My Many Fathers and Chances with Death

*DRAFT*: My childhood, with many fathers (despite my perception of having none), and the accidents that made me strong.

It was old hat for my mother as she casually made her way to the Oak Harbor Naval Hospital at 0600 awaiting the arrival of her fourth child, the baby. Father was overseas on a little island called Diego Garcia, somewhere far away in the Indian Ocean. It was at birth I would realize I had no father near and would take almost a lifetime to realize I actually had many fathers, as well as several potential deaths.

A fine year, 1972, one day away from being a new year�s baby, I was blessed with determination and stubbornness given by the goat constellation as well as year of the pig. Born at the exact hour of 1346 setting me up for a lifelong struggle of not being an early riser, though this has no scientific backing and will certainly be disputed. I was said to be a very good baby, it only took me seven weeks to smile and say �goo�. At six months was the first sign of trouble as I got the measles and refused my mother�s milk. Setting my body up for a life-long fated with potential auto-immune diseases and bad teeth, as well as a distaste for milk. My blood type a divine circle gives me hope as well making me a universal donor, though never meeting the weight requirement to give, a fine excuse.

I have no fear of flying and quite like it. My mother took me six months old in the womb to see my father in Singapore. My father was a fighter pilot so flying �is in me� perhaps. I was actually put on a plane by my father (so I�m told) to fly all by myself at age four (after being given a fake birthday party so I�d say I was five) to meet the rest of my family. My father had to leave for yet another tour of duty and I had been held behind due to yet another injury, this time microscopic surgery on my wrist. We were told the cut was a fraction of a millimeter from the main artery and I was a lucky little girl to be alive. It only took a five-hour micro-operation to put everything back in place, including the large piece of gauze (scar tissue), my brother convinced me the doctors had mistakenly left under my sown skin. Needless to say, my injury was serious, my father took me for an important follow-up doctors visit while the rest of my family flew down early to Disneyland to prepare for the pageant. I was also to be in this pageant, humungous cast on arm and all. The photos show perfect little girls, with perfect little curls, and perfectly puffed out expensive dresses. Standing next to them, me, with my flat curls, flat dress, half smile, cast, and band-aid on my knee. I guess I learned at an early age what I was up against and not prepared (if ever) but thrilled and proud of my beautifully oldest sister as she checked in her six-foot trophy to cart home.

But now I�ve gotten carried away and out of order. This cast was in place due to the THIRD time I almost lost my life, driving my hand through a storm plated glass window door as my brothers and sisters tried to ditch me at the tender age of three. My stubbornness, or temper rather, took hold as I punched through the door standing my ground, I will not be left or ignored! It might kill me, but hey, now I�ve got your attention! This resulting in a huge scar on my wrist, which you�d think would have successfully taken my life and now just screams of attempted suicide to those who don�t know me and even those who do.

The FIRST time I almost lost my life was falling off a kitchen barstool just over the age of one. I have photos of me eating cereal, naked, at the bar, alongside all the other older children doing exactly what they all did (though I was the only naked one) growing up way too fast. My mom nonchalantly quips, �I think this is when you had that little accident. I think it�s how you got that cute little dimple!�.

The SECOND time I almost lost my life was playing cops and robbers with a huge plastic gun way too large for a two-year-old tot. As I ran to catch up to all the robbers (I think I was the only cop, again, they were really just trying to ditch the tagalong) the weight of the gun pulled me off the stairs nailing my tender forehead into the brick hearth. At least this is the story I prefer to tell as my brothers and sisters most certainly recalled. Mom says I was singing with a plastic microphone in footy pajamas on the brick hearth and slipped off the edge hitting my head (perhaps my potential death count is off and for that matter what was I doing anywhere near a pointy edge brick hearth, certainly I was stubborn and insisted on having a stage?! Yes, there are photos.). So take your pick, but either way it resulted in a trail of blood all through the house including ruining my lovely white slip, which confirms I was most certainly not in footy pajamas! So both times I almost died due to large flesh wounds it was a mockery of getting me assistance. No ambulances would be called, the Navy wouldn�t pay for this, car keys missing, mom not dressed, my brother almost fainting, being driven by neighbors. Hours later my dad arrived to a house with trails of blood eventually making his way to the Navy hospital finding my head in stitches. It is rumored that my screams were heard a floor below. As they covered me in that navy green blanket I felt about seven people holding me down. I guess this is why I never liked my brother�s Chinese torture while being pinned down, he usually was nice and let me up once I screamed loud enough for mom to hear. And kind of him letting me retaliate punching him hard in the chest, in fact, he encouraged it telling me I hit like a girl.

