on this earth, I was there with him. And so was my uncle. I shared that night with these two men…in a room filled with love. A love so great, so profound, with a depth and fierceness that neither time nor human could vanquish.
That night I drifted restlessly, floating somewhere between the threshold of alertness and the vacuity of sleep. Bitterly aware of the slipping of time, the emotional fracture of loss about to snap like a summer twig on a forest floor. Laying on a cot placed at the foot of my father's hospital bed, I spent the hours of that night, listening to my uncle’s soft melodic voice…recounting a million and one memories. A lifetime of recollections. The breath of final goodbyes.
A night I shall carry within the power of my heart forever.
From the time dad was admitted to the hospital two weeks prior, the days passed in a blur. Each day started at 5:00 am so I could be at the hospital by 6:00 am, gathered with family and friends. Around 11, I left the hospital and went to work for several hours. Work was both a needed distraction and a necessity caused by timing. Cancer doesn’t give proper notice to allow family members time to rearrange the priorities in their lives. I’d stay at work three or four hours each day, then drive back to the hospital where I remained until 10 or 11 at night. Several of us took turns spending the night with dad; between my step-mother, sisters, brother and a brother-in-law, someone was always with him. On those nights when it wasn’t my turn to stay, I’d drive home, go to bed for several hours, then get up at 5 the next day and do it all over again.
Looking back now, I don’t know how I did it. But that’s the thing about moments like this in your life when you find yourself someplace you never thought you’d be. Without thinking, without preparation, you shift yourself into drive and do what has to be done. That’s just the way it is.
And so, as it came to be that Saturday night, it was my turn to stay. By all rights, I should have been exhausted that night. But what sleep I had came in short moments of drowsy submission. Stubbornly refusing to give in, I held tight to my consciousness, not wanting to miss a single second of the interchange between these two brothers. It was the most beautiful heartbreaking passage of my life.
When everyone had gone home, I took my place at dad’s bedside, with uncle Dick standing on the other side, holding dad’s hand, and tenderly stroking the top of dad’s head. A brother’s touch. No longer lucid, his eyes dim and hollow, dad laid on this bed, unable to speak or move. I felt weary, numb, and it must have been close to midnight when I decided to lay down and convinced myself to sleep so dad and my uncle could have this time together without me hovering. When I pulled my feet from the floor and finally laid down, I felt a heaviness lifted from my shoulders as I slipped down, under the covers on the cot, slowly lulled by the sound of my uncle’s soft whispers lifting the heavy curtain of silence.
From my place at the foot of the bed, I felt the love pouring from my uncle’s heart into my father’s ear. Words so soft and sweet, they both filled my heart with joy and tore it apart, all at once. Boyhood memories flowing through every slow and tender stroke of my uncle’s fingers, recapturing minutes and hours long since passed, held tight and woven in the time and space of these two brothers. It was like listening to a song without end.
I tried to sleep that night, to give my uncle some private time. Yet every time I felt myself relax and drift off, just as I was about to surrender, the rise and fall of my uncle’s voice pulled me away, like a heartfelt violin concerto. A few times I lifted myself up from the cot just enough to see their two figures. Dick holding dad’s hand in his right, his left hand on dad’s head, sometimes gently caressing, and sometimes just cupped at the back of his head. Leaning over the bed, his lips moving in the rhythmic duty of expressing long lost words of love and family, sharing distant memories of occasions and places, and the faded fragments of time and tribulation.
Laying there, just listening, changed me. It filled me. It broke me. And it mended me.
A brother’s lullaby of love and tenderness. A lifetime captured, contained, and conveyed in a solemn night; two brothers and four walls. At times it was unbearable, and yet in those moments I felt the healing comfort of hope.
Hours passed. I listened. A silent witness to the testimony of one man’s life. At one point I felt a soft human breeze as a nurse walked past me. This was followed by the rustling of blankets as she whispered a good morning to my uncle. My eyes were closed, and it was a moment of semi-consciousness; I felt like I was hanging somewhere between reality and dreams. The rustling stopped abruptly, I heard her say something indiscernible to my uncle. I heard footsteps, then I felt her hand lay gently on my shoulder. I was on my right side, with my back to the bed.
“Dona,” she whispered as she bent over me.
I opened my eyes. “I‘m awake.”
A brief pause, and then, “It’s time. His kidneys shut down. You need to get everyone here…now.”
