When wandering through the childhood recollections that populate the archives of my memories, I am astounded at the variety. Some memories are precious and cherished. Others are traumatic and painful. All of them unite and create the unique me. I cannot embrace the pleasant experiences and renounce the grievous episodes for it is only together that they complete my life.
Far back nestled in the shadowy corners of my memory, I am still a three-year-old little girl in my great-grandfather’s farmhouse. If you sat me down today in the middle of the house, I probably would not recognize the walls or the rooms or the layout but I know I would still feel the house.
My mind sees shadows. I do not know if that is because the house was shadowy. Maybe other memories have darkened this one or maybe my little-girl self was just lost in the shadows of the adults.
My parents, my younger brother and I had just come from Germany where the U.S. Air Force had stationed my dad and Jimmy and I were born. We arrived this November at the century-old farm in Northwest Missouri to be reunited with Daddy’s family. After they all cooed over Jimmy and me and passed us around, the grown-ups talked of harvest and of shopping in Europe. They left me and Jimmy to our own devices.
I found my fascination in the nap of the couch upholstery. As I rubbed the rich, soft paisley back and forth, I marveled at the way the colors changed in the light. I was aware of the chatter and laughter around me, but I did not pay heed to their conversations. I breathed heavy to savor the sweetness of the ancient wood that formed the walls and floors of the farmhouse. The wood stove radiated warmth scattering the fall chill that resisted the coal furnace belching in the basement. The floor beams squeaked with joy as the family within moved about.
Occasionally, a loving hand caressed my hair, passing while I stroked the couch fibers. At a pause, I glanced around and fixed upon the only bright memory. In a corner, my great-grandfather sat and fastened his smile upon me. The smile engulfed his entire face from the wrinkled eyes to the grinning lips. My three-year-old self did not know and did not ask why he was smiling. I just basked in the warmth that filled my chest and that communicated love and security. Under his bright gaze I knew I was cherished.
In the bright light of the present, my grandmother-self understands the smile. I know the overwhelming joy that explodes on the visage when you see the future of your family in the face of a grandchild. There in the tenderness of the child resides hope and satisfaction. The simplicity of a three-year-old entranced by upholstery is assurance of worth for all you have endured. That smile communicated so many joyous emotions all seated in the future. I knew none of that then. I only smiled back.
I never saw my great-grandfather again after that day. He died the next year. There were many times, though that I thought about that smile. When life was hard, when accomplishments were rewarded, and when paisley distracted me I thought about him. Almost thirty years later, on a hot September afternoon I drove to the small community cemetery a stone’s throw from the Iowa border and stood at his grave. As I did, the shadowy memories swelled and filled me. I could feel the paisley couch. I could smell the wood, experience the warmth, hear the hum of excited voices and once again, I could see his smile.
Some ten years after the November at the farmhouse, in the spring of 1974, I could have used a loving smile. Slouched in the abyss between the sprung springs of a child-worn Naugahyde couch, I pondered against the strains of Bugs Bunny’s exit music. A final interlude of Conjunction Junction would conclude the reprieve offered by Saturday morning cartoons. The reality of my circumstances, occluded briefly by Wylie Coyote whose attempts to capture the Road Runner did little more than enrich the Acme Company, reemerged and demanded my attention.
I needed to call the hospital and check on Mom but it was noon. The staff would be busy with lunch and vitals. It would be at least 2 o’clock before they would have time to talk to me.
Lunch! I needed to make sandwiches for my brothers and sisters. Jimmy and Suzan were lying on the floor staring blankly at a Woodsy Owl commercial. Robert and Lesli were rummaging through the toy closet in search of some elusive treasure.
“So, guys, what’ll it be? Peanut butter and jelly or bologna?” I asked as I clamored out of my sunken seat.
“I want peanut butter and ketchup,” Robert exclaimed poking his 5-year-old face out of the closet door. He ate ketchup on everything.
“Peanut butter is fine, Tay,” Jimmy answered, “We had bologna yesterday.” At 12, Jimmy was a year younger than me.
Suzan followed me into the kitchen. She had just turned 8 but she was already gaining on me in height. She jumped up and sat on the countertop to watch me work. “Are you going to cook dinner tonight? I don’t want another T.V. dinner,” she remarked as she handed me the Jiff out of the cupboard.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, “I took some hamburger out of the freezer this morning. If nothing else, we can have Hamburger Helper. I think we have a box left.”