Bringing me back to my obsessive order compulsion, to recap for you in order all the times I almost lost my life. ONE: falling off a stool. TWO: hitting my forehead into brick. THREE: cutting my wrist punching glass. FOURTH: the potential drowning (no, I�ve not shared with you yet). Was there a FIFTH? Yes, but thankfully I had quite a break from physically injuries allowing room for emotional ones.

I have no real memories, except the traumatic ones, before the age of six. I think a part of my brain must have died, along with my father. I remember them coming, those two in the blue suits, as I clung (actually I never clung, I was very independent) to my mom and listened to the report. I don�t even recall the devastation hitting my mother, since I left the room. Retreating to the kitchen to find that letter I was almost done with, but it wasn�t perfect yet so it had not been sent. On the cutest stationery with a little tearful girl looking hopeful to the sky next to imprinted words: �Do I Miss You?�A little bit, but if you think I�m just going to sit around and mope and worry and cry my eyes out�you�re right! Hurry Back!� Alongside this my writing in magic marker red, �Deoar Dad I Love You XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO. I Love you very munck (scrawled hearts and more X�s and O�s). There go a bundle of love. Best kisses. I love you veary (scratched out) very very very very munck DAD. I Love You.� With one last heart surrounding �Dad + Tanya� which the heart was too small to contain. So I had drawn a circle around the part of my name that didn�t fit in the heart, it must all be contained! As I reread my letter a deep feeling of regret that he had not gotten my last words. I retreated to my room playing Olivia-Newton John�s record, repeatedly singing, �Hopelessly Devoted To You�. I was clearly emotional locked from this point on, not even able to cry. I remember the viewing, he looked like stone, I have no other memory of him blanked out by this sheet of death white. I remember the funeral. I remember being sad. I remember taking pictures back at home wearing matching sailor dresses with my sister, who was two years older, and how I just wanted to be done, my leg hurt from standing.

Prior to this devastating event, apparently my life had been very exciting, so I�m told and the photos display. I lived on an island with great mountain views though it rained there often. Then moved to the other coast where the black rocks jutted into the water as we hopped from one to the other. Which reminds me, I�ve not told you NUMBER FOUR, I almost died of drowning, but not in Rhode Island, this event was during a stay at a Howard Johnson�s hotel while driving cross-country. Come to think of it, for a memory that is bad, the memories of the orange roof are piercing as we�d all cheer in the back of the stationwagon reaching our destination freeing us from the all too-stuffed car. Knowing we�d get a sundae pilled high (beginning my affinity for extra whip cream) and get to all snuggle into one big bed sleeping head to feet and get to swim in a pool. Apparently this pool in particular was so much fun everyone decided to ignore where the three year old might be. Playing on the pool ladder, no problem�minutes later missing? Pulled out by my hair at age three, I learned water is not to be breathed as the air.

Please add NUMBER FOUR: potential drowning.

Ok, so where was I? Rhode Island was a short stint eventually bringing us to Virginia, which I now call home. Mantua was a quaint little suburbia which I�ll write about another day bringing me to Reston, a town my father picked; close enough to the city where he�d go to the Pentagon but far enough west to give the children a nice place to grow up. I think there had been an oil spill near our old house and my father knew this new town was all health conscious and concerned with planting more trees than people. As he lined our property with pine trees that now thirty-or-so-year�s later tower over that house. Somehow years later I was magnetically pulled to work just miles from that house, the last house my father ever walked in alive. Going back, I met the random third owner of the house, a packrat, who had lined the house with boxes and junk (like those people you see on Dr. Phil). Too scared to enter I thanked him and inquired when his wife would return; I didn�t go back.

The last time I was in that house, after my father died, I was molested or touched rather by a teenage boy, which started my affinity for being all too concerned with how my body looked, knowing things ahead of my time, as well as sleeping with a pillow between my legs (which the doctor now explains is better for the back) my step-sister-to-be pronounced, �You have issues little one, you are under-sexed� at the innocent age of seven.

This is where my first step-father arrived too soon after my father had gone. As my mom announced she had a blind date, I patiently waiting at the foot of the stair before being shuttled off to bed insisting to see the blind man. Not long after, bringing my siblings and me to a town even farther west that preferred a population of cows. My dancing and tumbling career over by 1979 as my mother was forbidden to drive us anywhere remotely near civilization for proper class. My life turned to 4-H fair pie-baking contests, playing with sticks (they refused to buy us toys), drinking, smoking cigarettes, and boys all by grade school, 3rd grade to be specific. And yes I had to walk a mile. After five years of living there, reflections on the trauma survived by living with a controlling step-father, an evil step-sister (who truly loved me but was admittedly jealous) and all my chores: I am a real life Cinderella who was too young for a prince to come and rescue. My oldest sister on the other hand had met Brian Adams who said he wanted to make a movie of her life but after she turned down his advances he was not seen of again. Surprisingly I have no potential deaths during my stay there, unless you consider the splitting of my mind a death. Therapy says we separate and disconnect from that which we cannot handle, this is how we protect ourselves.