Without thinking, I nodded and sat up, just as her hand left my shoulder. It was still dark outside. I glanced at my watch. A few minutes after 5. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, set my feet on the floor and stood up.
It was time to meet this day. All the fragments of time shared between my father and uncle laid heavy in the November morning air. Shaking off the burden of our own lost time, I excused myself, stepped out of the room and walked down the short hall into the waiting room next door to make the calls to summon my family.
Minutes ticked by as I readied myself. By the time I changed out of my sleepwear into my day clothes, folded the sheets and blankets on the cot and placed it out of the way, my sisters and step-mother arrived. Somewhere in the commotion I caught a glimpse of my uncle walking toward the door to leave. I asked if he would stay. With his hand on the door, he looked up at me from across the room and slowly shook his head. Before he turned away, I looked into his eyes and felt the clouds of pain and sorrow bearing the weight of a lifetime on his heart. There was a moment between us, a brief connection of understanding, and then he stepped out into the hall.
With that I released a deep, heavy sigh. I understood. Last night carried it’s own burden, and my uncle needed to lay it down. Someplace other than here, in this room, right here, right now. I took a deep breath, and walked to my father’s bedside, taking my place among the group of four women who would help dad through his final hours of life.
Shortly after 11 that morning, dad released his final breath.
I've been thinking about writing this for weeks. Another memory hidden deep, prodding me from within. Wanting out, boiling in my mind. I know what to do when words boil in my mind. Only release will ease the pressure of their presence. Never before have I shared this with anyone, until now.
Today (Aptil 19) would have been my uncle Dick’s 81st birthday. I miss the sound of his belly laugh.
The last night my father was alive on this earth, I was there with him. And so was my uncle. I shared that night with these two men…in a room filled with love. A love so great, so profound, with a depth and fierceness that neither time nor human could vanquish.
That night I drifted restlessly, floating somewhere between the threshold of alertness and the vacuity of sleep. Bitterly aware of the slipping of time, the emotional fracture of loss about to snap like a summer twig on a forest floor. Laying on a cot placed at the foot of my father's hospital bed, I spent the hours of that night, listening to my uncle’s soft melodic voice…recounting a million and one memories. A lifetime of recollections. The breath of final goodbyes.
A night I shall carry within the power of my heart forever.
From the time dad was admitted to the hospital two weeks prior, the days passed in a blur. Each day started at 5:00 am so I could be at the hospital by 6:00 am, gathered with family and friends. Around 11, I left the hospital and went to work for several hours. Work was both a needed distraction and a necessity caused by timing. Cancer doesn’t give proper notice to allow family members time to rearrange the priorities in their lives. I’d stay at work three or four hours each day, then drive back to the hospital where I remained until 10 or 11 at night. Several of us took turns spending the night with dad; between my step-mother, sisters, brother and a brother-in-law, someone was always with him. On those nights when it wasn’t my turn to stay, I’d drive home, go to bed for several hours, then get up at 5 the next day and do it all over again.
Looking back now, I don’t know how I did it. But that’s the thing about moments like this in your life when you find yourself someplace you never thought you’d be. Without thinking, without preparation, you shift yourself into drive and do what has to be done. That’s just the way it is.
And so, as it came to be that Saturday night, it was my turn to stay. By all rights, I should have been exhausted that night. But what sleep I had came in short moments of drowsy submission. Stubbornly refusing to give in, I held tight to my consciousness, not wanting to miss a single second of the interchange between these two brothers. It was the most beautiful heartbreaking passage of my life.
When everyone had gone home, I took my place at dad’s bedside, with uncle Dick standing on the other side, holding dad’s hand, and tenderly stroking the top of dad’s head. A brother’s touch. No longer lucid, his eyes dim and hollow, dad laid on this bed, unable to speak or move. I felt weary, numb, and it must have been close to midnight when I decided to lay down and convinced myself to sleep so dad and my uncle could have this time together without me hovering. When I pulled my feet from the floor and finally laid down, I felt a heaviness lifted from my shoulders as I slipped down, under the covers on the cot, slowly lulled by the sound of my uncle’s soft whispers lifting the heavy curtain of silence.
From my place at the foot of the bed, I felt the love pouring from my uncle’s heart into my father’s ear. Words so soft and sweet, they both filled my heart with joy and tore it apart, all at once. Boyhood memories flowing through every slow and tender stroke of my uncle’s fingers, recapturing minutes and hours long since passed, held tight and woven in the time and space of these two brothers. It was like listening to a song without end.
