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POSTED BY: shopaholic on Jan 4, 2008
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childhood
this is taken from the book I am writing of my Life story..
"Father where art thou?"
".....ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath:
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord."
Ephesians 6:4.
..........." Whom do you want to live with?"
The question looms over me. Haunts me to this day. Echoes through the corridors of my mind. My heart says 'father'. My mouth says:
"mother." Does my voice tremble? I do not know? I did not say that with conviction. As a matter of fact it is a whisper. Again I am asked. My heart is pounding with fear. I do not answer them a second time. My silence remains for a long time to be. ...........
....... This is my story not unlike many others Loss; grief, hurts and disappointments are a basic sorrow that touches us all. Some say that I am a victim of abuse while others say that I am a survivor. I say that I am a product of human life."
This book is dedicated for all misunderstood children.
For children who can not see into the mind of their parents.
In hopes that both may step outside of their own spheres and obtain understanding through knowledge.
Judge not without investigation.
Part One.
Keiserlautern, Germany. Early 1950's.
Walking home from school is a daily ritual with specific instruction from my father, " Do not stop anywhere on your way home. Absolutely do not talk nor play with other children."
Consequences are severe as I discovered the day that my father comes around the corner with a dog chain in his hand. I look at him perplexed. He jerks me up from my sitting position and whips me upon my posterior. I do not cry. Thereafter he takes my hand and we walk home. My playmates are so stunned that they do not dare invite me to play with them again.
It is on one of those days that I am on my way home from school that a strange woman approaches me. She is parked under the tree on the left side of the street that is on my route.
She approaches me slowly. I am mesmerized by her blond hair and painted face unlike that of the mother waiting for me of long black hair and red painted fingernails.
"I am your real mother," this angel like person says to me. She hands me a Barbie doll, boxes of chocolates that are individually wrapped in shiny paper and lay upon silk paper cups inside their respective containers. Then presses a silver 5 German dm. coin into my palm.
I continue my way home in the same pace as before. Once inside the door of my home that is an upstairs apartment to the right of the stairs, I relay the events to my current mother. In response she takes the gifts from me. " Go to your room and wait for your father," she instructs me. Determined that no one will take the coin that I am still clutching I hide it under my bed.
I have a weakness for shiny objects. The monetary value escapes me. The last time that I took shiny wrapped candies occurred one Christmas that my father and I went to a store. There before me are rows and rows of chocolate covered candies that I gather up with much excitement. As my angry father spanks me the store manager comes over. "Let her have the candy it is after all Christmas."
"Absolutely not ......besides we do celebrate Christmas." My father replies.
Upon my father's arrival that evening my presence is summoned to the kitchen. A long kitchen table is at the center and to my right upon entry. I seat myself at the end. My father has the presents on the table before him. I focus upon the yellow wallpaper behind him.
In a calm manner he begins with, "she is not your mother but your wicked lying aunt." Bashing the doll's face in with his fist he adds,"the candy is poison."
That same evening the three of us take a long drive. Not once did my dark hair mother make a comment. If my father spoke I am not aware it. I stare out the window much like I do when I am in the classroom. I do not recall having any thoughts then as when I am in school. Even the passing scenery is completely blank to me. I am aware of only the interior of the car that is as black and silver. The blond also has a glossy black car.
We arrive at a two-story house located in the town of Lauterecken. My father storms in nearly knocking the lady of the house out of the way. My mother and I follow behind him.
She and I sit on the couch while my father does all the talking. The blond lives upstairs but she is not at home.
After that everything else is a blank to me until Easter morning.
My mother awakens me. " We must hurry and dress because we are going on a trip."
I do not ask any questions much less wonder about it. On our way out she hands me a doll wearing a dress that she had crocheted and an Easter basket filled with candies and an 8 by 10 photograph of herself and my father.
Once again I am riding in my fathers car. I sit in the back directly behind him. My mother is not with us on this trip.
My father remains silent until we pull up to the house the same house that we had been at earlier.
He reaches behind him and opens my door from the inside.
" Remember when I told you that the blond woman is your wicked lying aunt? Well she really is your real mother and you have to live with her now." I step out of the car. As I walk down the driveway my father slams the car door and speeds away.
That blond lady answers the door. She is not near as pretty as that day I first saw her.
She takes away my doll, basket and photo. I remain unemotional. I recall her mentioning that I have an American stepfather that I would meet later. The rest is a blank.
I continued to go through the motions without emotion until the day that I had my first feeling of anger, hurt and resentment.
