A Nothing from Nowhere

In my family, I hold the position of the eldest of five children, having two sisters and two brothers.  My first brother, Wes, seventeen months behind me, became my first close playmate.  Wes and I spent our days on our secluded country property making mud pies and mud balls, riding our tricycles round and round in the big shed, playing with kittens and caterpillars.  Once we made a bug mobile, which we hung from our metal swing set. As an act of bravery, we caught honeybees by their wings and then released them.  We learned valuable facts with our fun, such as:  You should never spank a honeybee, because they don't bite, but from their backsides, hurt you.  And another:  If we worked and picked our summer fruits, like the grapes along our long driveway, and the apples, cherries, peaches and berries, Mom would make us delicious treats.  Life there for us as youngsters was very good. 

My first two memories of having a functioning conscience, came with measures of guilt--one a fairly small portion, the other a big dose.  Remember those mud pies and mud balls we made?  A little twinge of guilt followed my convincing Wes that I had eaten and enjoyed one of our mud balls, and he should too--poor boy.  The next time, I earned a huge dose of guilt.

Mom had just finished covering a drafty upstairs bedroom window with plastic, and upon exiting the room, she warned us not to touch it.  I observed that the air filled the space between the glass and the plastic, causing it to swell.  I don't know what made me do it, but I poked my finger into the plastic, creating the most appealing popping sound.  I did it again, and again, and again.  I coaxed my innocent brother to follow my lead so that I would not be alone in my transgression.  When Mother discovered the holey plastic, she demanded to know who had done it.  Mother's angry look left no doubt that her wrath would swiftly fly out and come upon the implicated party, so sheepishly, I told her that my brother had done it.  I watched the poor little guy take my spanking.  The guilt weighed heavily upon me, but the fear of my lie compounding Mom's  wrath birthed in me a self-preservation, and it urged me to stand silent.  Shame fully engulfed me.

Another early memory with my brother Wes was being told to stay outside after Mom brought newborn Billy home from the hospital, number three of five.  I think that's the day Wes and I found the dead sparrow.  I gathered it up in my hands and we walked it in for Mom and Dad to see, expecting that they would feel as sad as we did that it had died.  But Mom shrieked, "Get it outside; it has bugs!"  Reverently and with tears, we returned outdoors to give the dear deceased animal a proper burial.  I believe I always had a soft heart.

Except for shopping and short trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house, we rarely left our country haven.  I remember one visit to either Mother and Dad's friends' home, or maybe to a seldom-seen relative's home, and though there were children around with whom I could run and play, I kept close to Mom's side, where I felt safe.  Another defining personal trait of mine, which endured well into adulthood, included shyness. Mother called my shyness being backward.  Coincidentally, I had entered the world backward, a breach baby.

Traumatically, I transitioned to school.  Children in the early sixties weren't required to attend school until first grade, so I didn't attend kindergarten.  I remember well my first days on the schoolyard.  If my first grade teacher still lives, I would wager that she remembers me too.  I stood outside the school building for the first three days, in the hot sun, as Mother later said it, declining the coaxing to go inside.  How I got away with that, I'll never know.  My mother was equally shocked to learn that no one had forced me to go inside.  Actually on the third day, my teacher tried pulling me inside.  She pulled one way, I the other, until her foot slipped out from under her.  A subsequent call home informed my mother of how I spent my first school days.  It wasn't defiance that kept me aloof.  It was fear and a feeling of abandonment that I didn't understand.  Why did I have to go there?  Why couldn't I stay home with my mother and play with my brother.

A feeling of being alone marked my first three years of school, having moved three times that I can recall.  After which, we moved into the center of small-town Creekside, Pennsylvania; finally a move that gave me identity and friends.  After an initial fight over a hole on the property line, my siblings and I became friends with the neighbor's children, and then with most of the town's children.  Now in fourth grade, I understood the concept of school, but like everyone else, I looked forward to summer break.  We spent our summer days bike riding, playing kickball, baseball, softball, dodge ball, football, hide 'n go seek and tag, eating hard-serve ice cream cones after lawn mowing or gardening chores, going to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School with those that attended the Methodist church at the top of the street, and even sleeping over with friends.  In the fall, the town's kids enjoyed Trick-or-Treating, and then winter activities, like sledding, snowball fights, and Christmas caroling with the few friends who "went to church."

What I didn't tell you about my family is that alcoholism debilitated our father.  By eighteen, Mom says, he could be declared an alcoholic.  I cannot ever remember Dad leaving the house to go to work.  Mother tells, and photos prove, that Dad served as a helicopter mechanic in the Korean War; even then, he enjoyed his drink.  Our parents said that a nervous condition disabled him, but more likely, fear had its hold on him, too.  On Welfare paydays, he drowned his inadequacies, and then the tormented became the tyrant, who rampaged every time he imbibed.  But in-between binges, a mild-mannered Dad could be found sitting on the kitchen chair, rolling his Bugler cigarettes, drinking coffee, and moving his feet nervously under the table. Coming inside from the school bus, I routinely checked out Dad's condition before anything else was said or done, and then I greeted Mother, who had dinner nearly ready for the table.  A sober dad meant a calm dinnertime, homework, light chores, and then fun in the neighborhood.  A drunken dad brought a new infestation of fear, anxiety, "walking on eggshells," fighting, Dad cursing, and Mom, trying to protect us.

No doubt about it, my internal and external labels declared me, a Nothing from Nowhere.  It appeared that I must live hopelessly stuck in nothingness, until that day...

This particular summer, the Presbyterian Church hosted Vacation Bible School.  The teacher, a pleasant woman, who lived at the top of the best sled-riding hill in Creekside, concluded the week with an invitation to pray with her to ask Jesus to come live within our hearts.  Her sweet sincerity made her message believable, so I closed my eyes and prayed the prayer.  When I finished, I felt somehow different.  I looked around me.  Did anyone else sitting at the table feel it?  It didn't appear so.  I went home and told Mother, "God is in that church," but I couldn't explain to her how I knew He was there.  I longed to go back  A short bike ride up the street and then up the hill would have made the return very easy.  But that wasn't our church.  We had chosen a Methodist label.  So, I thought God stayed up there, separate from my little world.  But that day, He deposited something into me.  I remember leading my sisters nightly in our bedtime prayers, and being hungry to hear more about God at church.  For awhile, I joined the older ladies in the choir to sing of God's faithfulness, His love, and my duty to trust and obey.

As a teenager, I remember some days lying on my bed, again feeling empty, alone and melancholy, wondering, is this all there is?  Is there a purpose in my "being here?"  If there were, I wouldn't have any chance to find it.  Our circumstances entrapped our family, it seemed.  Even a trip seven miles from our town constituted an outing for our family, and meager means told me to not expect or ask for anything more. 
But what I didn't know then, became apparent later--that Somebody a lot bigger than me did have His hand on me.  More time would pass before I would hear that He (Jesus) is not only alive; He wants to be intimately involved with every little aspect of my life.  And the trials, tribulations and lack that followed me into young adulthood, married life and motherhood would become meeting places for God to manifest His presence with me.

More next time...