I tried to sleep that night, to give my uncle some private time. Yet every time I felt myself relax and drift off, just as I was about to surrender, the rise and fall of my uncle’s voice pulled me away, like a heartfelt violin concerto. A few times I lifted myself up from the cot just enough to see their two figures. Dick holding dad’s hand in his right, his left hand on dad’s head, sometimes gently caressing, and sometimes just cupped at the back of his head. Leaning over the bed, his lips moving in the rhythmic duty of expressing long lost words of love and family, sharing distant memories of occasions and places, and the faded fragments of time and tribulation.
Laying there, just listening, changed me. It filled me. It broke me. And it mended me.
A brother’s lullaby of love and tenderness. A lifetime captured, contained, and conveyed in a solemn night; two brothers and four walls. At times it was unbearable, and yet in those moments I felt the healing comfort of hope.
Hours passed. I listened. A silent witness to the testimony of one man’s life. At one point I felt a soft human breeze as a nurse walked past me. This was followed by the rustling of blankets as she whispered a good morning to my uncle. My eyes were closed, and it was a moment of semi-consciousness; I felt like I was hanging somewhere between reality and dreams. The rustling stopped abruptly, I heard her say something indiscernible to my uncle. I heard footsteps, then I felt her hand lay gently on my shoulder. I was on my right side, with my back to the bed.
“Dona,” she whispered as she bent over me.
I opened my eyes. “I‘m awake.”
A brief pause, and then, “It’s time. His kidneys shut down. You need to get everyone here…now.”
Without thinking, I nodded and sat up, just as her hand left my shoulder. It was still dark outside. I glanced at my watch. A few minutes after 5. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, set my feet on the floor and stood up.
It was time to meet this day. All the fragments of time shared between my father and uncle laid heavy in the November morning air. Shaking off the burden of our own lost time, I excused myself, stepped out of the room and walked down the short hall into the waiting room next door to make the calls to summon my family.
Minutes ticked by as I readied myself. By the time I changed out of my sleepwear into my day clothes, folded the sheets and blankets on the cot and placed it out of the way, my sisters and step-mother arrived. Somewhere in the commotion I caught a glimpse of my uncle walking toward the door to leave. I asked if he would stay. With his hand on the door, he looked up at me from across the room and slowly shook his head. Before he turned away, I looked into his eyes and felt the clouds of pain and sorrow bearing the weight of a lifetime on his heart. There was a moment between us, a brief connection of understanding, and then he stepped out into the hall.
With that I released a deep, heavy sigh. I understood. Last night carried it’s own burden, and my uncle needed to lay it down. Someplace other than here, in this room, right here, right now. I took a deep breath, and walked to my father’s bedside, taking my place among the group of four women who would help dad through his final hours of life.
Shortly after 11 that morning, dad released his final breath.
Friday, April 17, 2015
In the works...
More is on the way. I will have the time and opportunity to write this weekend.
Have the house all to myself this week.
Turkey season opened Wednesday and Sam has been at the cabin since Tuesday.
Sounds strange but I do enjoy these moments when I can just sit back, focus on myself and write, uninterrupted.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Another story of survival
It happens more often than most people realize.
What Every Parent Needs to know about abuse Another survivors story.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Journey of a Heart B1 C1 (con't)
~~~~~~~Journey of a Heart (JOAH)~~~~~~~
Book 1 Through the Music
Chapter 1 Tears of Time (continued)
That little house on Ethel Street holds many memories for me. I was an active child, and active children see their share of injuries. Whether it was running into a passing car while chasing after a ball, getting into a mess of fire ants, or stepping on a rusty nail, I kept my mother busy...sometimes with worry, sometimes frustration. She never missed the chance to tell me how she could dress both Diane and I at the same time and let us out to play. We'd be together the entire time, yet when Mom called us in for lunch hours later, I returned covered head to toe with dirt, mud, and grass stains, while Diane remained pristine and clean. Mom gave up trying to understand how that was possible. But simply stated, I played with more heart and passion, while Diane tended to supervise and boss me around. Of course she didn't get dirty, she really wasn't playing at all. Nevertheless we did everything together, including the time we contracted chicken pox and spent a week in our bedroom together, maddened with the itching and scratching of the pox. I hated it and even now I can feel my skin starting to itch with the memory.
Mom loved to tell the story of the day she got a call from the school telling her I had an "accident." Hearing the news, her heart heavy with worry, she was almost afraid to ask what happened. Yet, she sensed it wasn't terribly bad because the caller sounded calm and almost light hearted. And when the caller asked her to bring a change of underwear for me, she could only shake her head and wonder what I had done.
