A Flashback on the Rocky Road of Child Abuse

One thing I discuss in the book was why and how my mother was

 abused as a child. I am surprised that she survived it all. She 
suffered everything from beatings to a stepmother who tried to poison her. She was removed from the home at the age of twelve to be reared by a couple who had never had children. In the book, I talk about the way she was abused. It is abhorring what the stepmother did to her. She was treated less that a dog.

My father met her for the first time when she was twelve-years-old. She had run away, and he found her sitting on a log in the middle of the woods crying. Little did he know that this would be his future wife.  

My father tried his best to make up for all the years she had suffered abuse, but no matter how much he tried and no matter how much he loved her, it was not enough. He showered her with gifts. In 1929, he bought her a fur coat. She never had to ask to go shopping for clothes or the get her hair done because he was always there to say, don’t you think you need a new outfit nor wouldn’t you like to go to the beauty shop. Even with all the attention he lavished on her, she was never satisfied with what she had. Finally, he stopped giving her gifts because she did not appreciate them.  

By telling her story, it helps me, and the reader to understand why she abused me verbally and physically. I wish that things had been different because I never felt loved by her, or good enough to measure up to what she wanted me to be. Even in the end of her life, she only could think of one thing, and that one thing was to be with my father. It would just be him and her once again, and I would be out of the picture. However, learning to cope with these things gave me strength to cope with other things in life such as a rocky marriage.

There is more of this time in my life in the book.

Navigating a Few Pebbles in the Road, but Getting Some Sunshine Rays along the Way

Interesting things keep popping up as I travel this journey.  I was contacted by a very nice young woman who found my poem, "A Tired Vagabond", and asked if she could share it on her blog.  I was very flattered that she had found it and liked it enough to wish to share it with others.  Christy ask if she could put the poem on her blog, Poetic Parfait.  I felt very honored that she had found my poem which is also in this book as well as in the Pulse Points of a Woman's World book.  Christy is in British Columbia and has quite a following. 

I have had more invitations to interview on blogs.  It is nice to know that fellow authors reach out to help each other.  Sometimes one can get so caught up in their personal goals that they fail to reach out to their fellowman. 

 Sometime ago, I wrote a blog series on bladder cancer and women.  Today, I wrote to  thank the managing editor of Healthy Women, Marcia Mangum Cronin, to thank her for allowing me to blog about bladder cancer and women.  It was that blog series that re-kindled the urge to write the book, Traveling a Rocky Road with Love, Faith and Guts.  I heard back from her and could not believe that she was gracious enough to write a follow-up on my story and how it has led to writing of this book.  I will keep you posted on when the article is online.

BTW, I am enlisting my husband Tom to be my secretary to help me with all the emails coming in on the book.  :)  I am overwhelmed by all the responses.  It is wonderful, maybe my dream to create awareness of bladder cancer and inspire others will all come true.

There are more updates on the way.  Stay tuned!!!

News on Charlie's Story and My Book's Status

          Today, I was told that one of the instructors at the college where I teach is using “Charlies Story” in her new student success classes to inspire them that no matter what, if they want it, they can succeed.  She said it made an impression on her students, and it also opened the class up for a great discussion. 

                     What a fantastic compliment!

Update on the book. 

My book is at the publisher’s, and I am waiting to hear from them.  I have a couple of consultation calls that I am waiting to receive.  I wonder what the cover design will turn out to be.  I am working on putting together marketing ideas, and creating a plan.  I have decided that I would like to have a book trailer for the book.  I am not sure that I want to tackle that task.  I wonder if I can afford someone to create it for me.

It is a time of waiting, planning and contemplation.  I am working on getting my other blog (Thoughtful Reflections Blogspot) up-to-date on scheduled interviews.  There is a press release in the works.  I love to write, but I really am not crazy about the phase of the process.  I am a doer, and waiting is not one of my virtues. However, the success of this book is important because I really believe it can help others in many ways.  Regardless, I feel as if I am caught up in a time warp that has me suspended in time. In a way, I rather feel like this poem I wrote once when I had writer’s block: 

         

The Silent Muse

Silence surrounds the muse

like the murky veil

            on a smoke-stained rose

            that enfolds a city’s dawn

            as the elegant words

            of pomp and circumstance

            are as voiceless

            as the cry of a city’s neon lights.

In agony, he craves respite

            from the tyranny

            of a need

            that makes him a wanton, helpless pawn

            that lures him tauntingly

            like a siren lures a ship

            toward the hidden craggy rocks

            on cold, rainy, foggy, nights.

