This Is My LIfe: I Found It Worth Living

This Is My Life: I Found It Worth Living    Albert Special Award for Story Nancy Lee Shrader - This Is My LIfe: I Found It Worth Living                                                                    This has been my life; I found it worth living. My earliest memory was being forced to lay flat on my back at the age of three. I remember wondering why mommy and daddy were not allowing me up to play. Later I learned that the doctors feared polio. I can still see the fear in my mother’s beautiful face and it was the first time I saw my daddy cry. After further test at the hospital they ruled out polio, but there was a problem. I had a disease that attacked the joint in my right hip. I leg was not growing. I had to be kept off my feet because the weight of my then four year old body was stunting the growth of my right leg even more. Six months in bed. Now that was the end of the world for a four year old girl. Daddy ran out and bought our first television set, but he didn’t put in the living room where the whole family could enjoy it. He put it in the dining room, which had been turned into my day time bedroom. If the other children wanted to watch television, well they would have to spend time with their sick sister. Daddy would carry me back and forth from my bed to my day bed. On Wednesday afternoons, on his afternoon off, he would pick me up and take me the local drive in for a strawberry milkshake. Finally the day came for me to return to the doctor at the end of the six months. I was thrilled, I could now get out of bed and play like all the other children. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. Crutches! What are crutches? I asked myself while listening to the doctor talk to my parents. Then he brought out these strange looking pogo sticks, but they weren’t pogo sticks. Then the doctor asked if they had brought the special shoes. Mom opened the big bag she had put in the trunk when we left home. She pulled out one shoe, not pretty shoes; they were ugly. I gasped when she pulled out the other shoe. It was attached to a belt. Mom put the ugly shoes on my feet then she buckled the belt around my waist. This contraption would not allow me to put my foot on the ground. There was no way I was going to sneak and walk. The belt buckled in the back and I there was no way that I could get it loose. Well I was half trilled when I left. I was walking and not being carried, but the playing part was going to be hard with these crutches. A year past and I left my final doctor’s appointment walking with no aid whatsoever. I was the happiest little five year-old in the world. I couldn’t wait to go to school the coming fall. I could go out on the playground and play with the other children just like everyone else. Of course daddy was constantly watching me walk, even after I entered high school. Now high school was a time that daddy and I were at odds with each other. To say that we didn’t get along was an understatement. It seemed that his favorite pastime was to chase all my would be boyfriends in the opposite direction and him being such a big man, all he had to do was give them one of his looks and they scattered. Daddy was always around when he wasn’t wanted. A couple of girlfriends and I decided to skip school one after noon. Lois looked much older than me and Elaine, so she rented the car, a convertible. Back then as they do today, the school always called if a student doesn’t show up for school. It was my brilliant idea to make the phone calls. You see if someone called you back then and didn’t hang up and break the connection; well then your line was tied up for hours. We had found several phone booths out on a road that wasn’t well traveled. I called my house from one and Elaine called her house from the other. Lois’ mother worked at the hospital and couldn’t take calls and her dad who was the sports writer for the newspaper was out of town covering some sporting event. We had everything organized right down to letter, but we didn’t bargain on running into my daddy. There we were driving down the road in that shiny red convertible and who should be driving in the opposite direction. I saw his car and ducked down, but he must have seen me first because I heard his brakes squeal as he pulled his Hudson to squealing stop. Boy, I knew I was in for a good whipping, but daddy surprised me. He ordered me into the car and drove me straight to school and marched me into the office. “Tell Mr. Paragory what you’ve done, Nancy.” He said in that tone of voice that told me that he meant business. Now the high school principal was a tiny little man. He wasn’t even as tall as me and had a hump on his back, but he was the type of person who demanded respect without having to do anything. All us kids were scared to death of stern faced Mr. Paragory. I just stood there with my mouth hung open scared to death. “Nancy, you heard me. Tell Mr. Paragory what you have done.” My daddy repeated himself; his voice was just a bit louder. “I … I skipped school Mr. Paragory.” I said just above a whisper with my head down looking at my feel that were shuffling back and forth. All was quiet for the longest time. Then Mr. Paragory cleared his throat and spoke. “Look at me, Miss Pilkington.” That is how he referred to all the students Miss or Mr. Something or other. I looked up and he handed me a tardy slip and told me that I was late for class and to report to the office after my last class. Well, it didn’t take me long to get out of the principal’s office and head down the hallway to my third period class. I had to worry all through the rest of that day to see what my punishment would be and then again what daddy’s punishment would be, which now thinking back on it, wasn’t that bad, but I didn’t feel that way at the time. You see daddy was always ruining my good times. I couldn’t date unless he picked out the young man and then he or the boy’s father would accompany us on our dates and most of the young men were not to my liking. I remember wishing that daddy would go away and stop ruining my life. Then I got my wish and my world turned upside down. Daddy suddenly passed away the spring of my junior year of high school. Oh how I wished that he was still here ruining my life. I would have gladly dated anyone he picked out for me. I sure missed my daddy and wonder if he would have approved of the man I now call the love of my life. I married at the age of twenty just before Christmas in 1968. Over the next six years our three children were born. I was in love with life and even housework, cooking and changing diapers. Things were good and I remember this one day vividly. It was an ordinary day; my husband was laying on the floor because our living room suit was being reupholstered. The only chair in the living room was the new recliner, which of course was where my husband insisted that I sit. Laurie and Denny were curled up in the sleeping bags and the baby, David was sitting on a blanket propped up with on a pillow. WE were watching a nature movie, I can’t remember the name of the movie, but I can still see it playing out in my mind. Everything was perfect that day. I had the life that I had always dreamed of having. How was I to know that my world would once more be