I remember that day very well. I was in kindergarten and we were playing Simon says. I was really enjoying the game, but then came the internal urge. I gave the teacher the signal that I needed to use the bathroom; to avoid interrupting the game the teacher instructed us ahead of time to hold up our hand with our index finger extended. I waited. And waited. And waited for the teacher to notice me as the game continued. At the precise moment she finally looked my direction, she spoke the words, "Simon says..." and she nodded her head. That was actually her telling me yes, but I along with many of my classmates thought it was part of the game. Seconds later, as the teacher was calling several of us out of the game because she didn't say the command to nod our head, I had my "accident." I couldn't help it. The game stopped, the classroom erupted with laughter, and my teacher quickly escorted me to the office. Mom showed up with the requested clothing items, but I didn't want to return to the class. She lovingly gave me one of her pep talks, and wonderful hugs. Her hugs held a power that infused in me the will to go on, to carry my head high. I returned to class, entering to another eruption of laughter, but I no longer cared what the other children did or said. Let them laugh, I was still basking in the gift of my mother's love. I just turned the page and moved on. Nothing else mattered in that space and time.
Ask anyone what they were doing on November 22, 1963 and you'll get a wide range of answers. President Kennedy's assassination is one of those moments in history that people eagerly share their personal experience when asked. I usually just respond that I was playing outside and leave it at that. I remember the day in detail, but that day is inextricably tied a memory that I can't unsee. A childhood passage, I suppose. Diane and I were sitting on the trunk of a white car (maybe mom's Chevrolet Corvair), chatting with neighbor kids, perhaps even bickering over trivial childish things. At our feet were two dogs, both poodles, that belonged to a neighbor. One was male, the other female. The female was in heat and soon Mother Nature took her course. I hadn't paid the dogs much attention until the female started yelping, loudly. The neighbor boys were laughing, in a disturbing way, and I asked why the two dogs were stuck together. This brought on more laughter and Diane quickly defended me against the boys endless teasing of my naivety. She jumped off the car and got right in their face. But the laughter suddenly stopped when my mother came running out of the house, in tears to break the news. All she said is the President had been shot. Everyone was stunned into silence by the time mom reached the car, instructed the neighbor kids to go home, then took Diane and I by the hand and led us into our house. Later that week, I remember watching the funeral procession on television, everyone gathered in the living room, blanketed in silence and grief. This was my first experience with death, which I didn't fully grasp at the time; it was just another event I saw through the innocent eyes and naive mind of a six year old child.
I haven't said much about my new step-father, and up to this point I really don't remember much about interacting with him. Perhaps it's because the only father I remember having at that point was my father. Every year dad traveled down from Idaho to visit me and Diane; he always included her in everything he did. The first year he took the both of us to visit his sister somewhere in LA. She lived in an apartment with a swimming pool, which Diane and I spent the entire time enjoying. That's when I learned to dog paddle; I just hung on to the side of the pool and inched away from the steps before letting go and pushing myself back to the steps with my arms and legs in a flurry of movement. I wasn't very good, but I kept my head above water and made it safely back to the steps every time. I have two pictures from that day, one of Diane and I in the pool, and another shows Diane, with dad holding me and my new little sister Annie.
The following year during his visit, he took the both Diane and I to Pacific Ocean Park (POP as we called it). POP has long since disappeared but the day I spent there with him and Diane is vivid in my mind. I can still feel the warmth of his hand holding mine as we climbed the stairs leading up to a bubble shaped gondola that took riders 75 feet above the sea, traveling a mile out and back. I remember the slow climb up those stairs, the push of people around us, the smell of sea salt in the air and the light breeze one often feels at the ocean's shore. Once in the gondola, even with the slightest swing brought on by the breeze as we traveled out over the vast blue sea, huddled close to my father, I felt safe. Diane didn't like the ride, and complained the entire time. But I loved it.
Little did I know, that day marked the beginning of his long absence from my life.
Sometime in 1964 we moved from North Hollywood to a three bedroom ranch style home on Hayvenhurst Boulevard in Sepulveda, now known as North Hills. Mom was pregnant and a larger home for our growing family was necessary. But as our family grew in number, something else was growing as well. Resentment and jealousy took hold inside my sister Diane’s heart, and it seems the more attention my father paid to both of us, the more bitter she became of him. All because her father wanted nothing to do with her. He made no attempts to contact her, leaving her feeling betrayed and abandoned. Whatever love and devotion my father provided wasn’t enough. And then one day, she took matters into her own hands.