I smiled at her and handed her a sandwich. I did not want the kids to worry but I was not sure what we were going to do. It had been almost two weeks since I had called the ambulance to take Mom to the hospital. She had been strung out on her medicines for a week before that. She had suffered a series of nervous breakdowns in the last five years and was constantly abusing the medicines that the psychiatrist prescribed for her. Now she had overdosed again and it looked like she would be in the hospital for awhile. Dad was in California where the Air Force had sent him and I had not heard anything from him yet. I could not drive to the store, and even if I could get a ride, I had spent the last of the cash I had scrounged up on the loaf of bread I bought at Pic-n-Pac. In a couple more days we might be eating each other.
I headed out the door to mow the lawn. If the house started looking scraggly, Old Lady Moore across the street might get nosey and figure out we were alone. Dragging the manual mower from the back yard to the front, I was wishing for a power mower. Then I remembered I would not have gasoline for one anyway.
With the rhythmic whirring of the blade and the sharp slicing of the green April blades of grass, my thoughts circled. A green sedan pulled to the curb and stopped. The overdressed man and woman inside shuffled papers, pointed to the house and talked for a few minutes. I watched them suspiciously from the corner of my eye. After a few minutes, they emerged and made their way up the driveway towards me. I stopped and stood as defiantly confident as I could muster while my insides quivered. Somehow, I knew this was not a good thing.
The woman spoke first and before I comprehended her words, I decided her voice was sticky, sickly sweet. “Hi, Hon, are your parents home?”
“No. Not right this minute. Why?” I tried to answer nonchalantly, but the edge in my voice was betraying my emotions.
“When will they be back?” the man queried.
Inhaling deep, I tried not to stammer the answer, “I . . . I’m not sure. Can I help you?”
They exchanged one of those adult glances that teenagers dread. They already had a plan and my input was not solicited. The woman asked in that dripping voice, “You’re Terri, aren’t you?” Before I could answer, she continued, “We’ve had a report that children are staying here unsupervised and we are here to check.”
Panic and indignation coalesced and formed my croaked reply, “We are fine. I’m here.”
The man began to explain the obvious shortcomings of my assertion in a condescending tone. Before he could get through his first sentence, I interrupted and repeated myself, “We are fine. Thank you for coming.” Turning, I walked into the front door of the house, shut it, locked it and collapsed against it.
The kids crowded around me wanting to know what was happening. I quieted them and tried frantically to think of an escape. We could run out the back door but I would not get far dragging the little ones and I did not really have anywhere to go. Fear was filling my lungs and I was drowning in it.
The man was now pounding on the door. “Terri, I need you to open the door. The police are on their way.”
Lesli’s blue eyes grew wide as saucers and she gasped, “The Poe-lease? Are we goin’ ta jail, Tay?”
I chuckled a little and patted her on the head, “No, not jail, but somewhere I’m afraid.” Not knowing what else to do, I unlocked and opened the door.
The man and the woman brushed past me and into the house. The woman headed straight for the kitchen and the phone and began making calls. I wanted to yank the receiver out of her hand and tell her she did not ask and it was rude. The man was asking the kids questions and I was trying to answer for them. Two uniformed officers arrived and stood waiting. I did not know what they were waiting for, but I knew it was not what I wanted.
Soon, the woman ordered the kids to get some clothes together. She told the man that a judge had issued “the order” and asked me if we had anything we could put our things in. Dazed I gathered some brown-paper grocery sacks and passed them out to the fearful faces around me.
Before I knew what was happening, we were all being herded out the door. Another sedan, this one gold, had arrived and with it two more women. Jimmy, Robert, and Lesli were directed to the gold sedan. When I realized we were being separated, I panicked. “Where are you taking them?” I shouted.
A police officer took a step forward and the sickly-sweet woman placed her hand on my forearm. “Terri,” she began, “we don’t have one place with enough beds for all of you. They are going to a nice home and you and Suzan are going to another. You will see them soon. I promise.”
She lied.
It would be four months before I saw them. Lesli would celebrate her fifth birthday and Robert his sixth amongst strangers. Somehow the Air Force would let Dad come home from California. Once again, Mom would get out of the hospital. By the middle of August, we would all be home again.
I would be different, though. The remnants of childhood innocence and hope were rent from me that spring Saturday. At 13, I was a cynical little adult who trusted no one and relied on no one. It would be almost ten years before I believed that anyone really cared about me or for me. Adolescence, usually rough, was to be a particularly brutal journey for me. However, just like that Saturday, I survived to tell the tale.