turned upside down again in just two short years. It was David’s second birthday. I had spent the last three months running him to doctor after doctor and hospital after hospital. I knew that something was wrong; a baby should not snore that way. Finally I found a doctor who saw something and scheduled a biopsy, but that night David stopped breathing and the doctor sent us to the University Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia. A week later a team of doctors gathered in a conference room to tell my husband and I that our two year old son had cancer. I remember that it was on August 16, my daddy’s birthday, and a little over a year later on August 20, 1977 our baby died. The months that followed, I almost lost my mind. I would take a sleeping pill when I put my kids on the school bus in the mornings and sleep until they returned home that afternoon. I just couldn’t bear the deafening silence that filled my house when they were gone. This went on for almost a year. Then one of my friends asked me to help her with the local Brownie Troop. Laurie was old enough to start Brownies and I reluctantly agreed. The best thing I ever did. We would meet and plan the meeting for the week. I was crafty, so I worked up the crafts, which took a good bit of my time. I had come back to the land of the living, so to speak. Then I was asked to be a sponsor for a cheerleading squad. Laurie wanted to cheerlead so now I had something else to fill up the lonely hours of my day. It was my job to get the kids to practice, supply the cupcakes and drinks, plan the end of season parties for both the cheerleading squad and the football team and make sure each child had pictures and trophies. Then there was Timmy, my sisters little boy who was in need of a loving mother. My sister was an alcoholic and could not care for her four children. My mother adopted the two oldest, my sister adopted the youngest and then there was Timmy, the problem child that no one wanted. At the age of three, he was a terror. The manager of the apartment where my sister lived called the Welfare Department and said that the child needed to be institutionalized. I was almost afraid to go to sleep that first night. I soon realized that his acting out wasn’t that he was a bad kid, he did have a problem. I started taking him to doctors and he was soon diagnosed as having ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyper Active Disorder. I took a little hellion to the doctor one afternoon and after one doze of medicine; I took home a little angel. Well, not actually an angel, but so much better that it seemed like he was an angel. I knew on the day we went to adoption hearing that this child would either keep me young or make me very old. Well a little of both. I was thirty three when three year old Timmy became a part of our family. I was thirty-seven on the day of the adoption hearing. So I wasn’t a young mother. I must say he kept me very busy. Timmy is now twenty-nine years old and doing well. He is a Vet Tech at a Vet Hospital. He is constantly on the go, which is good for his ADHD. All the kids are grown. Laurie is the special needs teacher at a local school here and the mother of my three grandchildren, Justin, Michael and Lyndsey. She has been a mother’s dream. I remember both times I was what you would call on my death bed; she sat by my bed day and night. Every time I woke, she was there. Denny worked for the local newspaper until a few years ago. He wanted to stay home close to his dad and I, so he now has an outside job at one of the coal mines here. His dad never wanted the boys to go in the mines, but the coal mines is where the money is around these parts. At least he is working on the outside and not underground. When my first grandchild was nine months old, he was diagnosed with cancer and had to have his right eye removed. My daughter was now walking in my shoes, but Justin only lost the eye; she got to keep her baby. He will graduate high school this spring. Michael my middle grandchild was bitten by a mosquito last summer and contracted Lacrosse encephalitis and came close to death. He is now eight and hit six homeruns this season. The good Lord knew I couldn’t bear another loss and healed my two grandsons. Lyndsey has had no major upheavals in her six years. She is a grandmother’s delight. Always smiling and she is the most loving child and can sing like Hannah Montana. My mother, I know I only mentioned her briefly, but she was always there and I took for granted that she would always be. She was the kindest and most loving mother any girl could have. I’m not saying that we didn’t have our ups and downs just like daddy and I did during my growing up days, but she has been a constant in my life. She was there when I said my first word and took my first step. She was there through all the days of bed rest and the year on crutches. She was there when my little teenage heart was broken, telling me that twenty years of that day, I wouldn’t even remember his name. She was right. She was there when I said my wedding vows. She was there to help me plan for the births of my three children. She held me when I heard the word cancer and she cried with me when we laid my baby to rest. I’m sad to say that she is no longer with us, but she is missed terribly each and every day. I mentioned my two near death experiences and the good Lord brought me back from the brink of death, of that I am sure of. Before my latest bout with death, there was a problem with a prescription drug that was taken off the market. It left me with memory loss and through that the good Lord led me out of the darkness and now I’m a published author with three books in print and three more under contract. I write for Amazon Shorts and have twenty-one Shorts on the Amazon website. I say when God closes a door, he always opens a window. I believe that God turns off the lights, so we can find our way out of the darkness. This has been my life and I found it worth living. This has been my life and I found it worth living. You can't smell the roses without the thorns. How would you know joy if you haven't experienced sadness. Or know how good it feels to laugh if you have never cried. If you wallow in self pity; you will miss out on so many things wonderful that is ours for the taking. Author: Nancy Lee Shrader By nannalee   © 2008 nannalee (All rights reserved)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[angelina neves]

I agree with Lttf: it is a wonderful tribute to your life and all the people in it!

[Helena]

What a beautiful story you have written here. It had all the elements of a great autobiograhy...
sadness and happiness, grief and peace, faith and hope. Just wonderful! Thank you Nancy for sharing this beautiful
and precious story of your life and for submitting it to my contest.


"This has been my life and I found it worth living. You can't smell the roses
without the thorns. How would you know joy if you haven't experienced
sadness. Or know how good it feels to laugh if you have never cried. If
you wallow in self pity; you will miss out on so many things wonderful
that is ours for the taking."

SO TRUE MY FRIEND, SO TRUE...

God bless...

Helena :)

[Cheryl J. Turner]

What a wonderful tribute to your life and all the people in it!