For the betterment of all, with the exception of my closest sister who quite liked this father, we received another one. My second step-father living and loving me to this day, but the early years weren�t so easy, perhaps a common teenage recollection of someone regaining yet another father ready to simply escape. But it is true, generation after generation, children are taught and raise their children sometimes out of their own woundedness yet they are unaware it is damaging and carries on until it can be broken. Yet many of my greatest memories stem from this time, high school years, independent, but not really. I went running into the arms of a boy who I remained with for eight years stunting both his growth and mine for the next �healthy� relationship.

Which brings me to my mutually self-proclaimed God-father, who later became an ordained pastor who married me to my first husband years later at my insistence despite ignoring his insistence for pre-marital therapy. I met this real-life saint (though he would not take kindly to me calling him that as he often denies my thankfulness saying �to God be the glory�) as I was refilling his tea, hoping for a tip, just sixteen. This sweet man insisted I work for him though I was still in high school, my chance for a real job, yet I could not take it. I gave the job to my sister who had just graduated so I could continue with school and cheer.

This is where my potential FIFTH death comes in as I was tossed hard onto my head. Yet again, the adults around did not insist in getting me medical assistance, certainly my strong lack of fear of death came in to play as I simply shrugged this off, after I cried. Please add NUMBER FIVE: forceful dropping. It is this potential death that has led to ongoing pain. A year after being dropped I overheard that a basketball player�s mom from the opposing school had recorded it, as I heard a classmate talking about a girl who fell, fortunately for me this gossiper was dating this rival (no, we were not all rive�lin� like �Bring It�) cheerleader. He didn�t know it was me, luckily I did. This tape helped the chiropractor and the neurologist. All that said, God isn�t necessarily the cause of the accidents but he does make good use of them. As I remember a story that tells of God speaking quietly to us first, then he speaks to us louder and if we are not paying close enough attention he certainly gets it during our deepest of pains.

Now is a good time to do a final recap, since I�ve been physically safe since then. ONE: falling off a stool. TWO: hitting my forehead into brick. THREE: cutting my wrist punching glass. FOURTH: the potential drowning. FIFTH: forceful dropping.

No longer fearing a physical death, perhaps still fearing emotional deaths but gaining strength, the only thing to remain was a spiritually personal death, or lack there of, to which I died. Clearly I didn�t really die, but people say I changed. I finally experienced and gave in to the teachings and true love spoken of by my oldest sister, brother, and friends, but most impressionably by my God-father, who has been with me now twenty years since that first glass of sweet tea. It took a marriage and living the �good life� (the life we all think will make us happy: husband, house, dog) only to realize I was still empty and needed God. I could no longer misplace this need in mortal man. Having no good example of a loving father in hand, it took me longer than most to realize that what I was seeking was more like fairytale love, out-of-reach, or heavily controlled.

NUMBER SIX: surrendering to God.

Saving the full beauty that comes from this surrendering for another day this brings me to the end of my tale. Several potential deaths and many fathers too, it took just 35 years to connect the two.

It was last year while my oldest sister was visiting with her several kids. I drove us all to see their grandfather for the first time, my dad, in the Arlington Cemetery. The plot though infrequently visited is numbered and can be generally located near the only red-leafed maple in sight, though still very hard to find. As I was walking the long white stoned row, so many stones it�s overwhelming once you are amongst them, knowing I could simply breeze right by, I asked God for some help. The wind picked up, a large sound blew and I simply stopped. I remembered I had the plot # in my pocket, as I stopped and turned a quick scan up and I was standing directly behind. The back of the stone inscribed with my younger brother�s name Gary, who didn�t make it to his first cry.
     As we gathered around taking pictures, I placed my hand on my father�s stone. It was then my phone rang, it was my God-father. I politely excused myself from the call, after I told him where I was and where I just placed my hand, to which he replied, �cool, enjoy your time there and I�ll talk to you later, luv ya sweet-pea�. Looking over at my step-father (who is so dear to me now) I smiled saying, �Oh, that was Ken, that�s kinda neat� as I was distracted by a large black bird which did a loop and then flew far off into the sky. The black bird symbolic as he flew up to the heavens, reminding me that though my father had died too young I had fathers on earth, and on that day I felt the presence of four out of five at the very same moment.
     I had not one father but five: two had died (my father and first step-father), my step-father standing in front of me, the other God-father calling me as I touched my father's grave, and the other living in my heart.