I believe more families are torn apart by the pressure of lies and deceit rooted in imagined jealousy any some actual event. And so it was to be with me and my father as well. Fueled by emotion, Diane took me aside in our bedroom one day and whispered lies into my naive ears. At first I didn’t believe her and we argued, but she persisted, and insisted. She was so convincing. I loved her, she always protected me, always looked out for me. That alone, brought me around to her way of thinking. Why would she want to deliberately hurt me? And once she had set her hook in me, she reeled me in and paraded me into the kitchen to make the announcement to our mother.
And like a trained bird, I parroted the words from my sister’s mouth, to my mother’s ear. My dad had molested me when I was younger. That’s all I had to say, that’s all it took. No further details were requested, no further discussion ensued. And thus I had played a role in the demise of the relationship with my own father. Not knowing what I had done, or fully understanding what it was or meant, I did what I did, like a puppet on a string.
To this day I will never understand the emotion called jealousy.
Not long after, Diane and I were taken to see a psychiatrist. I don’t remember much about the visit, other than he spoke to both of us separately. I didn’t want to talk and what little I said was about my memories of Beulah. I had nothing to say about my father, there wasn’t anything to tell, I had no memory of what Diane said about him. I didn’t want to talk about him, I wanted to talk about Beulah. The man spoke to me in a unsympathetic, harsh tone and I didn’t like him.
On the car ride home, mom and our step-father Dave got in a heated discussion about the visit. The good doctor, it seems, had informed our parents that Diane and I lied about Beulah because people didn’t do those terrible things to children. My step-father believed the doctor, and mom’s protestations of witnessing the marks on my back left by Beulah’s belt did nothing to pursuade our step-father. He sided with the doctor. There was no abuse, we imagined it all, it never happened and that was that.
Ironically, the few times my step-father chose to dole out punishment, his tool of choice was, you guessed it, a leather belt. I was terrified of the belt and he knew it. But that didn’t stop him. It only took one beating with the belt for me to learn my lesson. That is, until years later when history would repeat itself and I would be blamed and punished for something I didn’t do.
I hated leather belts and for years refused to wear one with my pants. Only recently did I start wearing them.
With the move to Sepulveda, Diane was enrolled at Gledhill Elementary School, but I was enrolled in a private school called Valley Christian Baptist School, now known as Valley Charter School. Before the move, teachers at Saticoy Street School convinced my parents it was in my best interest for me to attend a private school. I was advanced for my age, having spent several years in pre-school, then starting kindergarten in the fall of 1961 at the age of four years and five months. Young by today’s standards, and that debate continues even today.
I remember the day I showed up for my first day at Valley, escorted by my mom. We sat in the office for what seemed like forever, and then a woman entered the room. She and mom exchanged pleasantries, and then she escorted me to my new class. Entering the room, I was nervous and could feel the weight of many eyes on me as my new teacher showed me to a desk and chair. Busy at some assigned task, the class was mostly quiet, with the exception of an occasional hushed whisper. I was given a sheet of printed paper and a pencil; at my side, bent in to me so as not to disturb the class, the teacher whispered this was the same test the class was taking, and as a member I needed to take it as well. She then walked away, sat down at her desk, and I took my first look at the test. It was math, and I easily made it through the first couple of problems, but stopped short of completing it. At Saticoy School second grade, I had just learned addition and subtraction, but the test in front of me contained multiplication and division problems. I was certain the addition symbol was sideways, so I raised my hand to get the teacher's attention. She arrived at my desk and I explained what I saw, which resulted in an eruption of laughter from several nearby students. Immediately I felt the heat of embarrassment rush over me, but the teacher gently touched my shoulder and explained that this was a multiplication problem. When she pointed to a division problem, asked if I knew what it was, I shook my head no, eliciting another eruption of laughter from the entire class.
This time she spun around and harshly stated, "Silence! That's enough! Get back to your work."
The class immediately obeyed. I, feeling humiliated, just wanted to be invisible. The teacher gave me the next best thing, when she picked up the paper, took my hand and led me out of the class room. We returned back to the office, where my mother waited. Delighted to see her again, I was hoping she would take me home. But the return trip to the office was merely to discuss the results of the test, in which it became clear I wasn't prepared for second grade at this school. The decision made, I was sent back to first grade so I could 'catch up.' I took it hard, and didn't understand. But in reality, I was now in a class with students my age, whereas before the students were always a year older.