Thus, taunts this siren

            tricking the mind

            with ghostly strains

            of lilting rhyme

            to entice the muse,

            causing the need to be stirred

            when the mind’s curtain is drawn

            to suffer silent, voiceless nights.

The Rocky Road Levels Out for a Moment in Time

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky".  ~ Rabindranath Tagore

It is back to work on my blogs, my book and my writing.  My computer has arrived, programs installed, and now all I have to do is to acclimate myself to a new operating system and new word processing program.  The only complaint I have about the new word processing program is that they do not just add new features, but they move the commands for the familiar ones.  It becomes a games of hide and seek,  and a challenge to overcome. 

The final editing is almost complete, and the only thing left to do before it is off to the publisher is to indicate where the pictures are to be placed.  Sometimes it is tempting to go back and add more to the book, but you have to stop somewhere.  My editor said that it will required a revised edition in the future, and I suppose that will be the rest of the story. 

The writing of this book has been difficult at times because it has brought back memories I would rather forget.  But, I decided that if recording my experiences would help someone else to let them know they are not alone, and that with perseverance they can survive, the discomfort of my reflections are worth it.

One of the poems from my book:  Pulse Points of a Woman's World

Reflections of My Mind

I have grown weary

of the reflections of my mind.

As it mirrors images

of life‘s ups and downs.

It holds memories

both harsh and kind,

Rushing into view

by leaps and bounds. 

The mirror of my mind is

marred with clutter and dust,

Demanding to be cleaned

by a cloth with a ruthless hand.

Banishing the blurred images

from view is a must.

So, with arduous determination,

a clean mirror, I demand.

Soon my mental mirror

is bare as a tack,

But then, I analyze it

from my mind‘s door,

And, I know no peace

until it is back,

The reflection cluttered

as before.

"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams". ~  Jeremy Irons

Overcoming the Rocks in the Road

“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition - such as lifting weights - we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” ~ Stephen R. Covey

 My new computer is scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  I can then begin the final polish on my book.  I have an angel who is proofing it.  I must thank Dr. Aman Kay who is an Internationally published author who has encouraged me along the way to completing this work.  He has been a mentor, an encourager, and now has volunteered to serve as an editor to make sure the book is ready to be published.   

He keeps telling me that my story is one that must be read by all.  He says that is tells an honest story of survival , faith and perseverance that will inspire others to hold on to hope and to not give up.  I hope he is right because I have been honest in the telling even though it is simple and a "literary" work of art.   

Cynthia Kinsella who is the President of the American Bladder Cancer Society has contributed a message recalling our first meeting, and the importance of the messages within the book.  I have added this message as the epilogue to the book.   

If  my story can be helpful or inspiring to others, that is all I can ask.  I am a firm believer in what Edward Everett Hale said, "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do".

More about Traveling a Rocky Road with Love, Faith and Guts

By the time I was born, my family had built a small modest home, and lived in a very rural area.  My mother and father had survived the depression, managed to buy some land, and start a business.  My family was not rich by any definition of the term, but during my childhood and considering the time when I grew up, we were comfortable. When I was about four-years-old, I traversed my first personal rocky road of illness.  There are some memories that are vague about the experience, and some remain very vivid in my mind.  I remember that I was very ill, and because we lived in a fairly remote rural area, the medical facilities were limited.  Our family doctor’s diagnosis was polio. 

There is more about this journey in the book, and how faith and determination made a difference.  Coming in 2012.

I remember that he told my mother that I needed to go to a hospital where I would receive the care I needed.  He said he would try to find one, but it may be difficult because there were so many children with polio.  It was during the time there was a polio epidemic around the country, there was no vaccine, and hospital beds for children were hard to find because the beds were full with so many children who had this disease. The doctor finally found Saint Mary’s Hospital in St. Louis that had a bed in the children’s ward open.  During those days, it was a very long trip to travel to St. Louis by car or by train.  My father took us to St. Louis where I was admitted into the hospital.  

Traveling a Rocky Road of Child Abuse

           One thing I discuss in the book was why and how my mother was abused as a child.  I am surprised that she survived it all.  She suffered everything from beatings to a stepmother who tried to poison her.  She was removed from the home at the age of twelve to be reared by a couple who had never had children.  In the book, I talk about the way she was abused.  It is abhorring what the stepmother did to her.  She was treated less that a dog. 

            My father met her for the first time when she was twelve-years-old.  She had run away, and he found her sitting on a log in the middle of the woods crying.  Little did he know that this would be his future wife. 

