Rungs of the Ladder

Some Rocks and Hard Places

A Midwesterner by birth, I remember my childhood house being a bit stately (well, in the eyes of a six or seven year old). As brown as brown could be, mud-ish, except for the beige-blush stucco on the front with white trim painted to cozy the windows of our entire first floor, our duplex was 7/8 occupied by my small family (mom, dad, grandma, and me). (The other 1/8 was, curiously, a room and massive bathroom on our second floor rented by someone who was a type of engineer working on the space program rocket design. Quiet. Kept to himself. But there, living in our house. Quite like a soft-spoken person who looked a lot like Wally Cox or Casper Milquetoast, I was fascinated by Hal. We met his delightful mother a couple of times (she lived in another city) and, some years later, learned he had killed himself. Now, that was a concept I could not understand as an early teen.)

My maternal grandmother lived with my mom, dad, and me, but my sister was born nearly 12 years after me and in another city where we moved when I was seven. In the breach position for my mom’s entire pregnancy, miraculously, I turned in the womb the day before I entered Earth. I turned purple at six weeks, a condition having to do with my thyroid. According to my mother, nine of the ten ob-gyn doctors/pediatricians in the children’s hospital I was taken to told my parents I needed surgery. The only holdout was someone my mom trusted. She and my dad put their confidence in the one doctor who said no surgery. So, I survived.

My mom told me countless times (and many people, whether they asked about it or not) that I was the worst baby. I cried. Wailed. Consoled only by being held, my mom declared she never got out of her pajamas until after I turned a year old. Thus, three parents took turns holding me. Maybe they just didn’t try hard enough to find out why I was the way I was. I don’t believe the word “colic” ever found its way into their vocabulary. But those cries could have been my intuition that I knew my life would be challenging, and I signaled that I wanted out.

Early Days

Nevertheless, when I was two or three, and I could talk and run and didn’t cry nearly so much, we found a stride in living with each other. Growing up, I did not have the easiest relationship with my father, but I adored my grandma and mom. Grandma, my second mom, lived vicariously through me (and later my sister). And we lived in her loving kindness, not to mention as huge fans of her very talented white thumb. She was our resident baker, making hot, perfectly shaped, most delectable homemade (yeast) dinner rolls dusted just so with a smidge of baking power on top every few days. Really, they were any-time rolls. Sometimes, she made schnecken (German bakery treats—with marzipan and cinnamon sugar). Yea. We were in love with our Frieda.

My mom was a smoker, and (see the “My Story” section) coupled with catching a virus, she contracted two heart diseases at the same time. Amazingly, she survived. Her doctor’s ultimatum: give up smoking if you want to see your daughter grow up. She did. But she wasn’t happy about it. So, I didn’t have a good feeling about smoking, and I never tried it. To this day. Little traumas make big life choices.

When my father faced a lot back then about the possibility of losing his wife and not knowing what to do about his mother-in-law or me, he turned to alcohol. While my sister was a baby - toddler and I was a teen, he had several near misses driving drunk. He then turned to religion. At least for a while. His brother also lived on alcohol. And I started along that same track, a practice that lasted well over a year. One snowy night in winter’s deadlock, I missed a car by inches! A car in which three children were traveling. It was sobering to consider another outcome, and that memory seared me throughout my life. I quit drinking cold turkey in my early 20s.

My sister was the “apple” of their eyes and hearts. I must say, she does hav her charm and was so giving and loving for most of her young to middle life, so now I understand more why all the fuss. And I experienced first-hand that while I was the “worst” baby, she was the commensurate “perfect” one. I retaliated by stuffing Lay’s original potato chips and drinking Coke Cola to fill a void. I mean, I was just hoping to be noticed. (Not a great solution, granted.). But with each crunch and a throwing back of my head to get the last drop of brown elixir cola into my unfit body, I defied her. I stood up to be counted. Her tiny tot look of wonder at Big Sister me was a laugh. She had herself more together in popularity and fashionista wardrobes, and she exercised a lot. Even did some modeling. She is still skinny (mom’s side) and has gorgeous big hair (dad’s side). Nonetheless, lots of beauty there. Me? Well, I got the genes from the Irish, Swedish, and Norwegian sides (dad’s side)—portly, pigish, and I kept primping to a minimum.

