Growing up. Everybody does it. Families effect how we grow up. At age five I lost the only loving stable family I would ever have until much later in my life.
Losing My Mother
My mother died when I was five. My dad was in the military, stationed at Cherry Point, North Carolina. After my mother was misdiagnosed by a military doctor and transferred to a psychiatric ward in a different military hospital for psychiatric evaluation, both her lungs collapsed. My mother died of double pneumonia having received no medical treatment.
Dad told me the circumstances surrounding my mother’s death, and I have the letter dad sent to his commanding officer detailing mom’s treatment and requesting a copy of mom’s autopsy as promised to him by the doctors,
I vaguely remember the funeral. At least I think it’s a memory of the funeral. What I do know is that after dad finally got the autopsy report and after he finally got a doctor to explain the report to him, dad drove to the military hospital, parked, and waited (with a loaded shotgun) for the doctor who attended my mother to come out.
Dad had left me with the wife of a friend. The women must have suspected something because her husband found dad. Knowing he couldn’t stop my father from shooting the doctor, he simply asked my dad one question. What did dad want them to do with me because I had already lost my mother and if he shot the doctor, I would lose my father also? It worked. Dad didn’t shoot the doctor.
A New Mom
After Cherry Point, dad was stationed at Millington Naval Base in Millington, Tennessee. While there he met and married a woman with two daughters. The marriage didn’t last long. I was told they got an annulment because her divorce from her previous husband wasn’t final.
Missing My Dad
When I was nine, dad received orders to Japan. Obviously, he couldn’t take me, so he began looking for someone to keep me for the three years he would be in Japan. At first none of his sisters stepped up (for reasons I now know and understand). So, dad went to an orphanage to see if they would keep me while he was in Japan. I remember it was a big brick building although at the time I didn’t know what it was or why we were there. In the end one of dad’s sisters agreed to take me.
Those three years that my father was in Japan weren’t very happy years. I missed my dad. My aunt believed in “spare the rod, spoil the child” so spankings were frequent and harsh. Another of my aunts would tell me to explain the welts on my legs by saying that I fell on the bricks.
OCHRE
For those three years I weighed 75 pounds. I hated the food. I used to drop the ochre behind the stove. Years later when I went back to visit and saw the remodeled kitchen, images of moldy ochre behind the stove jumped into my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what the person who discovered the ochre must have thought. But the lady who cleaned the house probably found it and cleaned it up each time. (I hope that lady knew how much she meant to me.) Later in life I discovered I had started to develop scoliosis during those years due to malnutrition. My ribs still show the signs of developing scoliosis.
A New Mom Again
I was 11 when dad sent for me. He had returned from his tour of duty in Japan, settled into his new duty station (Marine Corp Air Station, El Toro, California), met a woman, and married her. The youngest of her four daughters was only a little more than a year older than me. I was excited. I was going to have a mom and a sister. And I wasn’t going to be living with my aunt anymore.
Things started out great. I looked up to my older sister. When I was 13, we moved to Oahu, Hawaii (a new duty station). Things started to unravel there. My dad and stepmother began to have problems. My stepsister and I began to have problems also.
Welcome To The World of Tea Leaves, Palm Reading, Weegie Boards and Much More
After his tour on Oahu was over, dad was stationed back in California. Things got worse in California. For one thing my dad and stepmother really got into the occult, which meant the whole family did. A family friend read our tea leaves and palms and taught us how to read many of the lines in the hands. We used Tarot cards and weegie boards; and together with a couple of our high school friends, we lifted each other up with just two fingers per person.
Dad and my stepmother believed in reincarnation and out-of-body experiences. Dad got books on reincarnation for me and my stepsister to read. He even tried to hypnotize us to see if he could “regress” us back to past lives. Needless to say, Church wasn’t a part of our lives, but the Masons and the Masonic Lodge were. Is it any wonder that during this period I didn’t believe God existed?
Growing Myself Up In The Marines
After I graduated from high school, dad arranged for me to visit all my relatives; but before I left, he started me in the process of enlisting in the Marines. I had never worked, and dad wanted me to have a roof over my head, food, and clothes. I think dad thought the Marine Corps would be a good surrogate parent. He also knew I didn’t want to stay in their house anymore. So off I went. My last stop was Memphis, Tennessee, where I finished the enlistment process.
In Memphis, my uncle (also a Marine) tried to talk me out of enlisting. He said I could stay with him and my aunt, get a part-time job and go to school. I said no because I was scared to do it and I have regretted not listening to him and not accepting his offer. I was too young and immature to grow myself up on my own while in the Marines. The Corps isn’t designed to be a surrogate parent and I did a lousy job of growing myself up while in the Marines.
So ends my childhood. I may have left God, but God never left me. But God waited a long time for me to come back. It didn’t happen until I was in my twenties and even then, I stayed in the world until my husband died in 2001.