            My father tried his best to make up for all the years she had suffered abuse, but no matter how much he tried and no matter how much he loved her, it was not enough.  He showered her with gifts.  In 1929, he bought her a fur coat.  She never had to ask to go shopping for clothes or the get her hair done because he was always there to say, don’t you think you need a new outfit nor wouldn’t you like to go to the beauty shop.  Even with all the attention he lavished on her, she was never satisfied with what she had.  Finally, he stopped giving her gifts because she did not appreciate them. 

            By telling her story, it helps me, and the reader to understand why she abused me verbally and physically.  I wish that things had been different because I never felt loved by her, or good enough to measure up to what she wanted me to be. Even in the end of her life, she only could think of one thing, and that one thing was to be with my father.  It would just be him and her once again, and I would be out of the picture.  However, learning to cope with these things gave me strength to cope with other things in life such as a rocky marriage.

Excerpt from: Traveling a Rocky Road with Love, Faith and Guts

           I was a very, very late child who was the only child of parents who had given up all hope of having children.  My father was in his fifties and my mother in her forties when I was born.  I really did not get to know or understand my mother when I was small.  She would have moods of depression, fits of anger for no apparent reason and sometimes that anger was directed toward me.  I really do not remember much about her until I was around four-years-old. 

I can remember my paternal grandmother who lived with us for a while, and that memory goes back to the age of two.  Those are very fond memories and very special because she died when I was nine-years-old.  She would be the one to take care of me when my parents would go out for the evening.  She loved listening to Inner Sanctum Mysteries, which was a popular old-time radio program that aired from January 7, 1941 to October 5, 1952, created by producer Himan Brown.  It always began with scary sounds that only an organ can make then the sound of a creaking door slowly opening. Every week, Inner Sanctum Mysteries told stories of ghosts, murderers and lunatics.             

These radio programs were very scary for me since I was only two-years-old when she stayed with us.  I know that because she bought me a little red rocking chair when I was two.  She would sit in her rocking chair close to the big console radio, and I would push my little rocking chair as close as I could get to hers.  Imagine a small child sitting in a large living room with only lamplight and shadows in every corner listening to this while her imagination takes over as she hears this radio show.  My grandmother would reassure me often that it was just a story, and when it got too frightening, she would let me crawl up into her lap while I clung on tight with my eyes closed. 

My early memories of my mother are quite different.  I remember that I often hid in one of the closets until she was over one of her tirades.  She would often threaten to leave and never come back.  When she did this, she would go out the door and into the woods on the hill behind our house where I could not see her.  I remember going in our back yard, calling out to her while I cried my eyes out.

 I loved my mother and I wanted her to love me back.  I guess she did, but I remember asking my father why, and he would tell me that she loved me, but that she had a nervous breakdown when I was born.  He had been the one to care for me until I was about three years old.  My father said he had hired someone to come in to take care of me while he worked, because the doctor said she might hurt me.  He assured me that it was nothing I had done to cause it, and that she really loved me.  I do not know what I would have done or what would have happened to me if it had not been for my father. 

As I grew older, mother’s mental health seemed to improve, but there were times when she would still lose control of her temper.  I was amazed at my father because he had the patience of an angel.  He never lost his temper with her when she was out of control, but would stay very calm.  I can remember once when she was on a tirade that he gently held her and talked softly to calm her down. 

My first blog about my book, Traveling a Rocky Road with Love, Faith and Guts

As I have traveled along life’s highway, I keep running into people who have let the rocks that have been thrown in their life’s road giving up on themselves, or life in general.  The truth is that life is harsh, and it is not like the movies that give a false impression that it is smooth sailing.  Being the hero that toughs it out and keeps on regardless of the situation is difficult, but with faith, it can be accomplished. It often takes a backbone, humor and a wishbone to survive it all.

Because of this, I decided to write a book to share my life’s experiences so that it may inspire someone to come back fighting when life knocks them down.  The book is a journey though time from childhood to mature adulthood.  The stories and poems in this book reflect the lows and highs of life.  The loving memories, the hardships and the things we learn as we travel the road of life.  It covers an abusive mother who had mental problems because of being abused as a child, childhood polio, a rocky marriage with a husband who was often abusive, the role of caregiving, death and grief, coping with bladder cancer, asthma, losing a home and more.  Therefore, to not to scare you off with gloom and doom, there are funny stories along the way and an ending that I never dreamed would happen.

My hope is that the book will bring about understanding to others, and be inspiring to even more.  Our journey in life has a purpose, finding it is often the most difficult task of all.