Life, and my attitude, were about to change. In May 1965 our family welcomed my younger sister, Katie, to the family. On the day mom came home from the hospital with her, I impatiently waited in class. I watched the clock like a hawk; the hours, minutes and seconds seemed to drag on. And when the 3 o'clock bell rang, I sprung out of my seat and ran all the way home, stopping only long enough to wait for the red light at the corner of Nordhoff and Hayvenhurst. I burst through the front door to find mom on the couch holding Katie on her lap. And when mom asked if I wanted to hold her, I didn't hesitate. She was so tiny, and red.
It had been a difficult birth; Katie's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, by the time she made it through the birth canal her blood was black from lack of oxygen and she needed an immediate blood transfusion. She survived, but when she cried her face turned a deep, deep shade of magenta pink, something I'd never seen before. In the weeks that followed, the house filled with the activity of friends and family, all eager to see the new arrival. And mom took it all in stride...at least, that's what I thought.
During my second grade year I started acting out. The once silent child became very vocal, to the point where just before Thanksgiving break I learned a valuable lesson in disrupting the class. The teacher had stepped out of the class momentarily, and everyone started talking. I'm not sure what came over me, but I wanted to get everyone's attention for some reason. So I stood up on my chair and yelled "Listen to me!" just as the teacher opened the door and stepped back in. Everyone stopped talking. And I was sent home with an extra assignment for the weekend; for my punishment, I had to write the sentence, I will never stand on my chair and disrupt class again. I had to write it 100 times.
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Book 1 Through the Music
Chapter 1 Tears of Time (continued)
That little house on Ethel Street holds many memories for me. I was an active child, and active children see their share of injuries. Whether it was running into a passing car while chasing after a ball, getting into a mess of fire ants, or stepping on a rusty nail, I kept my mother busy...sometimes with worry, sometimes frustration. She never missed the chance to tell me how she could dress both Diane and I at the same time and let us out to play. We'd be together the entire time, yet when Mom called us in for lunch hours later, I returned covered head to toe with dirt, mud, and grass stains, while Diane remained pristine and clean. Mom gave up trying to understand how that was possible. But simply stated, I played with more heart and passion, while Diane tended to supervise and boss me around. Of course she didn't get dirty, she really wasn't playing at all. Nevertheless we did everything together, including the time we contracted chicken pox and spent a week in our bedroom together, maddened with the itching and scratching of the pox. I hated it and even now I can feel my skin starting to itch with the memory.
Mom loved to tell the story of the day she got a call from the school telling her I had an "accident." Hearing the news, her heart heavy with worry, she was almost afraid to ask what happened. Yet, she sensed it wasn't terribly bad because the caller sounded calm and almost light hearted. And when the caller asked her to bring a change of underwear for me, she could only shake her head and wonder what I had done.
I remember that day very well. I was in kindergarten and we were playing Simon says. I was really enjoying the game, but then came the internal urge. I gave the teacher the signal that I needed to use the bathroom; to avoid interrupting the game the teacher instructed us ahead of time to hold up our hand with our index finger extended. I waited. And waited. And waited for the teacher to notice me as the game continued. At the precise moment she finally looked my direction, she spoke the words, "Simon says..." and she nodded her head. That was actually her telling me yes, but I along with many of my classmates thought it was part of the game. Seconds later, as the teacher was calling several of us out of the game because she didn't say the command to nod our head, I had my "accident." I couldn't help it. The game stopped, the classroom erupted with laughter, and my teacher quickly escorted me to the office. Mom showed up with the requested clothing items, but I didn't want to return to the class. She lovingly gave me one of her pep talks, and wonderful hugs. Her hugs held a power that infused in me the will to go on, to carry my head high. I returned to class, entering to another eruption of laughter, but I no longer cared what the other children did or said. Let them laugh, I was still basking in the gift of my mother's love. I just turned the page and moved on. Nothing else mattered in that space and time.
