I really don't know how I coped with everything that was happening in my young life. I remember not being home much if I could help it. I would leave in the mornings and go into the woods with my brothers and sister and some of the neighborhood kids. We would spend hours exploring, swinging on grapevines out over the small creek that ran through the woods and just escaping into a different world.
I think that is why I love nature so much, it is comforting to me. I love the quiet of the woods and country fields where all you would hear would be birds singing or the wind rushing through the grass or trees. I think of this as a blessing in my life...the appreciation I have for the beauty and peace of nature. The blessing of being able to enjoy the quiet. I know people now who cannot stand quiet, they have to have the radio on or they have to be busy doing something. Not that those are bad things but they miss out on the insight that can come to you when you are alone in the woods or fields just contemplating your life.
I remember one time when I went out to a cemetery, it's always quiet in a cemetery, that was next door to where we lived. I had been yelled at or put down or something of that sort, can't remember exactly what now, but I was crying and wondering why I was not loved or why my family was the way it was. I was about 10 or 12 yrs old, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I heard a distinct voice say to me...."This is not your real home, someday you will wake up and be with your real Father and Mother". I did not understand what that meant at that time. It wasn't until years later when I was taught that I was a daughter of Heavenly Father who loved me and that someday I could return to live with him that I understood.
I am so grateful for that experience at that time in my life....that voice gave me hope. Hope, to a sad little girl who needed to feel loved, from a loving Father in Heaven. I am also grateful for those early experiences that sent me out into nature to find peace, for I still love nature and seek it's comfort and enjoy it's beauty. Would I have felt this way about nature if my early childhood had been different? I doubt it, so I can in someway be thankful for that chaotic family life I had.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The beginning
I was born in 1955 into a family that consisted of an older sister who was 2 and a mother and a father. I also was blessed to have a loving paternal grandmother who would shape my life in untold ways.
I did not know at the time but my parents did not get along when I was born. My dad had been overseas serving in the Military Police during the Korean War and had come home to tell my Mom of an affair he had while in Korea. Mom was already pregnant with me when she found out and stayed with my Dad because of that. Anyway, my life would be affected by that for a long long time, perhaps it still is.
We lived behind my grandmother's house when I was little. She was my refuge from the chaos of my family. I knew she loved me even though I never heard her say those words to me, and believe me when I say I needed to feel loved.
My home was, lets just say, rough. My parents fought...once when I was young I remember being awoken by yelling and heard my Dad throw a table through the wall. My sister and I huddled in the bed, scared. There was lots of yelling in our house. If my dad would lose something I remember he would line us kids up (I had 2 younger brothers now) and ask us who took whatever it was he had misplaced. When none of us knew he would start spanking us with a belt to get us to confess. I don't remember any of us ever confessing to anything...I just remember the fear, the pain, and the crying. There were so many of those times.
I look back now and I don't hate my dad, although for a long time I couldn't go visit him or anything without still feeling fear, or some other emotion I can't quite but a name to. He is dead now and I have come to realize he was so unhappy. He did not want to be tied to a family when he was. He wanted to stay in the military and see the world. I think he felt robbed somehow. He always wanted more out of life. Always looking for happiness beyond his small country house in Indiana. I now kind of feel sorry for him because he could have had happiness within those walls. I think I feel sorry for me too because I never felt the love of a Father.
I did not know at the time but my parents did not get along when I was born. My dad had been overseas serving in the Military Police during the Korean War and had come home to tell my Mom of an affair he had while in Korea. Mom was already pregnant with me when she found out and stayed with my Dad because of that. Anyway, my life would be affected by that for a long long time, perhaps it still is.
We lived behind my grandmother's house when I was little. She was my refuge from the chaos of my family. I knew she loved me even though I never heard her say those words to me, and believe me when I say I needed to feel loved.
My home was, lets just say, rough. My parents fought...once when I was young I remember being awoken by yelling and heard my Dad throw a table through the wall. My sister and I huddled in the bed, scared. There was lots of yelling in our house. If my dad would lose something I remember he would line us kids up (I had 2 younger brothers now) and ask us who took whatever it was he had misplaced. When none of us knew he would start spanking us with a belt to get us to confess. I don't remember any of us ever confessing to anything...I just remember the fear, the pain, and the crying. There were so many of those times.
I look back now and I don't hate my dad, although for a long time I couldn't go visit him or anything without still feeling fear, or some other emotion I can't quite but a name to. He is dead now and I have come to realize he was so unhappy. He did not want to be tied to a family when he was. He wanted to stay in the military and see the world. I think he felt robbed somehow. He always wanted more out of life. Always looking for happiness beyond his small country house in Indiana. I now kind of feel sorry for him because he could have had happiness within those walls. I think I feel sorry for me too because I never felt the love of a Father.
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