I’d say she also taught me a lot. But I drew the line at several things. She was a sneaky smoker, probably from age ten or so; again, nothing I wanted to start—especially living through the trauma of my mom’s illness, something that took place long before Mom got pregnant with my sister! My only sibling loved beer from age 2! (My mom drank a ton of it while she was pregnant with my sister). After I turned 21, I preferred wine or cocktails when I did drink. And she had experience talking in tongues. (Something that was fascinating and life-giving to her, but I was not drawn to.)

As grown women, though, my sister and I banded together to help our ailing mother, and through that, we bonded in ways neither of us could have imagined. There were wounds to heal on both sides. Some have been successful. Some are still being worked on by each of us. (P.S. I no longer use Coke and potato chips to stuff down my emotions. But my sister and I have done a bit of more sophisticated stuffing down our emotions, in this case, from the recently by buying a most delectable bakery item found as a staple in some Midwest grocery stores in the late '60s and early ‘70s. Kringleis absolutely delicious and a guilty pleasure we hid from Mom while working together to help her during her last few years of life.)

So while she had her jealousies of me, and I of her, at some point in life, we bonded! We worked together well during the times helping my sister care for our Mom before and after she broke her leg at age 98. We did the famous Pulp Fiction eye-look thing. A lot! (Modern Sister “Smoke Signals” became “Time for Kringle Signals?” signs to indulge.)

Resident Traumas of Illness and “Not an Accident” Accidents

My mom nearly dying when I was about five years old was certainly a traumatic event (see the section “My Story”).

A year or so before my mother passed, I talked with her about some memories of my childhood. One of the most important ones was when I was allowed, as a five-year-old, to visit my mother in the hospital. Unheard of in the day.

While she was in the hospital, I experienced another trauma—an incredibly close encounter with lightning. A lightning bolt entered our front windows and made its way to the back of our house. I had been directly in its path, but for some reason—and she swears she did not know why—my grandmother pulled me close in a hug just before that lightning bolt flew through our house and could have traveled right through me. One side of my hair (and one eyebrow) was singed. That near miss has made for a life-long dislike and downright fear of thunderstorms. And I remember that part of my childhood roots some deep-seated fears of abandonment and fear, in general.

At age six or so, I had a high fever and hallucinated; my mother was freaked out by the way I looked at her. She said I looked right through her, which scared her. To this day, I remember feeling her fear. But I also clearly remember seeing many “beings” that looked like they were standing just in the back of my mom. This didn’t faze me, and I wondered why she couldn’t see them. To me, they were plain as day.

At age 12, after the birth of my sister, I developed severe and then chronic sinusitis and bronchitis. Looking back, I again concluded that I wanted to be noticed. And that was one thing my family couldn’t ignore. At age 21, I had a life-threatening experience. My appendix ruptured, and as a result, the toxins that spread throughout my body made my recovery long and difficult.

I had two near-serious auto accidents in which my life flashed before my eyes. A tumor on my ovary was the size of two grapefruit, and I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I went through surgery for a bowel obstruction and a double hernia while traveling the world.

Just after my friend Kem passed away, I had a hip replacement but recovered well enough to take an extended trip to Europe with my soul friend three years later! Before and after that, I experienced many falls—in the garage, in supermarket parking lots, in restaurants, in the front lobby of an office building, on the streets of crowded cities, and in our homes.

I broke my femur bone last year at age 72 and “heard” spiritually that my accident wasn’t an accident. (I invite you to refer to the “Words from Saint Germain” information in The WisdomTeachers section.) Because of my surgery, the hospital performed routine bloodwork, and it was discovered I had too much calcium in my blood. I might have developed this in my late teens or early 20s, but there was no way to tell. No wonder I fell down so often!—in fields and on cement sidewalks, in big cities, or by tripping over rugs in restaurants or in office building lobbies. I must have had this condition for many years. During the Pandemic, I fell in the house, and it became harder to walk without a cane. But the toughest trauma was when I misstepped and broke my femur. I was 72. While I am not confined to a wheelchair as my mom and grandma had been, I need the assistance of a walker. By having parathyroid surgery, my very complicated hormone problems are beginning to heal my mind and my body, even though it’s slow.