At times, when the sorrow overshadowed my thoughts, the memory of a bygone smile interrupted the darkness. When I felt as if no one loved me, I could remember that there was once an old farmer who loved me unconditionally. Pain can be blotted out by happiness. Memories are like that.
Far back nestled in the shadowy corners of my memory, I am still a three-year-old little girl in my great-grandfather’s farmhouse. If you sat me down today in the middle of the house, I probably would not recognize the walls or the rooms or the layout but I know I would still feel the house.
My mind sees shadows. I do not know if that is because the house was shadowy. Maybe other memories have darkened this one or maybe my little-girl self was just lost in the shadows of the adults.
My parents, my younger brother and I had just come from Germany where the U.S. Air Force had stationed my dad and Jimmy and I were born. We arrived this November at the century-old farm in Northwest Missouri to be reunited with Daddy’s family. After they all cooed over Jimmy and me and passed us around, the grown-ups talked of harvest and of shopping in Europe. They left me and Jimmy to our own devices.
I found my fascination in the nap of the couch upholstery. As I rubbed the rich, soft paisley back and forth, I marveled at the way the colors changed in the light. I was aware of the chatter and laughter around me, but I did not pay heed to their conversations. I breathed heavy to savor the sweetness of the ancient wood that formed the walls and floors of the farmhouse. The wood stove radiated warmth scattering the fall chill that resisted the coal furnace belching in the basement. The floor beams squeaked with joy as the family within moved about.
Occasionally, a loving hand caressed my hair, passing while I stroked the couch fibers. At a pause, I glanced around and fixed upon the only bright memory. In a corner, my great-grandfather sat and fastened his smile upon me. The smile engulfed his entire face from the wrinkled eyes to the grinning lips. My three-year-old self did not know and did not ask why he was smiling. I just basked in the warmth that filled my chest and that communicated love and security. Under his bright gaze I knew I was cherished.
In the bright light of the present, my grandmother-self understands the smile. I know the overwhelming joy that explodes on the visage when you see the future of your family in the face of a grandchild. There in the tenderness of the child resides hope and satisfaction. The simplicity of a three-year-old entranced by upholstery is assurance of worth for all you have endured. That smile communicated so many joyous emotions all seated in the future. I knew none of that then. I only smiled back.
I never saw my great-grandfather again after that day. He died the next year. There were many times, though that I thought about that smile. When life was hard, when accomplishments were rewarded, and when paisley distracted me I thought about him. Almost thirty years later, on a hot September afternoon I drove to the small community cemetery a stone’s throw from the Iowa border and stood at his grave. As I did, the shadowy memories swelled and filled me. I could feel the paisley couch. I could smell the wood, experience the warmth, hear the hum of excited voices and once again, I could see his smile.
Some ten years after the November at the farmhouse, in the spring of 1974, I could have used a loving smile. Slouched in the abyss between the sprung springs of a child-worn Naugahyde couch, I pondered against the strains of Bugs Bunny’s exit music. A final interlude of Conjunction Junction would conclude the reprieve offered by Saturday morning cartoons. The reality of my circumstances, occluded briefly by Wylie Coyote whose attempts to capture the Road Runner did little more than enrich the Acme Company, reemerged and demanded my attention.
I needed to call the hospital and check on Mom but it was noon. The staff would be busy with lunch and vitals. It would be at least 2 o’clock before they would have time to talk to me.
Lunch! I needed to make sandwiches for my brothers and sisters. Jimmy and Suzan were lying on the floor staring blankly at a Woodsy Owl commercial. Robert and Lesli were rummaging through the toy closet in search of some elusive treasure.
“So, guys, what’ll it be? Peanut butter and jelly or bologna?” I asked as I clamored out of my sunken seat.
“I want peanut butter and ketchup,” Robert exclaimed poking his 5-year-old face out of the closet door. He ate ketchup on everything.
“Peanut butter is fine, Tay,” Jimmy answered, “We had bologna yesterday.” At 12, Jimmy was a year younger than me.
Suzan followed me into the kitchen. She had just turned 8 but she was already gaining on me in height. She jumped up and sat on the countertop to watch me work. “Are you going to cook dinner tonight? I don’t want another T.V. dinner,” she remarked as she handed me the Jiff out of the cupboard.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, “I took some hamburger out of the freezer this morning. If nothing else, we can have Hamburger Helper. I think we have a box left.”