Because my biological mother refused to return the photo of my father and stepmother.
She tried her best to give me some sense of normality. Such as being allowed to play with other children. My 7th birthday party was a huge affair. Happily it was my first birthday party and sadly my last.
These new playmates liked to pull telephone pranks that I went along with. My mother's idea of punishment was to have me talk to a catholic priest yet she is a Lutheran.
Not long after that she has a Lutheran minister to come to the house and baptize me by way of Sprinkling.
My blond mother does not attend church so it is my catholic stepfather that takes me to services every Sunday. This is the only interaction that I have with him.
Until then the only other mention of God came from what I had believed to be my grandparents on my fathers side but could have been on my stepmothers’ side.
Part 2
"Train up a child in the way he should go and he will never depart from it." Proverbs, 22:6.
My father rarely took me out of the house with him. Much less leave me with someone else when he had to be away for awhile.
The two occasions that I was left with someone are at my assumed grandparents’ house.
I recollect them living in a modest country home. The only heat is from the wood burning cook stove in the kitchen. She would bring in a tin tub and fill it up with the water that she heated on the stove. This process takes one pot at a time until there is enough for me to be bathed in.
At my father's apartment we have an indoor bathroom. Heat is dispensed from steam radiators.
I am allowed to the bathroom when my stepmother takes me. The rest of the time there is a potty-chair in my room. This was provided for me after I had to use my bed room closet to relieve myself because they had locked me in my room and gone out.
After my bath, grandmother dresses me into warm nightclothes and tells me to seat myself at the kitchen table. While my grandfather disposes of the bath water as tediously as it was put in, she makes us a supper of sandwiches. As soon as the bathtub has been put away she serves the sandwiches while grandfather pours out fresh cups of milk that he had gotten from their cow earlier. Once they have joined me at the table he gives a prayer of thanks. She tells me to eat and I ask her what kind of meat there is on the sandwich. She says," it is blood sausage."
"My father has forbidden me to eat blood sausage".
For a moment I felt so brave that I had asked just as my father had instructed me to and completely proud for refusing to eat this. I just knew that my father would be very pleased with me. This elation crumbled quickly through my grandfathers’ chuckle" Go ahead. It is good meat. We won't tell your father. What he does not know will not hurt."
I ate the sandwich.
At my father's apartment I recall eating mostly potatoes and macaroni. My stepmother brings my meals to my room where I eat alone.
After supper grandmother takes me to one of her bedrooms. the room is ice cold and smells of mothballs. The bed is almost as tall as I am maybe higher. One could get swallowed up on top particularly with the mountain of pink eiderdown cover.
Before I am tucked into bed we kneel beside the bed and say the Lord's prayer.
It is very cozy under the covers because a hot water bottle has warmed up the bed.
The following day I am allowed to go play outside.
There are chickens fenced in on one side and a garden on the other side of the back yard. My favorite pass time is to pick the parsley and feed it to the chickens that have come up to me. At the same time a couple of baby kittens would climb up my stockings.
Later grandmother kindly requested that I stop feeding her parsley to the chickens.
That afternoon she instructed me to go play out in the front yard.
Suddenly an U.S. Army tank comes rolling up the hill. The squeaky rolling sound sends other children out from seemingly nowhere. As they chase after the tank, candy comes flying out of this monster without so much the sight of a person driving.
Dumbfounded, I stand there in amazement while the youngsters scramble to pick up the treasures and disappear just as fast.
My non-response had left me without so much as a piece of gum. Devastated, I go back into the house and help my grandmother shell peas.
The second time and possibly the last time that I stayed there,
Grandfather had already passed away.
Grandmother decided that we would walk into town. She explained that there was a new writing instrument at the store that she desired to purchase.
On the way she related to me of another fabulous invention called television. Only one family in town had actually been able to get one.
On Saturday afternoons the town's people are invited to come and share in this new delight.
At the store the clerk patiently shows her how to use the ballpoint pen. He pushes a button at the top end of it and writes with the exposed tip of the bottom end upon a piece of paper. Again he pushes the button of the top end to retract the writing end into the inside of the metal tube. He unscrews this contraption to show her the ink cartridge that the tube holds inside.
He repeats this process several more times until my grandmother is convinced that this is a worthwhile purchase.
Back at the house she discovers that her new gadget does not
work. This disappointment sends us walking right back to town and experience the prior process all over again until the ball point pen performs to her satisfaction.
@sylvia cochran
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