Little Mouse
March 22, 2008

Author's Note

This is my first attempt at a story, my real story (with minimal exaggerations). Would enjoy real critique and feedback as I posted this the day I wrote it. I could fill in so much more detail (this flowed out easier than I could have imagined) or let this story stand as is, please let me know! I don�t want to water it down too much (perhaps it�s a careful balance if I go into edit) but I don�t want the reader to be confused with lack of detail either. Let me know what you think! Credit to FrederickExsleyWannabee for inspiring me to write in this style. It's a start. I hope to get into fiction too.

Reviews

[Ron B]

This is well written and moving story. I really appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability is remarkable. It should be easy to polish until it shines. Good job.

[Nicholas Hallows]

As a draft this is really good. I really like your informal style and warmth towards the reader. I like how you use the uncertainty of memory to add humour too. Whatever you do, when you add more detail and description, make sure you don't lose this closeness with the reader you have developed and the humour because that really makes it work. It could be expanded into more chapters - which you have already kind of done with the sub-headings. Thank you for sharing this. NH

[Celtic Cat]

Oh....I wish I wasn't at work...I do have some minor critiqueing to do...but not the time to do it! argh. Just some grammatical stuff which has been mentioned, really. Otherwise, it is a good story with a good moral. Like your inspiration has said..it can certainly be expanded upon for greater effect. Now I know we also have being the youngest in common....I had just penned something minor in which I'd stated "I was lucky to be missed at bed count", lol. Yes...being the youngest is not the glamour spot at all. I loved the sad tale of your cast in the picture as you used it as a tell-tale sign for things to come. I think I had a bandaid on my knee for my Holy Communion...never been in a pageant myself. I love that you were able to discover you did have what you needed, despite us always thinking we don't. There's lots more stuff to ponder and comment on....so I will come back again with more time to digest, so I can give this a more proper review. Overall, I'd echo the "good start"....and do a quick read through when you have time...I'm sure you'll spot the grammar stuff no problems. Thanks for inviting me into this little peek into your life. It's a very endearing story...which is most likely just the beginning in real life. : ) Yay you!

[M Lamont]

Well, it was an easy and quick reread as I know all of these stories individually. Nice to see them all in one place. I kept trying to keep a view point of a reader who does not know these stories...that was hard to do.

I'll leave the more in depth feedback (if it you could call it "in depth") for face to face. I know you, if I was to give you something, you'd want a reason behind it or more of an explaantion.

[Lorraine Pearson]

This was a very honest read/write. A window into your life...and boy have you been through some serious bang-ups! All those serious injuries at such a young age...I don't know how you were able to be calmed by those who were around you--I can only imagine all the tears. You write from your heart, and the vulnerability of this came forward throughout the write. Keep on writing. Its both cathartic, and exciting. Touching write.
~Lorraiyne

[T. N. Haynes]

Hey, thanks for the props. I enjoyed the read, the narrative pulled me long. My only criticism (to be taken with the usual grain of salt.) I think the scope (timeline) of this piece might be a bit to large for treatment as a short story. You're trying to pack a lifetime's worth of experiences into a few thousand words. My general philosophy on short stories is that they should be much more narrow, describing one meaningful event or circumstance which had a deep emotional impact. Sometimes the smallest vignette can pack a lot of emotional power. What you have here is a nice outline for your memoir, each chapter describing a near-death experience, and how the father figure of the moment helped you cope with it (or not), depending. My other bit of advice would be to not let the truth get in the way of aq good story. Don'rt feel wedded to the ikdea that you should tell the story exactly how it happened. Don't be scared to take some creatve license with the facts if you think it will enhance the story.

I hope you find these comments useful. keep on writing.

[Carole]

I think you are off to a very, very good start, my friend. I enjoyed reading about all of your near brushes with death, but most importantly about the day you surrendered to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You have been through quite a lot for only 35. My heart went out to the little girl that lost her pilot father...I cannot imagine how devastating that was to your mother. I almost cried when you shared the last letter to your daddy that he never got to read.

We were just recently in Washington DC and walked Arlington Cemetery twice and watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier...so the fact that your daddy is buried there is also really touching to me. That was quite an experience...visiting there and the other sights in DC.

I truly enjoyed this, and I am sure you will tweak as you go. I did notice a few minor things-mostly grammatical, but nothing much. I think all and all, you did a fantastic job for your first attempt. My hat is off to you girl! Well done. :-)