I smiled at her and handed her a sandwich. I did not want the kids to worry but I was not sure what we were going to do. It had been almost two weeks since I had called the ambulance to take Mom to the hospital. She had been strung out on her medicines for a week before that. She had suffered a series of nervous breakdowns in the last five years and was constantly abusing the medicines that the psychiatrist prescribed for her. Now she had overdosed again and it looked like she would be in the hospital for awhile. Dad was in California where the Air Force had sent him and I had not heard anything from him yet. I could not drive to the store, and even if I could get a ride, I had spent the last of the cash I had scrounged up on the loaf of bread I bought at Pic-n-Pac. In a couple more days we might be eating each other.
I headed out the door to mow the lawn. If the house started looking scraggly, Old Lady Moore across the street might get nosey and figure out we were alone. Dragging the manual mower from the back yard to the front, I was wishing for a power mower. Then I remembered I would not have gasoline for one anyway.
With the rhythmic whirring of the blade and the sharp slicing of the green April blades of grass, my thoughts circled. A green sedan pulled to the curb and stopped. The overdressed man and woman inside shuffled papers, pointed to the house and talked for a few minutes. I watched them suspiciously from the corner of my eye. After a few minutes, they emerged and made their way up the driveway towards me. I stopped and stood as defiantly confident as I could muster while my insides quivered. Somehow, I knew this was not a good thing.
The woman spoke first and before I comprehended her words, I decided her voice was sticky, sickly sweet. “Hi, Hon, are your parents home?”
“No. Not right this minute. Why?” I tried to answer nonchalantly, but the edge in my voice was betraying my emotions.
“When will they be back?” the man queried.
Inhaling deep, I tried not to stammer the answer, “I . . . I’m not sure. Can I help you?”
They exchanged one of those adult glances that teenagers dread. They already had a plan and my input was not solicited. The woman asked in that dripping voice, “You’re Terri, aren’t you?” Before I could answer, she continued, “We’ve had a report that children are staying here unsupervised and we are here to check.”
Panic and indignation coalesced and formed my croaked reply, “We are fine. I’m here.”
The man began to explain the obvious shortcomings of my assertion in a condescending tone. Before he could get through his first sentence, I interrupted and repeated myself, “We are fine. Thank you for coming.” Turning, I walked into the front door of the house, shut it, locked it and collapsed against it.
The kids crowded around me wanting to know what was happening. I quieted them and tried frantically to think of an escape. We could run out the back door but I would not get far dragging the little ones and I did not really have anywhere to go. Fear was filling my lungs and I was drowning in it.
The man was now pounding on the door. “Terri, I need you to open the door. The police are on their way.”
Lesli’s blue eyes grew wide as saucers and she gasped, “The Poe-lease? Are we goin’ ta jail, Tay?”
I chuckled a little and patted her on the head, “No, not jail, but somewhere I’m afraid.” Not knowing what else to do, I unlocked and opened the door.
The man and the woman brushed past me and into the house. The woman headed straight for the kitchen and the phone and began making calls. I wanted to yank the receiver out of her hand and tell her she did not ask and it was rude. The man was asking the kids questions and I was trying to answer for them. Two uniformed officers arrived and stood waiting. I did not know what they were waiting for, but I knew it was not what I wanted.
Soon, the woman ordered the kids to get some clothes together. She told the man that a judge had issued “the order” and asked me if we had anything we could put our things in. Dazed I gathered some brown-paper grocery sacks and passed them out to the fearful faces around me.
Before I knew what was happening, we were all being herded out the door. Another sedan, this one gold, had arrived and with it two more women. Jimmy, Robert, and Lesli were directed to the gold sedan. When I realized we were being separated, I panicked. “Where are you taking them?” I shouted.
A police officer took a step forward and the sickly-sweet woman placed her hand on my forearm. “Terri,” she began, “we don’t have one place with enough beds for all of you. They are going to a nice home and you and Suzan are going to another. You will see them soon. I promise.”
She lied.
It would be four months before I saw them. Lesli would celebrate her fifth birthday and Robert his sixth amongst strangers. Somehow the Air Force would let Dad come home from California. Once again, Mom would get out of the hospital. By the middle of August, we would all be home again.
I would be different, though. The remnants of childhood innocence and hope were rent from me that spring Saturday. At 13, I was a cynical little adult who trusted no one and relied on no one. It would be almost ten years before I believed that anyone really cared about me or for me. Adolescence, usually rough, was to be a particularly brutal journey for me. However, just like that Saturday, I survived to tell the tale.
At times, when the sorrow overshadowed my thoughts, the memory of a bygone smile interrupted the darkness. When I felt as if no one loved me, I could remember that there was once an old farmer who loved me unconditionally. Pain can be blotted out by happiness. Memories are like that.
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