Ask anyone what they were doing on November 22, 1963 and you'll get a wide range of answers. President Kennedy's assassination is one of those moments in history that people eagerly share their personal experience when asked. I usually just respond that I was playing outside and leave it at that. I remember the day in detail, but that day is inextricably tied a memory that I can't unsee. A childhood passage, I suppose. Diane and I were sitting on the trunk of a white car (maybe mom's Chevrolet Corvair), chatting with neighbor kids, perhaps even bickering over trivial childish things. At our feet were two dogs, both poodles, that belonged to a neighbor. One was male, the other female. The female was in heat and soon Mother Nature took her course. I hadn't paid the dogs much attention until the female started yelping, loudly. The neighbor boys were laughing, in a disturbing way, and I asked why the two dogs were stuck together. This brought on more laughter and Diane quickly defended me against the boys endless teasing of my naivety. She jumped off the car and got right in their face. But the laughter suddenly stopped when my mother came running out of the house, in tears to break the news. All she said is the President had been shot. Everyone was stunned into silence by the time mom reached the car, instructed the neighbor kids to go home, then took Diane and I by the hand and led us into our house. Later that week, I remember watching the funeral procession on television, everyone gathered in the living room, blanketed in silence and grief. This was my first experience with death, which I didn't fully grasp at the time; it was just another event I saw through the innocent eyes and naive mind of a six year old child.
I haven't said much about my new step-father, and up to this point I really don't remember much about interacting with him. Perhaps it's because the only father I remember having at that point was my father. Every year dad traveled down from Idaho to visit me and Diane; he always included her in everything he did. The first year he took the both of us to visit his sister somewhere in LA. She lived in an apartment with a swimming pool, which Diane and I spent the entire time enjoying. That's when I learned to dog paddle; I just hung on to the side of the pool and inched away from the steps before letting go and pushing myself back to the steps with my arms and legs in a flurry of movement. I wasn't very good, but I kept my head above water and made it safely back to the steps every time. I have two pictures from that day, one of Diane and I in the pool, and another shows Diane, with dad holding me and my new little sister Annie.
The following year during his visit, he took the both Diane and I to Pacific Ocean Park (POP as we called it). POP has long since disappeared but the day I spent there with him and Diane is vivid in my mind. I can still feel the warmth of his hand holding mine as we climbed the stairs leading up to a bubble shaped gondola that took riders 75 feet above the sea, traveling a mile out and back. I remember the slow climb up those stairs, the push of people around us, the smell of sea salt in the air and the light breeze one often feels at the ocean's shore. Once in the gondola, even with the slightest swing brought on by the breeze as we traveled out over the vast blue sea, huddled close to my father, I felt safe. Diane didn't like the ride, and complained the entire time. But I loved it.
Little did I know, that day marked the beginning of his long absence from my life.
Sometime in 1964 we moved from North Hollywood to a three bedroom ranch style home on Hayvenhurst Boulevard in Sepulveda, now known as North Hills. Mom was pregnant and a larger home for our growing family was necessary. But as our family grew in number, something else was growing as well. Resentment and jealousy took hold inside my sister Diane’s heart, and it seems the more attention my father paid to both of us, the more bitter she became of him. All because her father wanted nothing to do with her. He made no attempts to contact her, leaving her feeling betrayed and abandoned. Whatever love and devotion my father provided wasn’t enough. And then one day, she took matters into her own hands.
I believe more families are torn apart by the pressure of lies and deceit rooted in imagined jealousy any some actual event. And so it was to be with me and my father as well. Fueled by emotion, Diane took me aside in our bedroom one day and whispered lies into my naive ears. At first I didn’t believe her and we argued, but she persisted, and insisted. She was so convincing. I loved her, she always protected me, always looked out for me. That alone, brought me around to her way of thinking. Why would she want to deliberately hurt me? And once she had set her hook in me, she reeled me in and paraded me into the kitchen to make the announcement to our mother.
And like a trained bird, I parroted the words from my sister’s mouth, to my mother’s ear. My dad had molested me when I was younger. That’s all I had to say, that’s all it took. No further details were requested, no further discussion ensued. And thus I had played a role in the demise of the relationship with my own father. Not knowing what I had done, or fully understanding what it was or meant, I did what I did, like a puppet on a string.
To this day I will never understand the emotion called jealousy.
Not long after, Diane and I were taken to see a psychiatrist. I don’t remember much about the visit, other than he spoke to both of us separately. I didn’t want to talk and what little I said was about my memories of Beulah. I had nothing to say about my father, there wasn’t anything to tell, I had no memory of what Diane said about him. I didn’t want to talk about him, I wanted to talk about Beulah. The man spoke to me in a unsympathetic, harsh tone and I didn’t like him.
