Children in the Closet....Chapter 27

 Chapter 27

Jesse and I were more compatible than any other time in the previous 27 years of our marriage. Nearly every morning, I would find a note from him propped up by the coffee pot. Sometimes it was a simple ‘I love you,’ other days he would thank me for being a good wife and mother and other times suggest something we might do together on the weekend. We felt like a young couple with a busy home life including four dogs, two young children, two birds and one cat!

I threw myself into homeschooling joining a group of home educators and attending my first Heart and Home Ministries Home School Book Fair. I absolutely loved teaching Amber how to ‘read, write and do arithmetic.’ Everything became a learning opportunity and I rejoiced that I was now a cancer survivor and looking forward to seeing my children grow up.

Even though Dr. Baugh had given me a clean bill of health, for some reason I thought about cancer a lot for the first few months of 1990. I felt my throat for growths until I noticed I was bruising my neck. The cancer had affected my menstrual cycle and it wasn’t long before I realized I was in the menopausal stage of life at the age of 41 and the resulting hot flashes and severe PMS symptoms would be a regular part of my life for a good while. I called all these new emotions and physical happenings ‘chewing nails’ and I did chew lots of nails during the next couple of years. Still, the good days far outweighed the bad ones and Jesse was an enormous help to me with Amber and Benjamin. He continued to leave sippy cups of water or juice by their beds along with a snack every morning before he left for work. This gave me at least another hour to sleep as he would also prop up a book or a toy for them to play with after their snack in case they didn’t go back to sleep.

One day, Amber and Benjamin ran into a little trouble feeding the cat accidently spilling five pounds of cat food in the sink and onto the floor where the cat ate so much that she vomited up all over the place and the sink was stopped up and things were a big mess! The phone rang and it was Summer. Amber said, “If you come over – stay calm! We have had a rough day!”

Our homeschooling was such a great adventure! We went to the Casa Manana theater plays monthly, bowling days, park days, co-op learning days, Myerson Symphony concerts and more.

We went skating once a month and that’s when I broke my wrist as I stood up in my skates and attempted to get out on the rink. I fell on the carpeted area before I even made it onto the rink and still broke my left wrist! I had to go to an orthopedic surgeon and he put a cast on it. We seldom had medical insurance – actually we only had coverage for one year in all the time we were married – so when it was time to have the cast removed, Jesse sawed it off himself. I was sitting on the floor in the dining room and when I saw my withered up bony arm, I keeled right over in a faint!  We did not do skate activities for a good long time after that.

Jesse, Jr. transferred from Northlake College to UTA in Arlington and moved to Fort Worth to live with his Granny. Mother was so excited about that and they bonded well and were great for each other. We had a huge scare when Jesse, Jr. showed signs of a heart attack and feared for his life. It’s amazing how fast your heart can beat when life as you know it threatens to change forever. Thankfully this turned out to be a pulled muscle, but, once again, I was reminded how fragile Life is to each one of us.

Our business was slow in the first part of the year but continued to do better as the months went by. So much so that we took a vacation to San Antonio and on down to Corpus Christi for my 42nd birthday.

Family celebrations and seasonal changes along with watching our children grow made for an exceptionally happy year. Even though I was physically and mentally challenged with this whole ‘change of life’ thing – how does it happen that you have a five-year-old and a two-year-old and yet you’re going through menopause??  It can happen and it happened to me.

I admit that there were a few times when life seemed to go back to the stressful, traumatic days of old. Jesse would turn bitter and forget to be nice to us – but it didn’t last long and I wasn’t always sugar and spice myself what with biting nails and experiencing power surges aka hot flashes off and on.

All in all, 1990 was one of the happiest years of my life and I was grateful to be alive and thankful for my life! I loved being a wife and a mother, a Sunday School teacher for the two-year-old class and active in church and being a keeper at home. 

The next few years continued to be good ones even though I experienced headaches more days than not. Our finances went up and down but we were sued to that. When we had good contracts come in – we stocked up the pantry and freezer, paid bills ahead and put back a padded ‘cushion’ to help us when jobs were scarce. Jesse had been self-employed since the first year we married.

Our beloved Mrs. Morrison died in the spring of 1991. She loved all of us including Jesse and was like the best grandmother possible to me and my children. I thanked God for her and was grateful all four of my children had the privilege of knowing her. Her funeral was in Ennis, Texas where she had lived for several years in an assisted living place close to her only daughter. Amber and Benjamin were sick so I stayed home with them while Jesse, Summer and Jesse, Jr. attended the funeral service.