On the car ride home, mom and our step-father Dave got in a heated discussion about the visit. The good doctor, it seems, had informed our parents that Diane and I lied about Beulah because people didn’t do those terrible things to children. My step-father believed the doctor, and mom’s protestations of witnessing the marks on my back left by Beulah’s belt did nothing to pursuade our step-father. He sided with the doctor. There was no abuse, we imagined it all, it never happened and that was that.
Ironically, the few times my step-father chose to dole out punishment, his tool of choice was, you guessed it, a leather belt. I was terrified of the belt and he knew it. But that didn’t stop him. It only took one beating with the belt for me to learn my lesson. That is, until years later when history would repeat itself and I would be blamed and punished for something I didn’t do.
I hated leather belts and for years refused to wear one with my pants. Only recently did I start wearing them.
-------^-------
With the move to Sepulveda, Diane was enrolled at Gledhill Elementary School, but I was enrolled in a private school called Valley Christian Baptist School, now known as Valley Charter School. Before the move, teachers at Saticoy Street School convinced my parents it was in my best interest for me to attend a private school. I was advanced for my age, having spent several years in pre-school, then starting kindergarten in the fall of 1961 at the age of four years and five months. Young by today’s standards, and that debate continues even today.
I remember the day I showed up for my first day at Valley, escorted by my mom. We sat in the office for what seemed like forever, and then a woman entered the room. She and mom exchanged pleasantries, and then she escorted me to my new class. Entering the room, I was nervous and could feel the weight of many eyes on me as my new teacher showed me to a desk and chair. Busy at some assigned task, the class was mostly quiet, with the exception of an occasional hushed whisper. I was given a sheet of printed paper and a pencil; at my side, bent in to me so as not to disturb the class, the teacher whispered this was the same test the class was taking, and as a member I needed to take it as well. She then walked away, sat down at her desk, and I took my first look at the test. It was math, and I easily made it through the first couple of problems, but stopped short of completing it. At Saticoy School second grade, I had just learned addition and subtraction, but the test in front of me contained multiplication and division problems. I was certain the addition symbol was sideways, so I raised my hand to get the teacher's attention. She arrived at my desk and I explained what I saw, which resulted in an eruption of laughter from several nearby students. Immediately I felt the heat of embarrassment rush over me, but the teacher gently touched my shoulder and explained that this was a multiplication problem. When she pointed to a division problem, asked if I knew what it was, I shook my head no, eliciting another eruption of laughter from the entire class.
This time she spun around and harshly stated, "Silence! That's enough! Get back to your work."
The class immediately obeyed. I, feeling humiliated, just wanted to be invisible. The teacher gave me the next best thing, when she picked up the paper, took my hand and led me out of the class room. We returned back to the office, where my mother waited. Delighted to see her again, I was hoping she would take me home. But the return trip to the office was merely to discuss the results of the test, in which it became clear I wasn't prepared for second grade at this school. The decision made, I was sent back to first grade so I could 'catch up.' I took it hard, and didn't understand. But in reality, I was now in a class with students my age, whereas before the students were always a year older.
Life, and my attitude, were about to change. In May 1965 our family welcomed my younger sister, Katie, to the family. On the day mom came home from the hospital with her, I impatiently waited in class. I watched the clock like a hawk; the hours, minutes and seconds seemed to drag on. And when the 3 o'clock bell rang, I sprung out of my seat and ran all the way home, stopping only long enough to wait for the red light at the corner of Nordhoff and Hayvenhurst. I burst through the front door to find mom on the couch holding Katie on her lap. And when mom asked if I wanted to hold her, I didn't hesitate. She was so tiny, and red.
It had been a difficult birth; Katie's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, by the time she made it through the birth canal her blood was black from lack of oxygen and she needed an immediate blood transfusion. She survived, but when she cried her face turned a deep, deep shade of magenta pink, something I'd never seen before. In the weeks that followed, the house filled with the activity of friends and family, all eager to see the new arrival. And mom took it all in stride...at least, that's what I thought.
During my second grade year I started acting out. The once silent child became very vocal, to the point where just before Thanksgiving break I learned a valuable lesson in disrupting the class. The teacher had stepped out of the class momentarily, and everyone started talking. I'm not sure what came over me, but I wanted to get everyone's attention for some reason. So I stood up on my chair and yelled "Listen to me!" just as the teacher opened the door and stepped back in. Everyone stopped talking. And I was sent home with an extra assignment for the weekend; for my punishment, I had to write the sentence, I will never stand on my chair and disrupt class again. I had to write it 100 times.
7115
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