For days, weeks, months and even years, I would momentarily forget she was gone and think suddenly to myself, “I haven’t call Mrs. Morrison!” I still miss her to this very day.

Our lives were busy as I continued to homeschool and take the kids to East Texas to pick blueberries and peaches along with Jesse’s sister and her two children who were about the same age as Amber and Benjamin. She had two sets of children in much the same way as I did only from two marriages.

We vacationed in Colorado often during those years – skiing in winter at least once and sometimes twice - and enjoying a summer trip as well. We celebrated one trip in a ‘new to us’ van!

I had longed for one so we made a prayer card and prayed specifically for a couple of months until Monday July 8th, 1991, when we bought a Chevrolet Regency van with only 11,000 miles on it. Just the two front seats and one passenger seat in the back had ever been used! The family we bought it from had 13 licensed vehicles and this one had been used solely for transporting a family member back and forth to a hospital in Oklahoma for cancer treatments.

Since we homeschooled, we needed an activity that would be in place of P.E. My neighbor on the corner had two children – a girl and a boy three years apart and close in age to my two. She knew how much Amber loved swimming lessons in the summers so when she saw a notice in the newspaper about a beginning Synchronized Swimming class being offered at the North Lake Natatorium, she encouraged me to sign Amber up!

I did just that and Amber absolutely loved it! She was the youngest swimmer on the team and that was her sport of choice all the way through school and beyond. She made lifelong friends that are still a part of her life today. The team practiced on Tuesday and Thursday nights 6:00-8:00 and 7:00-11:00 on Saturday mornings in addition to local and later national swim meets all over the country.

Now I needed something for Benjamin to do and that turned out to be Tai Kwon Do. He started when he was four years old and achieved Black Belt when he was 14. He continued to train until he graduated high school. The training proved to a good thing as he was always able to defend himself even against those who were bigger and stronger. 

His karate school emphasized character training and respect to your elders. While Benjamin had to use his skills to defend himself a few times – he was never the aggressor – and others learned to respect his abilities. 

 

We all continued to visit with Mother and she would often come over and visit us. She was good at doing hair and would frost mine for me. Christmas Eve was always spent at Mother’s and she was supportive of all of us siblings and even more so of Lonnie, which was not altogether a good thing

She had worked since she was 16 years old and was a good manager at the telephone answering service company, so it came as a total surprise when she was fired one week before Christmas in 1991.

Life was good in 1992 as we took a ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado in January, drove to Tyler, Texas to see the Azalea Trail in the spring, and a trip to San Francisco in June. We were making good money so Jesse got a new truck in September.

We were active in church where Jesse was a deacon and I taught Sunday School and we entertained nearly every week – either inviting a family over for Sunday dinner or several couples over after church on Sunday nights where I served either a baked potato bar or a spread of finger foods. After we ate, we’d clear the table and bring in the puzzle board and spend an hour or so visiting as we all work on the current jigsaw puzzle.

One special blessing in 1992 was Lanita’s son marrying the love of his life in the spring. It was a beautiful wedding and reception and I attended both while Jesse stayed home with Amber and Benjamin. He did not join in many Fort Worth family activities and carried a disapproving attitude towards all of my siblings except Lonnie who worked for Jesse many years. Jesse was a hard man to work for as he yelled and barked at people, but Lonnie had a pretty thick skin and handled it well.

Lloydine and Lanita each divorced in 1992 and they lived together for awhile which worked out well for them. Even so the year ended on a happy note when we found out that her son and his wife would be expecting a baby! With all the chemo and radiation – God was blessing with children – this would be the first of four!

I have to admit to a serious burden to my heart, though. Sadly, Summer was no longer part of our life and it was not her choice but her father’s. He was an extremely strict man and adhered to the principle of children obeying their father and a wife obeying her husband - right down to every choice they made in life, from whom they dated or married to any and all moral and personal decisions. So far, Jesse Jr had stayed under his dad’s radar but Summer became a focus for all of Jesse’s criticism and condemnation. As a mother, it broke my heart to not be allowed to see my daughter. While I did not openly oppose Jesse in any of his decisions, I did manage to keep in some kind of contact with Summer and, to avoid making him angry, we would meet or talk in secret.

I felt the first tiny trickle of fear that something bad was about to happen.